Charles Tomaras

Just a note to the sound and camera folks who still use NP type batteries. Recently had some old useless IDX Lithium NP's re-celled from cinematography.com advertiser www.ritterbattery.com and I'm very pleased with the results. Looks like I'll send off some more old ones now and be ready for the apocalypse!

Found this interesting.

the ex1 does not have time code.

Correction... EX1 does indeed have full smpte TC, it just does not have external TC input or output. The EX3 included this functionality.

Hey Roger,

Don't think the EX1 is the best solution for your shoot from a one man band sound perspective. If you went with something like a Panasonic HDX-900 or equivalent file based camera you would be able to make use of the built in RF slot and use a Lectrosonics SR two channel receiver without having to think too hard about it, turn it on and off etc. You would still have a front mic input and two additional rear XLR's you could make use of. You could dump the additional SD702 recorder as it's not gonna record RF/lav mics with any more fidelity than any of the current generation cameras. Keep the 702 for grabbing some wild sound with a nice mic if you wish but don't needlessly complicate your shoot with another machine around your waist! Any of the full size cameras will record four channels of audio.

My two cents...hope you are well!

Charlie

This question is mostly a question about recording high quality sound while shooting solo. I'm going on a two week documentary shoot (high end PBS) at the end of August with no crew, just myself. I'll probably be shooting with an EX-1, but would change to the best combination of gear, including a full size camera, if that's the best solution. I need to record three tracks of audio, two radio mics and an onboard mic. I've done lots of research, looked into many possibilities with help from the folks at Abel and Gothan and DPs and sound recordists. there seems to be no ideal situation, like a camera that has four inputs that one can monitor in the view finder and control levels.

 

Here's what it's come down to:

1. The onboard mic connects to the camera xlr, the two radios connect to a Sound Devices 702T recording iso. an out to the camera feeds guide track back to the 2nd input in the camera so I can monitor those tracks. I can wear the 702 on my belt and glance down to see levels. the mics get time code from the camera. (does the EX-1 generate good,solid time code? small cameras sometimes do not.) I can rig it so when I hit record on the camera, the 702 rolls. The problem is it's two recording devices, two sets of cards to dump, possible tech complications.

 

I've looked into the Pix 240, which seems like an amazing recorder, but level control is not easy to see or control.

 

2. the good old, just share two tracks of sound with the onboard and one radio. this has the least potential for screw up but sharing the track with two mics is fraught.

 

Compromises at every turn.

Does anyone have any other alternatives? I'm looking especially for people with extensive experience shooting as one-man-band.

 

thanks so much for your insights,

Roger

I need some advice from all the soundies out there. I have a room that i am fitting out as a green screen studio, but the floor, walls and ceiling are all concrete slab and one of the walls is glass windows. Needless to say echoes are a bit of an issue. Are there any solutions for soundproofing or sound absorbing material, that are cost effective. Budget is not huge, so the best value solution would be great.

Start out by going to a thrift store and purchase some beat up dirt cheap used rugs/carpets and spread them around on the floor and hang from any walls you can. Will probably solve most of your problems for $50 total.

If the ceiling is an issue after that...you can buy sheets of acoustic foam pretty affordably at Markertek.com

http://www.markertek.com/Acoustic-Materials/Acoustic-Foam/TOWER-1A.xhtml?MF-3&bs

$44 for 54"x54"x2" sheets.

Don't forget that in most instances on a green screen you can garbage mat in post meaning your microphone can be in the frame as long as there is some green space showing between mic and subject. Do the cheap acoustic treatment and keep the mic close and you should be fine.

thats what I thought. So should I just go for the 702t or would the R-4 Pro actually be worthwhile? I'd also like to be able to record onto a backup system like a DVD-RAM drive or something of the like. I'm not sure if the 702t is able to do so or not.

Go for the 722t with the hard drive and CF card in it. You can record to both media at the same time for a backup and you can still burn to external DVD Ram (simultaneously) if you wish as all of the 7xx machines support it.

There is also a major audio dropout/interruption problem with the RED that no one seems to have reported. Each time the camera shuts down due to overheating or one of the host of other "reboot" problems there is a corresponding loss of audio equal to the amount of time the camera is down or rebooting.

Let get real here people...from my experience and from what I've read EVERYWHERE on sound newsgroups this is NOT a camera ready for prime time production. Every single person that I've spoken with who has shot with RED in Seattle has reported some sort of anomaly and or MAJOR difficulty. Guys shooting with ice packs on the body etc etc. It's a beta test plain and simple. I'm betting RED will make it sooner or later, but I'm also betting that if you put a current RED in a time capsule for a year or two and pulled it back out, not one of you would want to use it for a shoot.

Do you not normally run line level out from your mixer? I've yet to use any broadcast camera that I would use the phantom power or mic level unless I really have to. For me, I run everything through my MixPre and then line level into my RED or other camera. I would think on most productions that it would be odd to use anything BUT line level.

 

Matthew

Yes, and wouldn't it be nice if the RED accepted line level? It doesn't....it needs a special cable to pad down professional levels to whatever non-standard level the "designers" came up with.

