So I was shooting some b-roll of a singer with some nice lungs warming up her voice. As she got louder (my ears starting to ring a little) I noticed the VU meters peaking. I brought down the level & the audio was still clipping at about -18db. She’d get louder, levels wouldn’t.

Can anyone explain what was going on? Give advice on how to prevent in the future?

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I was shooting on a Sony EX1R & using a Sennheiser ME66 shotgun.

Is there a setting I need to look at in the EX1R?

Is it possible to overload a mic with too much noise?

Was the mic sending a line level signal which was too much for the mic level input setting? Should I have switched to line level? Used an attenuator to drop down the db?

The mic has the AA battery K6 power unit, so it doesn’t need P48. If I was using a mic the needed P48, does P48 pass through an attenuator?

thanks