 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell here. I've been noticing that my videos about the Canon XA40 Pro camcorder have been getting quite a few views and comments Which is good. They seem to be helping people out. I do think this is an incredible professional camcorder Someone commented yesterday saying that I speak too fast in the videos So I'm going to try to go a little bit more slowly through the information here Just by the way a quick diversion the microphone. I'm using here is the Audio Technica AT-875R It's a short shotgun. I picked it up only a few weeks ago about 150 bucks and It fits this camcorder much much better than a full-sized shotgun So that's my recommendation for a shotgun is find a what's called a short shotgun microphone So what I want to talk about in today's video. I Have covered it before but scattered over a couple of videos I'm going to try use this video to explain the audio settings on this camcorder in a little bit more detail I'm going to assume that if you are using this camcorder you're in you're going to be keeping the pro top handle on Much as I do. I've actually never detached mine since I assembled it I'm I make that assumption because I think most people looking for professional a professional camcorder are buying it for some Kind of professional purpose and that the top handle with its XLR ports is therefore a big advantage to you So I'm just going to bring it close to the camera. I'm recording this on and show you guys what there is to see here So for each channel channel one and channel two there is firstly There is a switch here that says on off in the middle of the top handle Okay, you would not believe how many times I have for whatever stupid reason said oh I better save some power and turned it off now That's actually really stupid because I don't think it saves any power once you have your microphone connected. It will however Turn off the input from the pro audio from the two XLR jacks and you'll end up with internal audio Which is just so much worse than Simply even a relatively inexpensive shotgun microphone So my advice to anyone is if you if you are using this for pro audio work Just keep this on because otherwise you're going to get back from your shoes You think you're smart turning it off and you're going to realize all your audio is scratch audio and sounds a lot worse So for each of the two channels you have independent switches for A here stands for automatic M here stands for manual automatic manual channel one channel two So if you do auto you're going to be getting automatic game control and I've actually found it to be pretty good But the camcorder is going to be adjusting the gain dynamically and automatically now if you want to go over to your Manual levels you just need to swap the switch from a over to M I'm going to do both channels and manual and now and you can use these little adjust here And this is why Pro camcorders are so popular people love this. I love this. It's so much better than going through a menu Literally and you can make these fine tiny adjustments just to get the perfect level So I think a lot of people will agree that if you have the time to set manual levels and you're Monitoring the audio with headphones and I'll show how to do that. Then it's prefer prefer about and say preferential It's preferable to do manual, but just in case they don't forget. I'm going to set mine back I'm going to set my gain wheel all the way back to minimum. I'm going to set my channel one back to automatic The final thing to show is that for input 1 and input 2 you have a three-way switch line in the far left mic in the middle and Mic plus 48 volt on the right. So 48 volts is phantom power So if you're using a mic that requires phantom power like the audio technica You want to be over to 48 volt if you're recording from a mic that doesn't require phantom power That's maybe self-powered or whatever You probably won't damage it by giving it phantom power. That's not really something you need to worry about But nevertheless, it's probably better just to have it set at the right setting for mic And if you're recording into and I had to ask on the Canon forums What's the difference between line and mic? Line is for if you're recording a pre-balanced line into your camcorder like you're shooting at a conference And you're getting a input out of the mixer board then you want to go over to line so I'm going to keep mine the way I want it for shoots for a Shotgun microphone in the shotgun holster that is requires phantom power. I'm going to put my Lines and come up on my switch over to mic plus 48 and going to make sure it's on automatic I'm gonna make sure the top audio handle is turned off. It's worth if you're shooting audio for a whole day It's worth spending 30 seconds just before you even hit the record button saying is this on Channel one audio and then I always do a little tap test Just to make sure that mic is live because I'll see the levels jumping now On the second side of the camcorder of the XA40 you have the panel number two And I'm gonna have to just hold the camcorder to show you guys what's here. This is where if you're using a mic a 3.5mm mic it goes. There's a mic impulse here And there is a 3.5mm output on the left here I'm gonna try if you can get that into focus a little bit difficult. Yeah, you can see the symbols there So on the left that's for Monitoring the audio and on the right that's for a 3.5mm Microphone now what you don't want to do is if you're using that 3.5mm mic You're gonna want to turn off the XLR inputs and just to show you I Recommend using the inputs XR inputs sequentially So you can see that my one and only microphone is going into input one rather than XLR input two Now the final thing to say on this is on the software level is That if you're using it like I'm using it with only one microphone And that's probably most people I reckon you're going to want to make sure in the menu settings that Go over to audio settings. Yeah, here we go. Okay. I hope you can see this and not me But in audio settings, you're gonna have on the first page The first option is channel to input and you're gonna have options for input one or input two I think about what this is doing If it's input two channel input two XLR input two is gonna be recording independently If you go for input one, it's going to be putting it over to input one So if I'm not mistaken for my recollection if you use this out of the box It's set as input two and that means that if you record with only one microphone like I'm doing currently That's only going to record on to One channel and you're gonna be left with one-sided stereo audio Because the system is putting channel to which is blank onto input two and therefore you got a blank right channel So that's I've never used two microphones simultaneously. So that's the way I keep it. That's it guys That will probably hopefully tell you enough to get going with this There is a another menu setting for and I'll just leave up for a few seconds on the screen the Table it's a very detailed table in the user manual and it tells you all the configurations If XLR is on if there's a mic if XLR is off and there's a mic in the 3.5 input It'll go you through all those options But you kind of just learn this stuff through trial and error It took me a few days to kind of come to grips with the top handle audio the settings etc And again, I just to save other people from the fate. I've had too many times I recommend Before you go out on a shoot if you're using it with a shotgun like this Make sure that bloody switch in the middle here on off is is going on make sure you've got 48 volts Make sure you audio automatic levels if you want it tap your mic a couple of times and just verify That's where you're getting audio from Because the scratch audio with the built-in internal microphone is just really a lot worse And it's very easy to miss the switch being off spend a whole day up in the chute And then you'll see that you have far inferior audio quality I hope this video was useful for other Canon XA40 owners I'll post this in the wonderful Facebook group. There's a Facebook group called Canon XA10 2040 owners Run by an Italian guy. I highly recommend it if you're if you own a Canon XA40 camcorder It's also open to the XA50 55 45 for anyone owning the series It's a great resource and I'll put a link in the description definitely worth being in that community too Thank you guys for watching more videos coming soon