The Sennheiser MKE-300 (see link below) is a pretty nice shotgun mike that might fit the bill.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=47031&is=REG

If you're just trying to get better audio of, say someone talking in front of the camera, I wouldn't worry about stereo. On-camera stereo mikes are really only good for capturing general ambience. Your built-in camera mike should be fine for that purpose. You'll get a better stereo mix by feeding several mono mikes into a mixer than you will from any single stereo microphone.

What IS important, however, is to make sure you have a stereo PLUG, so that the mono mike signal is transmitted to both channels of your camera. Sending a signal to only one channel and leaving the other channel blank can result in buzz or hum, particularly if you're using Automatic Gain.

One other thing to watch. Make sure the mike doesn't end up in shot when you zoom out. SOme of those long shotguns mounted on a consummer camera could endup in view.

BStanding,
I assume that a mono mic has a mono plug, so are you saying that there are adapters that will connect to a mono plug and convert it to stereo/both channels? Have you tried the MKE-300 that you mentioned? I don't need something broadcast quality, but I do want something better than the internal mic. Unless my subjects are within 5 feet, the sound quality is poor. I probably will only use one mic for what I do (moving around). Do you still think that a mono mic would be okay over a stereo mic as far as sound quality? Thanks for you initial input.

I have a friend who owns the MKE 300. It's not bad. If you've got the pennies, I'd gow with the Sennheiser K6 series -- more expensive, but very flexible and better sounding. Like you said, though, you don't need broadcast quality, so the MKE 300 may be your best bet.

If you're concentrating on what's in front of the camera, mono vs. stereo doesn't really matter. The shotgun I use is mono.

I think the MKE-300 is specifically designed to work with prosumer video cameras, so it already has a a stereo mini-plug.

Other, more expensive microphones (such as the K6 -- which I have and LOVE!) will have an XLR connector. You'll need either an XLR to stereo mini cable or an adaptor. Cables are usually preferable, so you don't put excess weight on the mini jack on your camera.

Either way, though, the adaptor or cable is no big deal. You can find something that will work at Radio Shack for under $20. If you're just going from mono-mini to stereo-mini, you're looking at a buck or two.

B&H sells the MKE-300 for $169 (unadvertised price). If that's too much for you, hunt around on E-Bay under "shotgun microphone."

If you really want an education on professional-sounding audio with consumer-grade cameras, check out this article at the Equipment Emporium:
http://www.equipmentemporium.com/audiohi8.htm

I've had an MKE300 for 4 or 5 years and love it.
I use it sometimes on the camera, and if I'm recording voice over I have it on it's own stand next to the camera.

It records mono to left channel only, and I spread this to both channels with a couple of clicks in Vegas.

I also use it on a desk stand plugged into my laptop for recording straight to timeline.

I have even used it for recording voice singing in multitrack, but I prefer my Rode NT1 for this.



I also use
If I'm recording

Your microphone jack is probably 1/8" stereo. I would suggest an Audio Technica AT822 stereo microphone. It sounds great and comes with an assortment of adapters and cables one of which is a balanced XLR to 1/8" stereo mini which will plug directly into the camera. The microphone is around $250. If motor noise is a problem get an AT8410A shockmount for $49:
http://www.zzounds.com/item--AUTAT8410A
or an AT 8415 (which is the one I use with it) for around the same price.

That will bring the mike just far enough away from the camera to eliminate motor noise pickup and will reduce the thumping effect as well.

I have had great success shooting live choir performances by using the little Sony ECM-MS908C, a stereo microphone with an 1/8" jack. The little arm that is included with the microphone, however, does not isolate my Sony camcorder mechanical noise from the microphone very well; I've been very successful with a dual-tripod setup where the camcorder is mounted to a very nice fluid-head tripod, with the Sony microphone mounted to its own smaller tripod about 2 feet lower than the camcorder. Audio is very smooth and wide to my middle-aged ears. The only reason I would go to a much more expensive microphone would be for a lower noise floor; this Sony microphone is at about -50db, which would be poor for sound studio work. For live performances, however, it seems to be more than enough, since the background noise of the audience and ventilation sounds are easily as much as the internal hiss.

Some camcorders do a much better job with their internal microphones than others. The audio I get from the Sony camcorder I use is remarkably clean. My friends' Sony D8 camcorder has a much higher whine level in his audio.

BStanding
Thanks for the link to Emporium. Very interesting reading.
I bought one of Sony's external mics for my digi8 - it mounts on the special shoe atop the cam - no cords.

