Philip Perkins

Some lag in a fast full-fader-length move is fairly normal for control surfaces. Philip Perkins

It sounds to me like you did a great job. Re: what did you learn: did you learn that you want to do more of this kind of thing? Philip Perkins

Saw him in the original production of "Speed The Plow " on Broadway (Madonna!)--he was great. Philip Perkins

This is too bad, because the Oktava MC012 is actually a pretty good mic for not a lot of money. But after all the nonsense about Chinese fakes and it turning out that the English distributor (ASM), the Russian factory AND the Chinese who had had some parts subbed out to them were mixing and matching Chinese and Russian parts there for awhile (the famous Oktava dump at Guitar Center) I can see why they wouldn't want to mess with them--too many cheap decent alternatives. The Sound Room still has real Russian MC012s w/ the 10 db pad and the clip for $250. I use them a lot on music gigs when I run out of Schoeps, and they've worked great. On a boom.....they kind of suck. (Almost no shock mounting.) Philip Perkins

They haven't had Behringer stuff in awhile. My local audio store (Leo's, in Oakland) doesn't stock them either because they demand a high minimum order and that's not going to work for a small place like theirs. Some Behringer stuff is fine (and very cheap), but the QC isn't very good and I'm not sure they do service at all. It also seems like a lot of the Chinese manufacturers are trying to bring in their gear under names they own themselves--no better gear but a more straightforward supply chain. (But it's all pretty low end stuff....) Philip Perkins

Me too, same MBox, and I think it will work w/ PT8 too. (OS 10.4.11 here.) Philip Perkins

I will. I hope you have a short day and get to wrap soon. Philip Perkins

Re the 4 x 2 mixer: while it is true that that might not be the right tool for a big job, MOST sound jobs happening today are fairly small, and most sound people don't have a larger mixer than that (and if they do they don't use it nearly as often as the small rig). The big diff between the old days and now is that the small mixers now sound just as good as the bigger iron, getting a bigger box is just about numbers of inputs and outputs and the ergonomics of mixing. A garden variety soundie working local will get LOTS of use out of a 4 x 2 mixer, a few radios, some kind of file-based recorder and a boom mic. Most other gear would work less frequently for most of us, and thus could be rented on an as-needed basis. Philip Perkins

Hey Crew--MBox is for playback (or are you overdubbing guitar parts during lighting turnarounds)? Glad you are getting to go to the office--"office time" is a little scarce up here about now. Philip Perkins

Headphones--for these kinds of jobs I use the Remote Audio high-isolation version of the 7506s--a sound I know with shells and headband that is Geneva Convention legal. (For years I used some I made myself out of aircraft hearing protectors--I swear the side of my head still has indentations from those.) I like being in the hall (can see w/o video monitors)--its one reason I've worked at getting the rig so small. I try to setup next to the FOH console--it keeps the split short and communications are good. I did a lot of this sort of thing in the old days too (Nagra, then DAT), live mix from a battery powered mixer in the jungles of Cambodia to the hotel rooms of China to the churches of Europe etc. etc.. At the budget level I was/am at, multitrack in the old days was just too difficult and expensive to deal with both in production and in post. Setting up my van for a similar kind of doco-music shoot in the early 1980s called for a decent sized 8 buss console, two 8 track analog reel-to-reel decks tag-teaming (7 tracks of audio only, #8 was for TC, so lots of submixing) and a Nagra w/ the 10 1/2 inch reel adapters running as well (and some cassette machines for demos), etc etc would take a whole day, and there would be endless negotiations over where I could park to be within reach of my snakes. For the gig I described above I got a 24 track recording package including mics, cables, snakes, some stands etc onto one load of a standard MagLiner with a top shelf. And this is nothing unusual--there are people with far more compact setups than that. I had worked with some of the shooters on the gig I was describing above many times over the years--we were all wishing we had had that camera/TC/audio setup for various past gigs that had been serious back-breakers with what we had then (even though we were all younger and spryer.) Philip Perkins

If part of your plan is to assist a sound mixer as their 2nd on low-no budg jobs, then getting together a small toolkit of your own (pliers, diag cutters, wire strippers, VOM, battery tester, pocket AC tester, soldering iron, Top-Stick and surgical tape) as well as downloading and reading the manuals for whatever gear will be used on the job will help you and be viewed favorably. (After 34 years in the biz I still do this for video cameras I haven't used before.) I think the first piece of sound gear any new professional should buy is a set of headphones, and I'd recommend getting the same model the people you work with use unless you really don't like them or find them uncomfortable (Sony 7506s, with their "convertable" plug are popular for a reason). The next thing I'd look at would be a boom mic and a fishpole. Getting the mic will introduce you to the main "axe" of a production sound person, and the process of listening for what you like and deciding what you can afford is a good introduction to the equipment tasks all pro sound people deal with every day. Having your own fishpole set up how you want it is a great luxury--it is one more thing that you can have be consistent and always ready to go. Armed with the headphones, mic and fishpole you can work jobs on your own where the mic is going direct to a video camera. The next step is a small mixer, (MANY to choose from, new and used) and with that and a few adapters and cables you now have a "sound package". Welcome to the biz! There is of course zillions of dollars worth of other things you could buy, (that you WILL buy, if you stay with this) but with just that gear you could do a good job on many sorts of simpler projects, and get the experience you need to move up. Philip Perkins

