Philip Perkins

To get anything believable you need to be some distance away. Close, and at a level that can be recorded w/o clipping, the explosion is just a quick noise, and without any ambiance around it won't sound real at all. Try to get them from several perspectives if you can, esp those where the sound is bouncing off buildings or etc.. Recording these kinds of weapons is actually a complex undertaking if you want tracks that sound like what you hear in movies. Over on the Gearslutz audio post forum (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-production-forum/) Charles Maynes has had several threads on how to record guns--he is a real expert on this. The dynamic mic (for closer perspective) is a good idea. Philip Perkins

I fully admit to my hearing not being what it once was. On the other hand, my bullshit detector is still working fine. Philip Perkins

"United Broke My Guitar" Pretty funny video done by a musician whose $3500 guitar was ruined by UA (he even saw them do it), who then stonewalled him. He vowed to make songs/videos about his experience and youtube them--this is the first of 3. His experience getting an airline (esp UA) to take responsibility for anything pretty much mirrors mine, but his response is WAY more effective probably than just doing the phone thing with a string of disinterested employees. Philip Perkins

Not familiar w/ them. Post a pic or a URL? Do you like them? Philip Perkins

This thing has been avail for about a year now, but I don't hear much of anything about them. Trew still has them listed at $6100. Is anyone here using one of these, and if so how is it going? Philip Perkins

Mine, the one pictured at the top of the thread is WAY discontinued, like for about 25+ years. It would probably be very tough to find the parts involved, especially the numerical switches and the display. Philip Perkins

On a 2 camera 5D job now--new deal (for us) is 30 TC 48k. They are using Wave Agent to reflag the audio files to 47.952 before conversion and sync in FCP. We are using a Senn G2 set to transmit guide track audio to the cams. Philip Perkins

I work with all the various dinky-cams all the time. If you are rushed, a good rule of thumb is to have your mixer ref tone end up at just above half-scale on the camera, how ever they've demarcated it. (See RED.) Philip Perkins

There are a number of diffs in the setup and location of things on the Z1 re the EX1, an even the Z5 (which looks similar). The two latter SOUND much better as well. Next time if you go with a cardioid podium mic (SM57, 58, etc) you will probably fare better w/ ringing than you did with an RE50, which is an omni..... Philip Perkins

I have used both boxes, and have an SBT, but I will say that the SBT's larger size and greater weight make it harder to mount on a camera. Anymore I always try to find out how much sync the clients really want--often they are happy with "pretty close" that can easily be pulled up in the edit than to have to rent and deal with the sync boxes and have frame accurate sync. Many jobs I end up on have a mix of cameras with and without TC i/o anyhow, so those we often just jam everyone together periodically (and do what we call "3-2-1-GO" sync w/ the internal TC generators on the non TC i/o cams) and supply as much documentation as we can. It all seems to work out. Philip Perkins

Yeah, you guys take off those bag-rigs and move away from those sound-carts and snuggle to a hot BBQ for the day. Philip Perkins

May I ask what cable are you using between the ants and your Venues? thanks Philip Perkins

I've used them for car-to-car, car-to-pass van and on a TX that was transmitting a PA feed to me as I ran around w/ doco crews--all worked really well. Philip Perkins

In video anyhow, where often the camera is also the audio recorder, I encounter a lot of resistance to the idea of having a 2 person sound crew since the mixer doesn't have a recorder (although they should anyhow), and there may be a video engineer or DIT with a cart too. In video world, many DITs serve as the mixer in addition to their camera duties, and sometimes just have a boom op to help them do both. With smaller cameras, the DIT and the audio get all rolled into one (busy) position. There is still some notion that if there are a lot of talkers in the shot that there should be help in the sound dept. though, thank God. Philip Perkins

Thanks dudes! For now the cheapies might do (up to 150lbs) since the whole idea is to keep the new cart way light. David--your cart looks like it should be able to move on its own, talk and mix a drink all at once. Philip Perkins

got 'em, thanks Does anyone know where to get wheels in the 20" range? I looked at lots of wheel-chair wheels, and found them astonishingly expensive but mostly 24". Philip Perkins

I need work these days as much as the next soundie, but working w/o my package just seems dumb. Basically, I took on a responsibility to make this gear work when I took out the loans and/or subtracted the money from the family accounts to buy it, so I need to be doing work that IT does. My friends who are gaffers with their own trucks need to be careful about how much they work on someone else's truck, ditto for camera owners and the same for us. If I thought I was going to move to working with someone else's gear mostly, either as a boom op or by going into some bigger-scale TV productions, I'd sell off what I have now so I wouldn't have the debt or the equipment just sitting losing value. The gear is an asset that has to pay for itself, and if it doesn't, mostly, it's gotta go. Philip Perkins

The Versaflex has worked very well for me and my wounded back. It has held up very well over the years. Philip Perkins

I always feel like I have to work HARDER using someone else's gear--that should be worth something. In general I've avoided work like the job you describe mostly for economic reasons--I've never been able to make it on just my labor rate alone. The mixers who mentored me a bit in the late 1970s explained this to me: that I needed to get into the equipment rental aspect of production sound right away if I was going to survive, esp in our market (SF). This was later amply illustrated for me during my time on staff at a video production company--I was constantly getting sandbagged by their gear on location and blamed for the problems. It was those scars that lead me to buy my first pieces of gear. Philip Perkins

I think the ProMix series is a very good value for the money, and the mixers seem to hold up well. Their feature set is a bit more limited than SD mixers, and they are a bit larger than they might otherwise be in order to get most of the guts onto a single circuit board, which holds the price down. (Compare ProMix 3 to SD 302.) Two clients of mine have bought ProMix 3 mixers and are quite happy, and one of them hiked through Tibet with the thing strapped to his chest and it kept on ticking. PSC takes care of its customers very well, and is also very willing to do mods to their gear, when possible. They are in Valencia CA, so easy service for LA folks. Philip Perkins

Not to mention live shows or reality TV etc.... Philip Perkins

Is your car big enough to handle your stuff and the PA? And if they decide to grab a quick interview backstage or outside during the setup, or while someone else speaks....? Get yourself some help. Philip Perkins

You folks w/ rack-based carts: the wheels you are using for them, were they custom made? I looked around on the FilmTools and BackStage sites and didn't see anything I thought would work for that, yet I've seen lots of rack-based carts. The rack thing is attractive to me because I'm looking at downsizing my vehicle again and would like something that came apart (and went back together again) in a coherent fashion. One current theory is that the equipment racks are independent of the frame and wheels, and so could function in a small mode like the small footprint drama carts some of you have, but then could sit on a magliner for an expanded setup (like for multicam video etc) Philip Perkins

Like #1 the best. Dealing with a live PA can be a serious distraction from your job recording audio. If you can't them to hire a PA company for this (might be too small a job), then rent the gear yourself and get the prod co to give you some help--hopefully someone who knows PA systems. As you can see, there is suddenly a lot more big heavy gear and cable that will have to be managed, picked up and returned, as well as the responsibility for everyone in the hall being able to hear well w/o system feedback etc.. The producer should know that the sound of your recording will be very different if there is a live PA in the hall amplifying the voice--they will be locked into that extra reverb etc and won't be able to get rid of it in post, if that's an issue. Philip Perkins

...and big ups for the PSC "Cart Power" box: my little monitor's power connector shorted and brought down the whole cart (running on AC). Unplugged, Cart Power reset itself, back in biz. Thank you PSC! Philip Perkins