I do wish Red had put some sort of digital audio input on the camera, so you could digitize audio using some nice external device with its own power supply, but still get the workflow benefits of single-system sound. (This should be theoretically possible to do with the current hardware though the USB port, with an appropriate firmware update, but I'm not aware of any plans to Red's part on do this.)

Maybe they can get that in the next beta program. I suppose they will have to finish the current paid beta test first.

I've been having ongoing time code issues with ALL of the flavors of full size Panasonic cameras as a sound person when trying to deal with the time code that is ouput from the BNC connector on the camera. It seems Panasonic has a number of issues as follows.

Regardless of camera frame rate all code appears to be converted to 29.97 and it doesn't read as particularly clean by my Sound Devices recorders and I've heard similar reports from owners of other brands of recorders.

When in Rec Run mode, the cameras spit out innaccurate values when they are rolling up to speed making accurate stamping of BWF Audio files impossible.

Panasonic documentation for many of these cameras is difficult to decipher and contains references to 30frame code when I believe they most likely mean 29.97 etc etc. Confusion with 24P, 24PN, 23.97, Drop, Non-Drop. The manuals couldn't be more obtuse and we need to know exactly what these cameras are doing in these modes, what code you can jam or receive from them running in these rates and what code an NLE sees from the files generated by these cameras. It's a mess.

Seems that Panasonic has not addressed any of this with the recorder manufactures who I am told have sought information and reached dead ends at Panasonic.

I'm posting today to bring attention to my issues, and see if anyone else would like to contribute their thoughts and observations on this topic if they have been adversaly effected by these time code anomalies in either the audio world as recordists or in post.

Charles Tomaras

Seattle, WA

From what I see there is a key skill to being a good soundman. Keep your ears open for scenes that have absolutely no dialog and minimal sound. Like a guy walking to his car and getting in. Then carefully place your boom so it is reflected in the window of the car. If there are no reflective surfaces but still no dialog and minimal sound a good soundman will try to place a shadow on the face of the talent. The producer will immediately know you are a professional soundman. When filming an event that can not be repeated like a gorgeous sunset with a sailboat drifting through the golden ball it is mandatory for all sound man to place the boom in the top of the frame.

Bob,

You are being rude and childish. Your sarcasm is offensive to professional sound departments who work thier butts off trying to accomodate the whims of a DP like yourself who apparently feels that the world revolves around the picture and making a movie isn't a team effort. It's YOUR responsibility to deal with reflections and shadows and booms in the frame because it's YOUR frame. If you are working with inexperienced boom operators that is something you should talk to the producer about because he/she is the person who "budgeted" for the sound department.

I highly doubt they shoot film. It's probably some high end video format like DigiBeta, Pro50, or HD coupled with good lighting. It wouldn't make any financial sense to shoot a broadcast interview on film.

The've shot Beta SP for many many years like all of the other newsmagazine shows in the US. I've been called about doing sound for a Frontline shoot in coming weeks and was told they were shooting this show on Panasonic SDX 900.

In answer to your "film" comment. In general filmed interviews have been shot for years and the method of making financial sense includes having the sound roll on everything and having the camera start rolling when there is a good bite in progress. Timecode capable film cameras make this much more efficient as well.

Charles Tomaras

Seattle, WA

Hi,

 

I'm going to be in LA in a couple of weeks, and while I'm there, I'd like to take advantage of the exchange rate to buy a Fostex FR-2 compactflash audio recorder.

 

Is there anywhere I could just walk into an expect to pick one off a shelf?

 

Phil

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Go to Coffey Sound or Location Sound. They should both be able to help you. Might be worth calling or emailing in advance to make sure they have one on hand to show you. www.coffeysound.com and www.locationsound.com

I plan on doing a feature on film, and getting it telecined to DV to edit on final cut pro, which is a better system for audio? Nagra or DAT?

Any professional field recorder will serve you well. If you go with Nagra make sure the transfer house still has equipment to deal with it and the person doing post can deal with it as well when they go back and grab original field audio for alternate takes, ambience and other stuff which probably won't get transferred.

All the analog vs digital stuff in this thread is stupid. The real bottom line for getting good sound is a good boom operator who rides the line and points the mic at the mouth of the person talking. I'd rather hear dialog that was recorded on a cheap cassette deck with dolby that was boomed well than one that was recorded on a Deva with a PA operating the mic. If you are the mixer and they give you a PA to boom, better to switch jobs and boom it yourself while the PA pushes the red button and fills out the sound reports. Come post time, audio turd polishing is very expensive and time consuming and all you will have is a polished turd in the end. I also think people would rather see a movie shot on DV with good sound than a movie shot on 35mm that sounds like poop.

My suggestion would be to read the book titled "How I ruined my back working in a field that gets very little respect for peanuts while the camera guys rake in the bucks then hire younger guys for less money with better backs."

After that I'd read the book titled "My $75,000 worth of sound gear is now worth $5,000, nobody wants to pay me a rental on it anyway, and I have no retirement plan or health insurance."

Finally I would read my favorite book entitled. "Learning to relax while broke and waiting for the phone to ring."

:unsure: