Sony a7siii Pro Audio with XLR-K3M Dual-Channel Digital XLR Audio Adapter Review

in this video i'm going to be talking about the sony k3m digital xlr adapter that you can put on the hot shoe mount of your sony alpha cameras currently you're listening to the microphone that comes with the kit on the sony a7 s3 so it's being transferred via digital signal into the camera i also have the sony a73 and a sony alpha 6400 that we can test as well to hear the analog input because there's a little difference between how the audio signal is transferred from the adapter to the camera for newer versus older models [Music] here we have the adapter input one input two on this side that's input one and input two and there's actually an input three for connections like this so if you're playing music or anything you can just plug that straight in you can step up by 10 db intervals so it's 0 db 10 db plus 20 db 48 volts comes straight from the camera battery you have mic and line one good thing to point out is that these are dual neutric inputs you could put something like an xlr and an instrument cable and both will go in no problem to make things even crazier we could put the 3.5 millimeter in at the same time and look at all those ins and outs you can do manual or auto leveling on all three inputs right now you're listening to the ecm xm1 that comes on the camera it's a condenser microphone uh 48 volts straight to that microphone from the camera and it's being transferred digitally ones and zeros as opposed to analog which you would have to do with something like a sony alpha 6400 or a7 iii i'm going to switch over now to my shure sm7b that is right in front of me here is the microphone a little bit closer how does it sound in the camera i've now switched this over to auto this is what it would be if you were recording an auto i'm going to be quiet really quick just to see if it turns up all of the error in the room i don't know did it these knobs feel sturdy your levels aren't going to move if the piece is moved around especially because you have a little protective case right here and i like how the case comes to this edge right here and you can still get some fine tuning with the protective cover on so none of these are going to get adjusted on accident in this section on inputs one and two you can do a low cut of 100 hertz or 300 hertz and if i didn't already say it here's your levels for input three on the back is where you can control the digital versus analog input so digital would work with things like the sony a7s iii and sony a7r4 and then everything else will be analog obviously as more new cameras come out they'll probably be taking that digital format here's where you can select what inputs are going to the camera i'm going to talk more in depth about this section later in the video when i talk about 4 channels versus 2 channels 24 bits 16 bit and all that on the bottom you have cable management a usb input for firmware updates and the multi-pin connector that goes into your hot shoe to me the locking mechanism is very sturdy there's a little piece of rubber right here that helps maintain the friction between this device and your hot shoe on top is my biggest gripe there's no cold shoe mount on the top of this device in any circumstance if you're using something with two inputs you are going to probably be using a boom and a lavalier microphone i would say the biggest setback of something like this for the cost is the fact that you don't have a cold shoe mount maybe they didn't do something like that just in case it might break the connection right here but as i said before this is very sturdy so i don't really see why they didn't put a cold shoe mount on the top of this also as you can see you can take the boom mic out of here if you really wanted to there are screws right here that you could probably take this part off that's what the inside of the holder looks like putting the mic on looks like this just clip it and now your mic is there that's not going anywhere and it actually doesn't add very much weight to the camera at all so i'm gonna plug the microphone into one so you can see here what's going on you know the camera is passing digitally because this 48 kilohertz 16 bit 2 channel is on the camera if i switch this over to analog watch the screen turns off and i'm still passing signal but it's now via analog and not the digital let me explain these input selects right here i'm going to switch back over to digital really quick and you can see it switch back over if you want to just get signal from the stereo input right here then you would switch this to input three if you want to split the signal between ins one and two first you wouldn't want to link them so i'm going to unlink this right here and if i tap on the microphone you can see that it's only coming in on channel one which it's supposed to be and then if i switch this to this one right here that's going to take in number one and split it to both channels one thing i realized after the fact with this specific setting is that you're recording to both channels and it takes the volume from each channel separately so you could record a backup at a higher or lower decibel level but if you link them then it's just going to read the volume level coming from input 1. at this point i'm playing music directly from my computer into input three i have a microphone right here that's a dynamic microphone plugged into input two and we have the condenser on input one so in theory we have four channels of audio going directly into the k3m and i want to record all four of those and i just want to showcase the difference between these input selects in the menu on the sony a7s3 which should be able to record four separate tracks you go to the shooting menu we're going to go to audio recording and here is the mi shoe audio settings i'm going to click it and here is where you can choose how many channels and what bit depth you're recording at so i can switch this to 48 kilohertz 24 bits and let me go back to the camera so you can see what's going on check check so now i'm going to switch this to in one and two if i tap the microphone there's this microphone if i scratch this microphone you can see that it's coming in on channel two now if i switch this over to input three you should see the music it's obviously way too loud so i gotta turn that down at this point i'm gonna hit record [Music] if i tap on this microphone you're gonna hear that if i scratch this one you'll see that and if i switch this over to them both linked now uh everything's coming in check so i'm going to stop recording now i'm going to go back into the menu and i'm going to show you that you can record four channels simultaneously on the a7 s3 with some caveats at this point and you can clearly see that the music is coming in on channels three and four while my boom mic is on channel one and my dynamic microphone is on channel two if you wanna monitor specific channels while recording in the menu you go to sound options we go to four channel audio monitoring you can monitor just channels one and two three and four put the left of your stereo channel on the left so it's one and three and two and four or channel one one channel two and channel two unfortunately i did mention there are some caveats and everything that i'm about to bring up will probably be resolved in the next couple of months as