Hi, I have maybe a complex question to see if anyone here may know or have some advice on. In a few months I will be recording a live event at an Arts Center (a chorus singing event) and I was asked to do the video taping for this show. I have done several shows in the past with good success, but I want to work on getting the best audio that I can to do this.
The camcorder I have is the Sony TRV-350 (no longer made of course) and the main disadvantage is that it does not have a headphone jack for me to monitor the audio. I normally use the audio feed from the facilities which I know is a line-level signal and the camcorder has the mic (plug-in-power) connector which requires an adapter. Here's where it gets a little complex.
My first option I could simply get the XLR adapter that I can attach to the bottom of the camcorder and can run the house feed to it and connect the other end to the mic jack. Problem is I don't have a way to monitor the audio from the camera since it has no headphone jack. What would be the best way to accomplish this?
My next option is that I could use a small mixer to connect to the camera as well, but will still need a way to monitor the audio from the camera.
My third option, and may be the most elaborate one, I have the E-Mu 1616m audio recording card which has the dock and everything else and the box itself has the proper mic/line connectors and from there easily connect to the camera. I can also record the audio from the 1616m to my laptop (has the Cardbus card) which would make it easy for me to monitor the audio from the laptop. Maybe if I could use the AV jack from the camcorder maybe I could plug it back in to an input to determine what's going into the camera.
While I am not too worried about the video quality which is usually good, I need to make sure that my audio levels are correct in the camera so I won't have to deal with distorted sound which pretty much can ruin the video.
Anyone here have any thoughts or suggesstions on what I can do to properly monitor the audio from this camera? Darn Sony for not including a headphone jack on this camera. Thanks for any help.
