Once you mentioned that you were shopping for a camcorder with external mike to record life performance. I did the same thing many years ago. However, then, at least, most of the consumer models featured AGC (Automatic Gain Control) which evens out the volume changes. It really “damages” the classical music performance. Technology has been improving rapidly. That may not be true any more. I wonder what’s your finding and if you could share some with me? Thanks.