Turn on your mixer’s “tone” function. This will send an electronic tone from the mixer’s output.
Adjust the mixer’s master gain until the needle on the VU meter stays at 0. Next, adjust the gain on your DV camera until the meter reads −20 dB.*
Once set, turn off tone, and don’t touch the camera sound controls again.
You will now use the input and master level controls on the mixer to control all sound.
mixer VU meter.
STEP 4: Adjust Audio Levels
Set the input pan knob: (a) all the way left to send the mic only to the left output, (b) all the way right to send the mic only to the right output, or (c) somewhere in between to send it out to both outputs.
Set the mixers master level to about 3 or 4.
Have each speaker talk into their mic at his or her normal voice level. Adjust the input level for the mic as they speak, so that the mixer needle mostly lingers in the area just before the 0.
Repeat for each mic input. The general rule is to keep your input levels high (at 7 or 8) and your master level low (at 3 or 4).
mixer inputs and master gain.
(*If your camera’s meter doesn’t have numbers for decibel levels, but does have an automatic gain function, you can turn on this function in the camera’s menu, observe the level that auto gain sets for the mixer tone, then manually adjust your camera’s gain to the same level.)
