micke

Hi all, There is an open vacancy for a Professorship in the Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture, in Film Sound Design. The school is in Helsinki, Finland. Here is a link to the University's open positions site. http://www.aalto.fi/en/about/careers/jobs/view/1910/ Ate, Micke

Two weeks outdoors, between -15 and -25C. No problems with the tiny lockits, the master lockit had some temperature issues, but they should be sorted out now. Ambient has been very helpful sorting the issues out. The problem was when powering up the unit if it was cold. If powered up before entering the cold, it worked without any problems. The slate had some issues in heavy slush snowfall, the led display started blinking, but the tc on the backdisplay was ok. But it was in very moist conditions. When it dried overnight, the problems with the display went away.

Now the shoot is over in that location, it really worked! The booms worked more than well and the clinks and clonks from the dining scenes were OK, didn´t ruin more than normally. I think we made it without any adr. Before the balloons it would have been no good dialogue, and traditional acoustic treatment would not have been possible, since window reflections and the shooting style. And the reverb was way heavier than the unveil or rx3 could have handled, in my opinion. I can upload a soundbite from the boom, if anyone`s interested. I also believe that the helium made a bigger difference than the shape of the balloons. Soundwaves travel faster in helium, bounce the roof and travel again faster back. Or looses energy, as Jay said. The roof pretty much killed all the reflections. The DOP and gaffer liked them, they ended up bouncing light from them. It was nice&soft, they said. The cost in this case was about 400EUR, with transport of the balloons to location. Propably half the prize renting a bottle and filling them yourself. It took the sound team 5 min to let them loose and spread them in the roof. There was quite a few scenes in the room and a flown in actor, I think the production saved a bit in this case. My hat go off to the show runner, who took the risk when OK`ìng them;) Thinking of adding a helium bottle to my acoustics kit. "We also do children`s parties"

Robert, they stayed perfectly still, there was no shutting doors or heavy ventilation.No pops, so far;). I was concerned about that. It would have been quite a trick to do it without discussing it with the production, and it was agreed with the DoP that he would not show the roof in those scenes. The light bounce is a thing of coarse, in this case it was a no prob. And they do reflect light, the direction is a bit tricky, though.

Chris, day 60, the line producers start to show their weakness;) Yes, the room was a nightmare.

One room in a location was a quite high, shoe box shaped room, dreadful acoustics. 500 helium balloons, and it turned out really nice! Became the best room on that location. Our sound team were ready for some really bad jokes if it would have backfired;) The balloons arrived pre-filled and with some coating that makes them last for a week. We saved three clusters so we could move them easily to other rooms as well, did good in the corners. And they were.....cute.

I once did a shoot in Dubai with block 31. 8 channels, worked ok. Not so many locations, though. It was in 2004, so not that fresh info. Back then it was almost impossible to get a freq chart for the country. The local OB truck soundguys said there were not any regulations or recommendations. They used everything from a-z.

I like it a lot. A real problem solver in my opinion. And it get's the most "what's that?" questions;) I use it with the Lectro SRa's. Micke

Hi Michael, Most of the Polycom conference phones do have an audio output (rca). They seem to be quite the standard...If I remember correctly you need to activate it through the menu, the same way you activate remote microphones or speakers. Also JK-audio has a nice box that taps in between the phone and the headset, works with both analog and Voip phones. It has a quite nice feedback eliminator, of coarse you need to build a speaker for the participants with that solution... Hope of any help, Micke

Quite often corporate performers wants to be laved, thinking headsets looks awkward;) Despite the slim design of DPA's D:fin ,for an example. But a headset always sound better in my opinion. In critical apllications a cardioid is easier to prevent feedback, but they are quite sensitive to wind, pops bad placement etc. A added windshield can also make the headsets look bulky. To get the sound pressure on the stage area low an help quite a lot. Good placement on speakers and using a delay line even the venue is small can help a lot. But the far easiest route in my opinion is to use small line array speakers, like the K-array, Hk-audios http://hkaudio.com/elements/konfigurator.php

Soundguy, Olle is right, is a Raaco handybox http://www.raaco.com/productsdetails-1122.aspx?ProductID=136242&VariantID= Santtu, it is not that heavy, the mixer ads a bit of weigth if used. Tapio, next time;) its been too long since the last common gig.

Olle: nice start with the finnish studies. Ääni käy- is finnish for "rullar", can be good to know;) Vasileios: you are totally right! I made different fans for a job in a very hot Kurdistan, nothern Iraq, with degrees up to 52C (125F). The gears did not need them in the end but I sure did. Have been carrying one with me ever since, nice with a breeze of air between takes in hot interiors;)

Ha, I think it was irony, quite funny though. I had to re-upload the pic and the comment came before that;)

Here is a pic of my soundcart I buildt a few years back. Still being improved, of coarse. It is based on magliner, modified with shelves and stands for booms, antennas etc. It can hold two 35 Ah batterys but usually I only use one, the other batteryholder goes to the wireless utility bag, wich is the same size. Two lentequip cabledrums can also fit on the bottom, giving easily 50m of video cable if needed. It can either hold my Ad 256 or as here a drawerkit. In this production I need quickly to go off-cart so the mixer is too fuzzy. All the antennasplits are done in the bag. So one has to switch the powersource and replace the sharkfins with wips, mounted on the harness, and off you go. As antennas I use rf venue's comboantenna, for critical applications I replace the small ones with a helical of the same brand. I used to have two sharkfins, but after modifying the lectros to the new frequencys here in Finland I had to replace those. Been pretty happy with the rf venue's, despite the very interesting discussion taken place here about using them with non-diversity (almost-diversity) receivers. But they shure are nice in transport;) The power is a PSC powestrip together with a charger capable of refreshing the battery , so it can be plugged and unplugged withouth noticing anything else than a slight drop in the voltage. The small wheels could be a bit bigger, but it has proved itself to be quite good in terrain, the low weighpoint helps. And for me it has worked without frontwheels, you never have to whorry about the cart doing some rolling on its own. Insted of wheels it has two "wobbly" rubber dampers, taking away some stress during transport and on cartrailers. We have shared some nice moments, so she has deserved a name. She is called Lady Pirina.

Hi Kaijan, We have a few different types and soundwise I'm very happy with the earthworks flexmic series. They sound very natural and have an amazingly even off-axis response. Tried before the buy the hyper and the cardiod, went for the latter. They have a metallgrill with foam but can be good to use with extra windprotection. Some good advise on windshielding above,+1. Another nice one is the EV polarchoice, it is built with two capsules and you can tweek it to everything from very hyper to omni. And it is fairly slim. Good for critical applications where you can have two side-by side with different patterns, if and when someone talks away from the podium. The downside is that it is fairly hissy, you feel it especially when low level speakers with microphoebia are speaking. For the PA the hiss is no prob. Both mics have a good rejection of handling noise and noise that comes along with the body, like vibrations from the laptop hd or the slam of the chairmans hammer. And people always fiddle with the mics before or while speaking, some mics are very noisy. A good and heavy podium stand is alo a good investment. Be careful if you use switches on the stand, it can be embarrasing when the talent accidentally switches it off in nervousity before the speech. Micke