Best camcorder for musicians?

Question

I'm a musician..I play in an all original band...sort of 60's British invasion sounding.

     I'm looking for a camcorder with good picture quality, and very good audio quality, with a built in condensor mike, and the ability to plug an external microphone into the camcorder.

     I'd also like the ability to record images, then later add my own soundtrack.
     
     I'd also like the ability to record old VHS tapes onto the camcorder for further editing..etc.

     What would be a good medium priced camcorder ($500-750) for making what boils down to, band videos of orignal songs?

Little Dog · Accepted Answer

The one missing item from your list is for the camcorder to have manual audio control. The least expensive camcorders - of which I am aware - with a mic jack and manual audio control are the Canon HV20 and Sony HDR-HC9. They are outside your price range. If you do not have manual audio control, it is likely that the amplified audio will cause the auto-mic-gain circuit to overload - the audio will clip and sound very muddy. The best mic in the world cannot prevent this - but properly using the camcorder's manual audio control can. An alternative is to use an external "field audio recorder" like those from M-Audio, Zoom, Edirol, Tascam, Sony and others. Replace the camcorder's audio with the that captured by the field recorder when the video is edited.

They do not have AV-in or AV passthrough capabilities. This is what will allow you to use the camcorder to get the analog VHS stuff into a computer. An alternative is to use an "analog/digital bridge" from Pinncale (Dazzle) or Canopus.

You can add a soundtrack in editing - this has little to do with the camcorder capture process.

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Best camcorder for musicians?

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