Igor needs some Sound Advice!

[DrNomis_44]

I'm using canon 5D MKII, i can adjust the recording level from 0dB to -40dB on left and right channels so i am assuming stereo recording.
the only other adjustments are setting sound recording to Auto, Manual or to Disable.

By head room, i assume you mean knocking back the dB further towards the -40dB end of the range? (Sorry for the dumb, this is all new to me, i usually just set everything to 11!)

Headroom is basically a measure of how much an audio signal can increase by until it gets clipped, the greater the headroom, the more a signal can increase before the onset of clipping distortion.


What you want to do is make sure your audio signal level is high enough so it doesn't get buried in hiss and hum-noise, but not so high that the signal-peaks start to get clipped, best way to achieve that is to set the gain control so that the loudest peaks in the audio just get to 0dB, or maybe -1dB, once it is set about there then your signal levels should be about optimal.