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Philip Perkins

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Everything posted by Philip Perkins

  1. I am crooked and arthritic in my '70s due to many many many miles walked (and run, and climbed) wearing Nagras. I loved the sound but carrying it, especially with a simple strap "guitar style" has cost me. But....that's how location sound was recorded then...
  2. I assume the reason that SD doesn't make non-recording mixers like 302, 552, 442 and the non digital MixPre is that hardly anyone wants to buy them new, and as a small co. they can only make a certain number of different products at once. I'm impressed that they will still service oldies like what I use (old analog SD stuff) at all. Yeah, their service is expensive, but they have the parts and the expertise. Only an experienced soundie would understand the utility of a 302 these days--I use mine all the time for one task or another, and would definitely replace it if I lost it. But a newb is better off having a current MixPre as their first and only device.
  3. Even on run-gun verite shoots I've found having the slate very useful, as I can easily and silently show it running to a camera op and they can verify that our TC jam is holding on their camera, even across the room.
  4. RE: Betacam, me too, bro, and 3/4" and 1 inch type C and even 2" on TPR-10s before that. Please do not hold up the quality of the audio those devices recorded as being good audio, because it wasn't and we knew it then. Anyone who had recorded audio on a Nagra and then moved over to those VCRs could hear the diffs immediately. The Dolby C used in some of them mostly made matters worse. If I delivered audio that sounded like what those recorders layed down today I'd be fired. And yes, audio from lav mics gets to the mixer via wireless. Unavoidable, part of the landscape, not negotiable. But audio then taking ANOTHER wireless hop to a camera, particularly when the soundie can't monitor what's being recorded there on the far lesser-quality audio systems of cameras vs modern audio recorders is not a way I want to get the only recording of a shot. Then there is the matter of post wanting multitrack recordings these days--audio sources split out to the greatest degree possible, fully annotated. Sorry, the master sound recording device stays with me--I'm not going back to the 1980's and handing it back to video. And slating the shots becomes a better idea the more shots, crews and shoot days are involved.
  5. I use a TC slate when asked to because it is very useful in post, no matter what sort of shoot it is. It makes a permanent visible record at the head or tail of a shot of what the shot was, when it was shot, by who, for what production, and the system TC. On projects of any type, including those the OP mentioned, there is the potential for a great deal of confusion in post when footage from many sources, locations and dates need to be reviewed quickly. If your people don't want to use slates then don't use them. I don't actually care if the people I work for use my slates or not, not using them is actually easier for me. But mostly they DO want them, so go figure. The OP is also very sure that since cameras can record "24/48" audio that that makes the sound they record "broadcast quality". What I want to record is "really great quality" sound--that's why I get hired, not to record least common denominator average quality sound. I would strongly recommend doing a comparison listen between audio recorded on a high quality current professional sound recorder with excellent preamps and ADC and the recordings from the audio electronics in cameras. Those electronics are generally compromised by both their design and by their proximity to noise and distortion-inducing picture electronics within the camera body. Meanwhile, how is that audio getting to that camera? On a wireless? On a long cable? A well- thought-out shoot allows freedom of movement by sound and camera people, and that we accomplish by recording audio and video on separate unattached devices, with ref. audio (maybe NOT "broadcast quality") sent to the camera, TC jammed between all devices and maybe even that old TC slate to make life easier for the posties.
  6. You can do the poly split in Reaper. Item-processing>Explode multichannel audio items to new one-channel items.
  7. If you decide to make a plugin (which is how I think most post-pros would use it), please consider making a VST version so non PT and Windows users can use it!
  8. I look forward to test driving this app, but I probably would never "batch" process any audio for NR in a movie mix. I'd want something like this to work in real time on individual tracks or clips of audio so I can hear what it is doing (or not doing) and be able to tweak what it does per clip or even per word if needed, with those tweaks being part of the mix automation. Will you make this into a real time VST plug in that can work within a DAW?
  9. Wait...Sax has a ground loop when the 2 chassis touch each other? Even if interconnected with cables?
  10. I did the generic rack-shelf+velcro thing and it worked fine for local transport+use. The 664 is pretty much the same footprint as the later "full width" SD recorders so I'd think that anything made for those would work for the 664 too.
  11. You can record in 32 bit if you want but when your editor exports the film to me for audio post the audio needs to be in 24 bit.
  12. A TC alternative that is simple, tiny and pretty trouble free are the old Mozegear Q-series TC gens that run on AAA batteries (that are only avail used these days). Tiny, small, all day runtime, more camera friendly that the older boxes that have genlock as well as TC. I too am a fan of the old Ambients and even the Denecke SBT, but they have become an increasingly harder sell re: getting them mounted on ever-smaller cameras due to their size and weight. The SB3 is very useful for music work (ditto the older Ambients) because it can make word clock.
  13. I wonder if Denecke would send you a new loaner to try?
  14. Mine is a Jr. with the narrower Nalpak removable top shelf. Some dirt paths are ok with the small front smart wheels, as long as you go big wheels first (ie pushing from the handlebars). You can put a shelf with a lip on the bottom too, or stick with the narrow, lighter deck and just run bungees down the sides to keep cases from falling off the lower shelf. At one point I had a 2nd Magliner Jr tricked out as a sound cart, with the wider top shelf with a lot of permanently attached stuff (mixer+recorder, power distro, undershelf for a USB interface/drives etc, Phaserite, BST75, DVD drive etc etc ) with pneumatic rears. It worked very well but was heavy enough that it needed to be ramped into a van. Eventually that was just too much and I slimmed everything down to the smaller simpler Mag Jr.
  15. A lot of the weight of a stock Magliner Jr is the pneumatic rear wheels--the rest of the cart is pretty light. I went with the narrower plastic hard-tire wheels when I started having to fold the thing up to put it in my hatchback for every gig, and that's worked out very well. I can understand why a Magliner used by G+E or camera on high-end (big) camera-type jobs could use the weight-bearing aspect of those pneumatic wheels, but we've loaded up mine with the plastic wheels with enough gear, stands, racks, snakes and cable to do 32+channel recordings and it didn't bat an eye. Sound gear usually just isn't heavy enough to need those heavy pneumatic wheels!
  16. You didn't ask me but they hold up pretty well. An arts org I work for has had several since the start of Covid and the haven't been able to kill them yet. They are pretty light for how tough they are. Where they flunk for me is in their non-collapseability for travel in smaller vehicles or by plane.
  17. Any hats involved? Good place for a TX. The main thing to get across to production is that if they want to go wide and tight then there is no wiring solution for all of the talent that will work for all of the angles all of the time. You'll have to keep moving the TX to the off cam sides of the actors through the scene. Ergo....doesn't a boom or 2 sound like a faster way to go??
  18. Are other brands of TC boxes working ok with this camera?
  19. Way good! Very clean--love the fader-surface drawer! Cart-nerd question: do the big rear wheels have individual axles or is it a single axle that runs thru both? It looks from the mini wheels on the handle that you transpo this thing on its back? With a ramp or? How has the Rack 'n Bag thing worked out for bag work off the cart? thx
  20. I've worked on Broadway-style shows and events with that many wirelesses: we had a wireless tech whose job was to monitor and coordinate all the freqs all the time--it's possible but very expensive. There are lots of ways to waterproof TX, right? Bags, boxes or WM style TX, with upside-down lav rigs using B6, among others? All doable, but they must have a pretty big audio dept to make this much gear work. It might be good to find out who is supplying the gear for this: when the show ends or is cancelled there might be a lot of used WM TX for sale!
  21. Yes the manuals for the 664 and the 552 give the pinout for hooking them with a 442 up via link i/o.
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