Onyx640i - newbie how-to question

[ebondfrancisco]

Just discovered the refugee camp, hoping for some insight. Very new at this mixer stuff, but I find myself as the "sound guy" for our local church, so I've got a lot of learning to do. There are 4 lav mics, and 2 handheld, all wireless. Anyway, here's what I want to do: 1) Video the sermon (Sony Z5); 2) Deliver the sermon audio directly to the camera (2-XLR inputs) so I'm not recording the sermon through the murky haze of ambient church-boomy sound. And here's what I think I need to do: 1) connect a 1/4" TRS plug to Aux 3 (the mic that the pastor is using is on channel three on the board); 2) Use aux-send controls to get the sound out of the board and into the camera.

If anybody would care to comment on that, I'd love to hear it. And if there's a different forum I could join, maybe you could point me in that direction also. Thanks.

~Bond

[Greg C.]

By all means, use Aux 3 to setup a separate camera mix. Make sure it's set to pre-fader so that level changes for the PA from those mics don't affect the recording. You can use an XLR Y cable to split the output to both camera channels if you wish to have a mono feed on both. As long as the camera and mixer/PA system are on the same circuit, you shouldn't have ground loop (hum) problems. If it turns out you do have hum, you may need to get line level isolation transformers to mitigate it. Lastly, whenever I feed a camera during a live performance, I always put a brick wall limiter in line right before the camera and set it so that you cannot clip the camera inputs. My weapon of choice is an Aphex Dominator II 720. It's an industry standard for TV and radio broadcast to avoid clipping. Though they list for $1200, you can easily get them used on Ebay for $300. Cheap insurance in my opinion. I always keep a couple handy for such purposes.

[WK154]

Welcome aboard. The advise Geg gave is a general safe way to deal with external equipment. The devil however is in the details. The Z5u Sony ~$4500 camcorder has lots of features such as channel  linking and AGC which I believe is sufficient for you application. In typical Sony fashion they don't list max  specs for audio but they do indicate +4 dBu nominal for line input and -48 dBu for mic input with adjustments. Typical Pro gear levels. The AGC will do fine as a limiter and aux out from the 640i would not be a problem. The ground loop issue is non-existent since you have a battery powered Video unit and balanced audio lines to the mixer. Your good to go.