What kind of camcorder has good sound quality.?

Question

I guess I'm not a bad singer but I want to find out for sure, so I try recording my voice with my Canon NTSC ZR85 Digital Camcorder. WHOA! Do I sound bad, but I found out later that it was the camcorders fault... I even took out this crusty AIWA micro cassette recorder (TP-M200 V-SENSOR) voice recorder that probably was made in 1995 and recorded my voice with it. The sound quality with the AIWA is much better. What is the cheapest way to make the camcorder I have right now match the sound quality of the AIWA, and if there is no way with my current camcorder, what camcorder should I buy?

I've checked my camcorder and there aren't any visible slots for a external microphone.

I also have a Canon PowerShot A520 that can record videos. There aren't any visible slots for a microphone either.

REMEMBER: I'm trying to sing and maybe play piano or guitar along with my singing. I'm not being to picky but I want the camcorder to do my voice justice. It would also be good if I could upload the videos onto the internet.

If you can help me, thanks.

Answer 1

The ONLY camcorder with "good sound quality" for loud audio will be one with manual audio control or use an external device to capture the audio - like a field recorder from M-Audio, Zoom, Edirol, Marantz, Sony, Tascam - or my favorite, Fostex.

On the cameras and camcorders: The lower end models do not have a mic jack - and some folks will tell you that the built-in mics are not very good - That may be true, but in my opinion, it depends on the audio level hitting those mics. Once the audio hits the mics (whether built-in or external), there needs to be a way to control that volume getting onto the video (in your case, onto miniDV tape).

If you have a strong, loud, voice, and you are close to the camcorder, it is likely that you are over-driving the auto mic gain circuit. This results in a very muddy, sound. As an experiment, try this: place the camcorder in one room, start recording and go into another room. See if the playback on the audio is any better... it *should* be.

If you are looking for a new camcorder, the least expensive ones with manual audio are a couple in the Canon FS series. They are standard definition, flash memory camcorders. I think they also have a mic jack. In the miniDV tape world, the least expensive camcorders with a mic-in jack and manual audio control are the Canon HV30 and the Sony HDR-HC9. They are also 1080i hidef camcorders (they can shoot standard def, too).

If you go the field recorder route, you will record audio with the camcorder and the field recorder - then replace the camcorder audio with that from the field recorder when you are editing the video.

In either case, when in manual audio mode, you do not want the audio meter to "peak" - the loudest audio should be around 3/4 to the peak on the meter. When you peak a lot, that is when the audio gets over-saturated and the muddiness happens. There is no way to fix this bad audio in editing.

The type of camcorder you get needs to be able to get the video into your computer. You just need the right tools:

MiniDV tape requires a firewire port on your computer and you will use a firewire cable to connect the DV port of the camcorder to the firewire port on the computer. Firewire400, IEEE1394a, DV and i.Link are all the same thing. If your computer does not have a firewire port, hopefully it has an available expansion slot so you can add one. MiniDV tape continues to provide the best available video quality when compare to the other storage media used by consumer grade camcorders.

Hard drive and flash memory camcorders store the video data files in the same formats - very highly compressed MPG2 for standard definition or even higher compression for AVCHD encoded high definition video. Because hard drive camcorders can have problems with vibration that will cause them to stop recording, I do not recommend them for you. The loud audio could cause the hard drive protection mechanism to kick in and you waill not be able to record video. Flash memory does not have this vibration issue (MiniDV tape does not have a vibration problem, either). Flash memory camcorders will connect to your computer with USB and the video data files will copy to your computer - while this sounds easy, keep in mind that you want to be able to archive the video somewhere.

In the case of the miniDV tape based camcorders, if you do not re-used the tape, that digital tape is the archive. In the case of the hard drive camcorder or flash memory camcorder, if you do not copy that video to something else (other than the working video project) and delete the video from the camcorder, that video is gone forever.

The only thing DVD based camcorders are good for is being a paperweight or a doorstop so will not be discussed... since you are looking for video/audio recording and editing capabilities.

Good luck!