Scarlet Audio issues

[Jeremiah Fry]

I am a little overwhelmed at all the posts, and have been trying to nail down exactly what is going on with my scarlet, and audio issues. I understand that there is no audio playback at the moment? Not even a visual reference? Is anyone else getting horrible noise? I bought the A Box from Wooden Camera and thought it may be that. However when I unplug the box, i still get horrible frequency issues through the headphone jack. AAAND the frequency names change once I press record. Which leads me to believe it's the camera. I was using battery power (via the side handle I just received Monday) so it's not a power/ground issue. Thoughts?

 

[Elijah Kelley]

I have the ABox and a few Scarlets...absolutely no issues. I use a Sennheiser 100 wireless
Mic and XLR receivers, Also Audio Technica shotguns. I adjust sensitivity to minimum then
turn up from there on both transmitter and receiver...if camera is rebooted once I verify
inputs are RED (offline) I unplug the minis on the ABox then replug and the ins light up green.
BTW Audio does not record in varispeed. These are my experiences with My EpicXs and Scarlets.

 

[Yoav Yerushalmi]

I am a little overwhelmed at all the posts, and have been trying to nail down exactly what is going on with my scarlet, and audio issues. I understand that there is no audio playback at the moment? Not even a visual reference? Is anyone else getting horrible noise? I bought the A Box from Wooden Camera and thought it may be that. However when I unplug the box, i still get horrible frequency issues through the headphone jack. AAAND the frequency names change once I press record. Which leads me to believe it's the camera. I was using battery power (via the side handle I just received Monday) so it's not a power/ground issue. Thoughts?

You don't mention your actual audio source...
Are you using a balanced self-powered microphone (pretty much that's the ONLY kind of mic that works correctly right now). The A-box is just an adapter from 3.5mm to XLR (can be done with a cheap HOSA cable too). It does not provide power. The headphone jack shouldn't be making horrible noises... so it could be a bad jack or a bad headset.. Did you change the output gain to something very very high maybe? Record something short, take it to your computer, and convert it with redcine. If the audio sounds good on your computer, it's your headphone or headphone jack. Otherwise, you still havent set up your audio recording correctly...

 

[Marcos Montenegro]

I am a little overwhelmed at all the posts, and have been trying to nail down exactly what is going on with my scarlet, and audio issues. I understand that there is no audio playback at the moment? Not even a visual reference? Is anyone else getting horrible noise? I bought the A Box from Wooden Camera and thought it may be that. However when I unplug the box, i still get horrible frequency issues through the headphone jack. AAAND the frequency names change once I press record. Which leads me to believe it's the camera. I was using battery power (via the side handle I just received Monday) so it's not a power/ground issue. Thoughts?

Jeremiah:

Funny. I wrote this post this morning:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...carlet-with-rode-videomic&p=938024#post938024

Scarlet-X audio is terrible. My advice is to record to an external device.
My audio path: RODE NTG3>Sound Devices MixPre-D>ZOOM H2n line input>SD card. I also send an audio feed to the camera's Mic 1 jack from the MixPre-D, but use that as reference for post only, not for audio. As a hint, the MixPre-D has a "SLATE" and oscillator switch which makes it ideal to easily spot the oscillation at post. With the SLATE feature I use it to record me speaking the new name of the H2n file so in post I know which WAV to load to which video clip.

Marcos

 

[Yoav Yerushalmi]

Jeremiah:

Funny. I wrote this post this morning:
...

Scarlet-X audio is terrible.

Marcos: I don't think he's asking about using the scarlet audio as his primary recorder... and even if he does, what he's describing is beyond the "terrible" that you experience (if I read your article correctly, you were experiencing a low hum? I haven't heard that on my stuff but I'm not an audio expert -- but that also sounds like the kind of hum you can remove in post using room tone?.

What he's complaining about sounds more like really bad frequency audio stuff (although I am guessing since his description was very short). It really sounds like a mic issue or a headset issue (or any of the connections being bad). Yours sounds to me more like bad isolation of audio circtuitry in the scarlet, or possibly noise being picked up on one of the cables...?

Anyways, would love to hear a more complete description of his setup (what mic, hooked up how, and whether he is still hearing this noise when on his computer)....

 

[Jeremiah Fry]

Anyways, would love to hear a more complete description of his setup (what mic, hooked up how, and whether he is still hearing this noise when on his computer)....

My exact setup was the A box, into a sennheiser mkh-416. I plugged the pic into my Zoom h4n and it was pristine. Into A box and I would have to turn the gain on the Scarlet up to its peak 63db to hear the person talking, and the interference would be far louder than the voice infront of the mic. When I hit record, the frequency sound would change. When I unplugged the A box entirely the frequency sound would still be there. I also used the headphones on the zoom h4n (this is what I captured to when scarlet wasn't acting right) and those worked like a champ too. eliminating it being a mic or headphone issue.

 

[David Rasberry]

MKH416 requires phantom power which is not enabled yet on Epic/Scarlet. Turn your input gain back down to the 40dB range or less and your noise should diminish. But for now this mic can't be connected directly to Scarlet except through a mixer that provides phantom power.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

Well there you go. The 416 needs 48v phantom power... the Scarlet currently doesn't have phantom enabled... this is a well-known fact.

Scarlet audio doesn't suck...

 

[Jeremiah Fry]

MKH416 requires phantom power which is not enabled yet on Epic/Scarlet. Turn your input gain back down to the 40dB range or less and your noise should diminish. But for now this mic can't be connected directly to Scarlet except through a mixer that provides phantom power.

And this is why I like the RED community. I will test out and hope to see some difference! Will let you guys know, thanks!

 

[Uli Plank]

I use an external phantom power adapter and go balanced into the Scarlet and it's not bad at all. We measured it's audio with serious equipment (Brüel & Kjær) and it's not bad at all. Maybe a tad below Sound Devices gear, but not much.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

I use an external phantom power adapter and go balanced into the Scarlet and it's not bad at all. We measured it's audio with serious equipment (Brüel & Kjær) and it's not bad at all. Maybe a tad below Sound Devices gear, but not much.

Hey Uli which external phantom adapter do you use? I've been looking for one. Thanks!

 

[PatrickFaith]

For professional sound, it's real nice going external recording with time sync (i.e. SD 744t, etc). You avoid so many issues, easy integration in post production, etc - plus sound guys that may help you on low budget projects have a real starting point. Scarlet's a pro camera, why not go with pro level sound. I have an A-box and sound device mixPre-D ... both work fine, but I end up never using them, they are not in even comparable with the SD 744t.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

Agreed, I'd much rather record external sound on good gear, but for those few situations where I have to operate both camera & sound myself, i is nice to have that option...