Distorted audio from live recording. A question.

Hi.
I recently recorded a few numbers from my band using my HF10 and i set the mic to manual and lowered the level right down so it wasn't showing any thing in the red but i noticed when playing back that the bass and drums were distorted.
My question is would setting the mic attenuation on help rectify this?
I've checked the audio in Wavelab and its not peaking (in fact its quite low) so maybe its the mic itself that cant handle this. We were only using a small vocal PA and back line and the camera was about 20-25 ft away. ive recorded this way in the past with other cams and while none of them had manual level control they didnt break up like this (although its not too bad)

I dont do that many live recordings so getting another mic isnt really something i want to do but i do have a Sony ECM 909 that i use with my MD recorder. Anyone know of a way of mounting this to the HF10?

Thanks for any help/tips.

Do yourself a favor and get a real microphone. The one in the camera is a toy.

A Shure SM57 (http://www.zzounds.com/item--SHUSM57LC) is a classic, tried and true by countless musicians, and you can get it for about $100. Works for everything, from vocals to the big drum. It's been dropped, thrown, kicked and slammed by generations of rock singers and usually it just keeps working.

You'll have to verify if a dynamic microphone is supported by this camera. If not, then get a condenser microphone - there are countless of good microphones out there.

You don't necessarily have to mount it to the camera. In fact, this is a good occasion to start learning the basics of sound capture. See if you can find a good location for the microphone.

Here's a good place to start:

http://www.zzounds.com/cat--Microphones--2821

Florin.
Thanks for the reply but i think its missed the point.
I'm really asking about the built in mic on the HF10 and how to get a better recording with it. If its not possible then I know my EMC 909 is old but it works very well with my MD recorder so as far as getting a new mic goes i dont need one. I do need to figure out how to mount the mic on the HF10 though.
The idea is to give the cam to someone in the audience (a mate, not a stranger ;-) so it really needs to be all set up and ready to go. And this might happen once or twice in the next 12 months so i dont really want to put any more money or too much time in to it although i will of course experiment.
Thanks for the link, ill have a read and try and take in what it says.

Just for the record as well as the bass player im also the bands sound engineer and have worked and mixed in a few studios over the years. Nothing pro but i know my way around Audio recording enough to get things done. The band is only a covers band. we use a vocal PA for most of the gigs so again, nothing pro really.
We have also got SM57s, SM58s and Beta 58s but i wouldn't really want to mount one on my HF10.

But thanks again for the help. your posts are very useful.

EDIT: I see that link was just to a store. Sorry, i thought it was something else. By the way, in in the UK.