I had a rush of blood to the head last year and bought a sennheiser mke300d mic, though I've not used it for filming yet simply because it's somewhat out of proportion to the camcorder and it is in shot when it's mounted on the hot shoe.

I have used it for recording voice overs for my vids (direct to PC is useless as my PC is very noisy) but when I open the avi file in Soundforge to normalise, divide it up etc the sound is mono only. I've simply duplicated the sound in the other channel to make it stereo, which is fine for a voiceover.

I've now bought a bracket so I can mount it away from the cam when using a tripod.

Is a directional mic inevitably mono? I will shortly be recording some musician friends and I would prefer stereo, but will I get it? I've checked my sound from previous recordings of these musician friends and there is a slight difference in the two channels. It's not really stereo like a CD, but it does reflect what the ears hear in the hall.

If I do end up duplicating the channels, it will still be better than the cam's mic, as I won't have all the chatter from tables near the tripod, but I'd rather have the best of both worlds, if possible.

Gillian

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Yep, the mke300d is a mono mic.

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Thanks Marc, I thought that mght the answer.

I went throught the specs online, but it didn't actually say that, not in plain english anyway, anywhere.

Gillian

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When recording musicians/bands etc, I find its best to take a recording from the sound desk and then mix it with the live mic from the camera.
The sound from the desk is normally quite dry, and wont pick up audience reactions or ambient sound. On my last project (a DVD for the Tsumani Appeal) the mix was about 90% desk and 10% camera. If the camera is very close to the PA you might experience a fair bit of distortion, so I normally place one at the sound desk too. The mix is always pretty perfect there and normally the audience is all around allowing you to capture applause etc very satisfactorily.

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This is not that organised a set up. The guitars are all amped, but there is no mixing desk, the audience just hears what comes out of the amps. It's a small venue, no need for anything more.

I've been involved in recording in a large hall with my club, and yes, we did take from the mixing desk.

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Wish I had read this article before buying this mic as I'm really disappointed. Not only is the sound mono but I only get sound from the left channel. Is this correct? How do you duplicate the sound to the right channel? ( I'm using U-lead version 7) I feel a bit conned as product description says something like "produced specifically for digital camcorders" so I assumed it would be a stereo mic. Is there a better option out there without costing a fortune?

Yup, being a bit hard pressed on the cash front, I recently bought the Rode Video Mic. For around £70 I am really quite impressed with the quality.

And yes, it is a stereo mic.

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Remember, there is always more to learn than there is to teach.

The Sennheiser 300 is a luverly mic, so don't feel you've been "done" and it'll certainly give you much better sound than the camccorder's built-in mic. I bought one for my palmcorder (silly, overkill I know but I find good mono is still better than cr*p stereo) Ideally you'd get another 300 and with a 2into1 get really clean stereo, but if costs's a major consideration, you can get a 2mono-1stereo adapter and use any other mono microphone as the other half of the pair.

I use Soundforge to create a stereo channel wav (or mp3) file from the original avi file. There is a 'light' version of Soundforge but not a free one.

You can then reintroduce onto your timeline

I've since bought a stereo mic for when I need it.

Gillian

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Win XP, Athlon 1.8, G force 3 T, 1 60gig drive + 1 250 gig, Pinnacle Studio 9 plus mostly, Premiere 6, and Vegas 5 sometimes, Soundforge, Cool Edit.

You sure about that? - I believe it's mono, but fed to both channels on a stereo jack plug.