The venue was the Rio Theatre, the converted old Art Deco movie theatre on Soquel Ave. Nice folks, good sound system, no bad smells. I used my Metacorder/MOTU rack rig, at its widest it was 18 tracks, and eventually down to 13. I split everything I shared w/ the PA before their console, so I could record straight off the mics. We had small DPAs clipped on the string instruments, these guys play a lot of festivals so this is a form of self-defense even though they sound kind of nasal to my ears (being on the bridge and all) but it's what they know. Otherwise, Neumann LD for close instruments when we could get it in there, Neumann stereo and Oktava hall mics, a stealth CS3e to get off-mic chatter between players, the usual suspects for vocals, a stereo pair of Schoeps MK4s on one stand for surprise guest players... Philip Perkins

Here's the view from my position last night for a multicam doco shoot of a performance by Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser at a venue in Santa Cruz CA. Great show, crowd went nuts during the encore. The producer had wanted me to cover both doco/verite audio and music recording for the all-day shoot, but she not only listened to my concerns about that and hired a 2nd sound person (Ray Day) to do the doco stuff, she rented good cameras (HDX900), Lockits for all and let me roll my multitrack rig and deliver as files, with the cameras free and untethered to anything. Really nice change from either miles of audio/genlock/TC/video cabling or dinky-cams that can only be approximately synced. Philip Perkins

I have some old Sony headsets--not sure of #. Show a pic of what you want? Philip Perkins

Bummer, dude. My guess is that you'll have to send it in to a Sony service center..... Philip Perkins

Gotta say, re the SD deliverable thing, that as a postie if you send me one of those I may whine, but if you explain (quite fully, in Billy's example) why you did it and (by inference) that that audio is a "gift" to the production so that we posties realize that you just saved a bunch of ADR recording, editing and mixing then we'll forgive you and transfer your audio off of SD cards, banana peels or whatever if we end up with lines that just drop right into the dailies so we can finish the scene on schedule. Philip Perkins

What's "film"? Is it progressive or interlaced? Philip Perkins

SF Bay Area is pretty darn slow production wise, in all categories. Philip Perkins

I asked Billy Sarokin about this and he had a pretty good M.O. for it I thought--I think it was a thread on RAMPS last year. If you asked him there I bet he'd run it down for you again--it sounded like the Zax SD recordings were a regular part of his methodology now. Philip Perkins

I looked into this when it came out and thought I'd rather stick w/ my laptop rig by comparison. No ext. clock, no timestamping of files and no good way to expand beyond 16 tracks kind of killed it for me. Philip Perkins

I like the cable and the sound of same, but we have to move so fast anymore and the locations are generally so noisy anyhow that I've compromised my audio aesthetics and go wireless w/ the boom most of the time. We've shrunk the rig so much that range isn't usually a problem--I'm only feet away from the boom op (and might have a 2nd boom myself), and with only two of us on sound it really helps to not have the boomista tethered to anything, and not have to be worrying about HMI ballast feeders etc.. We aren't going to be popping for the new Zax rig anytime soon, but there have been some other great lower-budg suggestions lately (esp. the MM1 and the use of a walkie for TB) that I want to try out. I keep the cable and boom boxes etc with me but it is backup anymore. The butt-plug idea is interesting as well--I might go that way too since it frees up the boomer even more, re: putting down the pole to work on a lav etc.. Philip Perkins

Simplest solution I've done for this is to A: forget micing the kids for the PA (they need to be urged to speak up, and the audience needs to be quiet) and B: sit yourself or someone you trust center front of the stage with a shotgun mic (MKH 70, CS3e) and follow the ball. If you are more ambitious and have the gear, park an outrigger mic on a stand at each side of the stage pointing inward, to get the people farther away from you. Try to record the mics to separate tracks--or at least separate the center shotgun. You can have the mic down in your lap so it isn't too distracting to other people in the audience. Try to have ringers in the seats on either side of you that will stay quiet. Philip Perkins

If you have the money, Sony D50. If you are poor, Zoom H2 (under $200). Philip Perkins

This guy is a weasel. I've lost gear on location, or had it damaged and suspected the boom op or A2 was partly to blame. But billing them for $600....that seems very out of line--way more than a whole day's wage even on a high-end commercial. It was very professional of you to offer to take some responsibility for the loss, and unprofessional of this mixer to insist that you pay him the full amount (and what snake was it that cost $600 anyhow?). And the way he did it....taking it out of another paycheck.....why is this guy paying you your wages and not the producer directly? If he nicked you for that cable, maybe he's taking a cut of your wages too? I mean, do you trust him? If you are going to work with him any more you will have to work out an agreement about who is responsible for what ahead of time, and try to get yourself paid by the prod. co. directly. (There are a whole lot more reasons to do this than just this guy cheating you...insurance is one.) For myself I would remove this guy's name from my database and not work with him anymore. Philip Perkins

Re Tail stix and telecine: No they don't like them much, even less if it is a film telecine. Twice over the film instead of once, have to spool ahead to see what is going on, then go back, breaks up the rhythm of the operator, ditto for syncing in an edit system. Everyone deals, while wishing for head slates. Philip Perkins