video editors start to update their softwares but as of right now anytime you record at a bit depth of 24 on the sony a7s it's not going to be readable on most video editing softwares now this happened to me i was able to pull those 24-bit clips into premiere pro but i was only able to see the visuals it actually didn't even recognize that there was audio attached to the visual once i updated premiere pro to the most recent version i was able to pull my 24-bit clips in and it acted like a normal clip but as i understand it right now the most up-to-date version of premiere pro is one of the only video editors that does support the 24-bit audio with the new sony codecs i did recently see a video with gerald undone on the k3m where he talked about how somebody found a way to basically put those clips into mpeg's stream clip and then convert them so it is readable in previous versions or other video editing softwares i haven't done that before there was one other way that i found to get the two channels of audio into my editor before and that's if you were recording proxies simultaneously while you were recording the two-channel 24-bit it actually saves the proxy as a different video codec that is readable by premiere pro so you can take the two-channel audio from your proxy and attach it to the raw file but if you were recording four channels your proxy still only had two channels on it so whatever you have set on that input select on the k3m is what's going to get recorded directly to the proxy so if you had input three then it would just be recording input three into the proxy but if you had input one and two then that would go directly to the proxy which kind of is weird when you are trying to record proxies simultaneously with four channel audio and like marry them in premiere pro what i ended up doing was just creating new proxies for those clips that had four channels of audio just a little bit more confusion on the k3m and these are very specific instances but i know people that are looking for these answers on the internet of how exactly this is set up on the camera want to hear some sort of answer like that in the future i feel like all of the things that i'm talking about in this section are probably going to be resolved and one more issue that i ran into when i was recording digitally and this may be specific to me but i was getting interference on input 3 that's the 3.5 millimeter input whenever i was powering the camera via the usb it has trouble with interference so if i unplug this no problem but if i plug it back in the moment it touches something now this may be the electrical setup in my studio but the moment i unplug power it's fine problem i can see here is if you're using this as a device to record a conference or something like that and you need to be powering the camera the whole time maybe you need to get audio into input three while you're powering the camera and you need to get some microphone feeds into these right here just something to be aware of that powering the camera at the same time while trying to record on channel three in digital mode does present uh some interference when i've tested it as you can see here but i did not have this issue when i was recording in analog mode which is a great segue to show you how the k3m works on older sony models now i am putting the k3m on my sony a7 iii and i would like you to notice that it gives me an error this isn't compatible with the camera if i switch it over to digital so what i need to do is switch it to analog on the k3m and then all of a sudden that air goes away now i am recording into the sony a7 iii via the analog from the k3m hotshoe mount into the camera how does it sound i'm going straight into the boom microphone on top of the camera sure sm7b going straight into the k3m into the camera so you can use the k3m with the sony a73 on my sony alpha 6400 again it gives me this air saying that this accessory isn't supported when in digital if i just switch it over to analog we're all okay as you can see right here if i tap on the mic that's channel one if i tap on this mic it is channel two here i am on the sony alpha 6400 just to show you that it works on all these different cameras here is my shure sm7b going directly into the camera as well now i'm talking into the rode videomic pro plus this is on top of the camera obviously it doesn't have the whole xlr input thing and it's going analog into the side of the camera so it's using the mics preamps it's still a great microphone i use it all the time right now you're listening to the ecm xm1 that comes on the camera it's a condenser microphone uh 48 volts straight to that microphone from the camera this is the rode videomic pro plus and now i'm standing back here how does it all sound does it sound good does it sound bad does it sound sad rode videomic pro plus on the sony a7s3 going straight into the camera via the microphone preamp on the side of the camera now we are back to the k3m and the microphone that comes with it i am outside it's not very windy so i can't really test that i am getting close to the microphone now i'm getting farther away from the microphone how does this sound compared to the rode video micro pro plus so would i recommend the k3m adapter for your sony alpha cameras i definitely would i know i brought up some issues towards the end of this video i think those are really pulling at teeth in terms of trying to find problems with this kind of equipment and the thing is most of these issues are going to be resolved probably by the time you may be watching this video if it's a couple months after the release and realistically in terms of what you want this piece of gear to deliver on which is the convenience of being able to record audio directly into your video files as opposed to having to sync something with like a zoom h6 maybe you might be using like a sound devices a road caster pro whatever device that you're using externally to record your audio if you have the k3m you can just bypass all of that syncing in post and just have it directly into the camera with some great preamps powered by the camera battery itself which i think is another great convenience of the k3m is the fact that you don't have to carry around more batteries for your equipment that may be low when it comes to recording time with all of that being said if you are somebody that's looking for the convenience of getting your audio directly into your camera and with something like the sony a7s iii now you have some more capabilities with the k3m is it something for you i'll leave that up to you i'll have some links to the k3m in the description below if you want to check it out and until next time hit the like button if this has been useful and i hope you're out there living a life of abundance all right bye

Channel: Javier Mercedes

Views: 51,305

Keywords: Javier Mercedes, sony k3m, sony xlr-k3m, xlr microphone, sony xlr-k3m review, xlr adapter, sony a7siii k3m, sony alpha, sony k3m review, Sony a7siii Professional Audio, sony mirrorless camera xlr adapter, Sony XLR-K3M Dual-Channel Digital XLR Audio Adapter Kit with Shotgun Microphone, sony xlr adapter, audio, how to connect microphone to sony a7siii, sony xlr-k3m a7iii, sony shotgun mic ecm-b1m, sony shotgun mic, sony xlr k3m, xlr k3m, sony xlr-k3m xlr adaptor kit

Id: hDTlgR28W1A

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020