Using the 442 "Mix In"

[Simon Paine]

I'm about to start working on a reality series, and the gear we have is looking pretty good.  We're just having one issue, and even after 5 experienced soundguys have tried figuring this out, we just aren't getting it. We have 5 SD 442's, but to get an extra channel, they have rented 5 MP1's. The hope was to take the output of that and run it into the mix in of the 442, but only to the right channel. The rental house made up 5 custom cables they thought would do the trick, but they don't work. The audio is thin and very low and sort of distorty sounding.

I tried just using an xlr to TA3F, but it did some wierd stuff. Signal was present for about a second or two, really hot and then died. Almost like the 442 cut it off. We did use a Sound Devices XL-2 cable, and the signal seemed to be ok, but we want to just get signal on the right channel, and Sound Devices warned us not to use that particular cable, because it will give us phase issues.

all this to ask, does anyone have any ideas of how to do this ? Is there anything special we need to know about the mix input on the 442 ? Or the line out of the MP1 ?

The only difference we could see on the xl-2 connector, was that the shield was soldered to the shell of the connector. Could this be causing the difference ?

time is ticking, and we are set to start shooting soon.

The work around we have now, is running the MP1 directly to a wireless, and sending it direct to camera. But without the ability to monitor its signal, this is certainly not a permanent solution.

[Michael P Clark]

I believe the 442 "mix In" is an unbalanced stereo input, and the MP-1 is a balanced mono output. Unbalance the MP-1 and use a TA3 Y-cable to 2 XLR-F split left and right(unbalanced). Should work!

The audio is thin and very low and sort of distorty sounding.

Sounds like you didn't unbalance the MP-1