I'm reasonably certain that it wasn't the microphone clipping unless you were recording a Space Shuttle launch and there hasn't been one of those lately. Use the manual mode.

John

Thanks guys - I was doing an interview and in some areas the sound got loud and distorted...I thought this was clipping - no? I'll give manual a try and see how it goes - thanks again.

Well, yes, it is clipping. It was the mic preamp and the automatic gain control that caused the clipping, not the microphone itself overloading.

John

Thanks John! I'll try manual audio control next time and see how it goes!

Sony AGC is always calibrated to their internal mics which must be really low output. Pretty much any external mic you use is going to overdrive the AGC. Here's an inexpensive attenuator cable that works for me on with a Rode Videomic going into a Sony TRV20 (which unfortunately has no manual audio mode). I had them make me a 6 inch version (which is still too long). Anyway, it works great:

http://microphonemadness.com/products/mmatatcab.htm

Laurence - how does this work for you?

A lot of the video that I shoot is handheld and I'm always moving. That would make using the manual audio control a bit of a problem in that I would always be adjusting the control as I move closer and further away from someone I might be talking to - journalistic style. This cord if it works properly would definently help out my situation.

This AT822 is extremely sensitive and bright and any "sudden" burst of noise will send my camera's audio into distortion hell :)

Spot - do you have any experience with something like this?

I hear you! The cable just attenuates the mic output. You could make up a cable like it if you wanted. I've done it but I don't remember how now. Once you get your mic level into the ballpark, the AGC is kind of handy and works as well on an external mic as it does on the internal one. There is also a little attenuator cable for headphones that radioshack sells that will do this and give you more control. I have one of those as well but I prefer the straight no control attenuator cable (one less thing for me to muck up!).

Gonzo,

Padding the output of the AT-822 might work, but that depends on whether the 950 has an AGC circuit or a limiter. I'm not familiar with the audio on a 950, if it's got an AGC, then it's going to apply as much gain as necessary to hit a target average level. This brings up the soft stuff and squashes the loud stuff and this will defeat any attempts to attenuate the signal coming from the mic. Now, if it has a limiter which doesn't attempt to bring up the gain on the soft stuff, but only limits the audio above a certain threshold, then the attenuator cable would certainly work in that case. The Sony PD-150 camera works this way.

It seems like what you really need is some sort of small, battery-powered, stereo mixer with a stereo compressor/limiter on the output. These tend to not be cheap. Perhaps the BeachTek DXA-8 might work, although it's really more "dual channel" device that a true "stereo" device. Its limiters may not be ganged for stereo, which could really mess up the stereo imaging from the AT-822.

Beachtek DXA-8

John