I friend of mine played his first gig with an Iron Maiden tribute band last night and I taped it with my camcorder. Since it was really friggin' loud, the audio is terrible on the recording. Anyone have any suggestions for future recording, like an external mic that will help? There is no audio input level control that I can find on my camera, a Sony DCR-TRV30. Thanks!

Ideally, you'd get a feed directly off the sound board which you'd monitor with headphones.

(Assuming that all instruments were going through the PA and that someone competent was mixing it.)

Without any in-built attenuation anything you do to the internal microphone will probably affect the frequency response. An external mic with high SPL handling would be the best option. Pointing an external mic away from the stage might also help. Usually in situations like this you need good monitoring, a pair of DT100's have fairly good insulation properties.

If your mate is in the band and you're doing it for them. Get the sound guy to provide you with a PA feed, admittedly it'll be mixed for the PA but it will sound miles better than a microphone.

I'm sure you were overdriving the mic on the camcorder. Like Tony said I would go for the soundboard but if you can't do that you need to get a high pressure mic external mic.

I found one by Sony that is says "Maximum Sound Pressure Level Input more than 110 dB SPL" so that may work a little better, but I'm not sure if that would still be overdriven.
It was a last minute thing and if I do it again, I will inquire about plugging in the the SB. Thanks for the replies!

From what I remember reading about taping concerts they recommended 110db so I would guess that one would work. I can't find where I was reading this any more though

My friend and I do this often for making DVDs that we then send to the band. It's a great way to get pre-approval for video taping.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the technical terms are, but I'm sure it's what the other people here have said. He basically keeps an eye on the levels when the band starts playing, and his camera fortunately lets you adjust the recording volume in order to adjust for these high volumes. This way, we were able to be in the very front of the stage for a Mudhoney show and not have any distortion in the sound.

That said, he's still not satisfied with the audio quality. My friend is a big audio guy who runs sound for bands from time to time, and he knows how to record properly. For the next shows we do we're going to try for advance approval to patch into the soundboard with some sort of recording device.

I don't think my friend would have that problem. Like I said, he's a sound guy.

Besides, we're talking about two cameras recording these shows, then editing them together. Any sybc issues can be taken care of in editing.

Um, we're both talking about live shows here, right? Having two cameras tethered by cables might be a bit difficult.