Do you know which camcorder has the best sound quality?

Question

I'm in the market for a camcorder. My only purpose for the camera is to make video recordings of me playing the guitar. I want to post these videos on You Tube, and I'd like the very best sound quality possible for $300 to $700. Picture quality is of little importance to me compared to the quality of the sound.

Can anyone out ther help me? Give me the name and model # of the exact brand and I'll be singing your praise for the next few years via YouTube. Thanks!

Answer 1

No consumer grade camcorder has good built-in mics. They are too close to the motors associated with either the tape drive (miniDV), hard drive or DVD motor (and you should not get one of these for lots of other reasons). The little toy flip camcorders just have terrible mics because their diaphragms are too small for any real instrumental dynamic range.

You want a camcorder that has connections for external mics - a mic-in jack. I will try to stay in your budget range and provide a camcorder AND mic...

At the low-end, the Canon ZR800. It is the cheapest camcorder availble with a 1/8" stereo mic-in jack, but it has another issue... it does not have manual audio control. If you are playing acoustic and not loud metal, then this will work fine. If you get loud, the auto audio leveling circuit will get overdriven and the sound will be terribly muddy. When things are REALLY quiet, the auto audio leveling circuit will increase gain listening for sound - so there will be a "whooshing" sound that can be edited out.

At the midrange, the Sony HDR-HC96. It has a proprietary "active interface" shoe, so you need to get one of these http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/47... t get a real mic-in jack. It also does not have manual audio control - but it does have a "toggle" in the menu that lets you pick whether you are recording normal or loud audio.

Beyond this, the camcorders are outside your budget. (But if you REALLY want to check, the Canon HV20, HV30 and Sony HDR-HC7 and HC9 are good, have mic-in jacks and have manual audio control.)

Mics:

Audio-Technica ATR25

NRG Research SA800

The next step up takes you to the Audio Technical AT-822 or AT-825, RODE NT4 or the Shure VP88, and they are outside your budget... and are XLR based, so you would have to throw in an XLR adapter like a BeachTek DXA-6.

For your particular application where you can control the lighting, there may be value in getting the cheaper camcorder and the best mic you can afford.

In either case, these miniDV tape based camcorders will connect to your computer using a firewire cable (not USB) from the DV port of the camcorder to the firewire port of your computer. If you do not have a firewire port on your computer, installing one is cheap and easy if you have an available PCI slot (desktop) or PCMCIA slot (laptop). USB will not transfer miniDV tape based video.

Good luck!

Answer 2

I second Bill G.'s answer.  No camcorder on the market has good sound recording.  What you will need is a camcorder with an external mic hookup.  I currently use a very affordable stereo mic (Sony ECM-MS908C).  There's two flavours to this model, one with a hotshoe adapter (what I've got) and another without BUT with a really long cable for remote mic usage.  I suggest that if you're primarily looking for a mic to record yourself playing the guitar, then get one that supports a remote hookup.  This way, you don't have to worry about the mic picking up noise around the camera (doors opening, traffic, etc.).

Forgot to mention, the Sony models:

Sony ECM-MS908C

Sony ECM-MS907

Both are roughly $80.