20Nov Audio Part 2 – JuicedLink Preamps

Olivia just posted up her follow up video, a Part #2 of Audio tips from JuicedLink. If you haven’t seen the first part, it’s basically audio tips on using the right microphones for the job. The video can be found (here). In this follow up video, Robert talks about the advantages of using a low noise pre-amp with popular DSLR cameras. These pre-amps are mainly for shooters who want to record directly into the camera which saves you hours in post processing. Especially for you wedding videographers who end up with hundreds of short video clips at the end of the event. For those who still want the option of Dual Audio recording, the DS214 can still be used in conjuction with your Zoom H4n recorder as a backup.

Lots of good information about how you can improve on your audio quality, but at the same time you gotta admire his honesty when he mentions that instead of spending money on a pre-amp for an AGC ‘enabled’ camera, you might want to just upgrade into another camera. They are becoming more and more affordable now with the T3i and 60D having manual audio controls (no AGC). You’ll still use a preamp for better audio quality, but you’ll have much better control than having to use the AGC hacks while adding headphone monitoring and visual audio Levels (meters).

There’s a list of JL products, but the most popular JuicedLink preamps for DSLR shooters are found below.

DT454
4 mic Channels, (2 XLR, 2 unbalanced Low-noise preamplifiers, Meters 4 segment LED (each right/left), 2 sensitvity settings; adjustable, Meters valuable with the new 5DMKII firmware, which does not show meters during recording, AGC Disable (to get better SNR from cameras without manual control), 30dB low-noise typ max gain (single ended, stereo), Headphone Amplifier, Playback Monitoring, 48V Phantom, plus 12V power saving mode

JuicedLink DT454

DS214
The JuicedLink DS214 is a low-noise preamplifier with a 3.5mm stereo minijack input. There are high/low gain settings, and each channel (left and right) have individual potentiometer control. The output is an amplified mic level suitable for driving the mic inputs on cameras and recorders. Each channel (right and left) has its own dedicated meter with the ability to calibrate them (as different cameras and settings will require different calibration set points). The right and left channels combine for a mono headphone amplifier. For the Canon 7D and T2i cameras which do not have manual audio control, the DS214 AGC Disable feature will force the camera to throttle back its noisy amplifiers, to be able to achieve better signal-to-noise performance from the camera.

JuicedLink DS214

For more information on all things JuicedLink check out the website www.JuicedLink.com. You can also find many of the Juicedlink products over at Amazon (click here).

JuicedLink Preamps – via Amazon