It caused me to goof up a recording of my daughter in recital at Juilliard. Goofy thing recorded both channels in mono (it's a stereo mic). At other times, I have difficulty making the cam sense this mic and switch to accepting it's signal instead of the cams built-in mic (I probably look pretty stupid standing around before a performance holding a tiny cam in my headphones, stroking alternately the two mics on my cam to see which one is active - also a great loss of confidence).

I'll probably look closely at Emporium's xlr solutions.

Personally, (and I do a lot of concert/recital recording and audition tape recording), I wouldn't invest in an expensive mono setup. I need stereo. Looks like Emporium offers a solution or two.

To date, when I need audio that's free of cam noise, I use two cams, the mini for the video, and an older 8mm cam that is setup to accept two mono mics for the audio.

Following your link may make life a bit simpler for me. Thanks.

Caruso

Caruso,
I get great results with the Audio Technica AT822. I shoot theatre performances and audition tapes. See my post above.
In terms of your Sony Mike, if you are using Sony's intelligent shoe, try using a standard mount and plugging the stereo mini jack into the camera instead.

John

Craftech,
Do you use the AT822 mounted on the camera or off-camera? How far away are you from your subjects? For instance, I'm about 50-60' away from my son's band when I record. Would a shotgun mic work better to exclude surrounding noises (like little kids whining) in this case? I've never used a shotgun mic, so my concern there is being too directional. The AT822 is one that I've been considering for awhile, but some tell me a shotgun is the way to go for camera mount mics. The specs say it has an unbalanced plug, while others have a balanced plug, is this a concern? Any additional info. on the AT822 would be appreciated. Thanks

Issues you need to know about:
1) Your camera accepts a stereo signal via a minipin connector. On channel on tip, other on ring and ground on sleeve.
2) Mics have balanced or unbalanced connections, the good ones use balanced.
3) Some mics, both the balaned and unbalanced ones need power via the cable. Some give you the option of using a battery in the mic or powering it from the cable. Powering balanced mics via the cable is referred to as Phantom Power. Some mics need 48V, others 12V, some will work on both and some don't and some 12V ones may go bang if fed 48V.

There are a plethora of gizmos to convert all things audio to all the other things audio as well as feed the power. BeachTek is one company that makes a lot of the things. You can get a box that screws onto the bottom of your camera to take two balanced mics, feed them phantom power and feed the result into the two channels of your camera via the mic connector.

Sorry this doesn't tell you which mike to buy, but maybe now you know why it's all so confusing.

If you're a fair way back from the band then a short shotgun maybe a good choice, it'll cutdown on the clutter from the audience and also the echo if it's indoors. In general the longer the shotgun the more direction it is. But these things aren't that much different to a lens. Have a look at the mics polar diagram and transpose that to the veue. If the band falls inside the pickup 'cone' the you'll be right. Nagamichi used to make a nice shotgun, you could screw different length tubes on it to get a wider beam. Don't know if anyone still does something like that and if they did it'd probably cost a bundle.

Craftech,
Do you use the AT822 mounted on the camera or off-camera? How far away are you from your subjects? For instance, I'm about 50-60' away from my son's band when I record. Would a shotgun mic work better to exclude surrounding noises (like little kids whining) in this case? I've never used a shotgun mic, so my concern there is being too directional. The AT822 is one that I've been considering for awhile, but some tell me a shotgun is the way to go for camera mount mics. The specs say it has an unbalanced plug, while others have a balanced plug, is this a concern? Any additional info. on the AT822 would be appreciated. Thanks
==========================================
I have used the AT822 mounted on and off the camera. It just depends upon the situation. When I mount it I use a shockmount ALWAYS. I would not recommend the shotgun for a mike to record live music from a distance. The AT822 would sound better and give the performance a wider soundstage.
The shotgun is useful up close to isolate sound. It works poorly from a distance. You will pick up audience noise with the stereo mike, but I think you will be very pleased with the quality of the sound and it mates perfectly with the stereo mini jacks on consumer cams. It also has an XLR to L & R 1/4" phone plugs adapter.
The best way to mike the band is to move the mike closer. The AT822 on a mike stand with a 50 foot cable to the camera will sound the best. Check Parts Express for Proco Lifelines. They are reasonably priced. Just plug the XLRF connector into the mike and the XLRM at the other end into the XLR to Mini adapter that comes with the camera.

John

Another thing that I'm wondering about is that my TRV-340 has two settings for audio. The default is 12-bit, which I used for a long time and then switched it to 16-bit (it's annoying having that displayed in the viewfinder all the time, Sony should eliminate that). I did a test tape of speech, piano and sax with the different settings. I had four other family members listen to the test tape (at different times). They all picked out the 16-bit as sounding slightly better. I e-mailed Sony to inquire about the 2 settings. Their reply was that the 12-bit records two stereo tracks to the tape that can be edited by the camera or device with Insert editing functions to replace one of the Audio tracks. The 16-bit records one stereo track that cannot be edited. Will recording in the 16-bit limit me in Vegas also? What is your opinion of which mode to use? Thanks
Also, what is the difference in quality of sound between a condenser mic and an electret condenser mic?
Does anyone know of a web site with information about frequency response of various things, such as speech, a trumpet vs. a sax, etc.?

I've been using 2 Sennheiser MKE-300's for a few years and they do very well. I've used them in places where no wireless lavalier type stuff is allowed and still captured excellent audio. I tried the Sony stereo mic's and they look good, but, IMO, fall way short on sound quality.

Snip>The 16-bit records one stereo track that cannot be edited. Will recording in the 16-bit limit me in Vegas also?

My camera (Sony TRV-350) records everything in 16 bit stereo. I capture it into Vegas and edit the DV AVI with no problems. I would stick with the 16 bit as you really don't want edit in the camera but in Vgas.

Joejon:

What Sony means is that you can do some rudimentary "editing" of the sound in your camcorder if you use 12-bit recording because there is then room for 4 tracks of audio. I can't think of ANYONE who has ever used that "feature." To me, it's like getting one of the camcorders in the discount aisle that shouts "400X zoom!" on the side--who on earth wants to watch video comprised of 30 enormous blob pixels on the screen? What a joke.

To be fair, 12 bit audio is plenty good for most things--the first full one-hour video I created was done with the camera in 12 bit mode (I was a newbie and hadn't realized it). Nonetheless, the audio was amazingly good when compared to what you expected from camcorders just 5 years ago. The big differences are that the high end rolls off earlier (I think about 12KHz vs. 20KHz) and the theoretical noise floor is -72db vs. 96db. But since the audio sections of virtually all camcorders below $5k are incapable of approaching either of those levels, the noise issue is moot.

As for frequency response: your telephone's bandwidth is typically 300 to 3,000 Hz. Most of the energy of even cymbals crashing is below 8KHz. It's the higher ranges that give the "sparkle" to cymbals, wind chimes, and so forth. Many musical instruments have nothing up there.

In any event, an NLE such as Vegas can work with the audio coming from the camcorder regardless of the bit depth. I suspect you don't want to mix the two in the same project, but I don't know for sure.

Craftech,
I think I might try the AT822 but when looking on the AT web site, the shockmounts that you list seem to be for a stand mount, not for use on a camcorder. If you use these on your camera, how does it attach to the camera shoe? You listed the AT8415 and the AT8410A.

Joejon, markertek.com has a camera shoe to mic adaptor for $12. Look up "Video Hot Shoe Adapter". I have an AT822 + shockmount and it works great with my VX-2000. (Also, the shockmount looks very cool :-)

I wired up my own XLR to mini-phone plug adaptor (with blocking capacitor to foil the DC from the camera) with a 6" cord, and power the mic with an AA cell.

Jeremy

Stick to 16/48 on the camera. Not everything cn cope with 12bit. Very unusual to find that as an isue these days but it's a bit like recording in LP. Yes it will mostly work BUT...

Just why Sony have their cameras flag 16/48 as Non Standard is beyond me.
About the only use I've come accross for 12/32K is on XL1s you can record to the 4 channels from say 4 mics for laying down a sourrond track. Don't know how VV would handle it though as far as capture goes. Once you had it in VV should be fine.

Joejon,
The AT822 comes with an adapter which fits into the hotshoe and will screw into the shockmount.

John

With anything but a high end mic, that is NOT camera mounted, the audio is going to suck at 5 feet plus.
Mic's are like hand grenades; it's a proximity thing. On-camera mics are generally good for two things regardless of their price. Capturing the noise of the camera, breathing of the camera man, zoom noise, clicking fingers on the buttons. Or looking pretty. Even shotguns that cost hundreds, even thousands do not belong on the camera unless the camera is locked down, as close to the subject as possible, and isolation mounted.
Mount the mic on a mic stand if you don't have an *experienced* boom operator. This gives you freedom to move the mic closer to the talent, allows the camera to move around without the mic moving and having phasey or shifting audio.
You'll use either a stereo to mono adapter to plug in, or use two mics plugged into a stereo input. one benefit of using stereo plugs and two mics is you can use 2 mics on two separate talents, and then make them 2 separate mono channels in Vegas. Saves a lot of time.
I didn't read the whole thread, apologies if I'm repeating information.