Jump to content

Wandering Ear

Members
  • Posts

    2,772
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    13

Everything posted by Wandering Ear

  1. I’ve had the same experience. I barely have to spend any time looking for comteks at wrap and that alone is worth it.
  2. In the first version of my primary cart i had everything so compact that the front “feet” were kind of tucked under the pelican case. I found out the hard way on a job that it had no forward stability as a medium gust of wind knocked it over forward and sent my mixing bag rolling on the pavement. Fortunately nothing was damaged, but i quickly designed long front feet that stick out and stablize the whole thing. A good lesson learned the hard way. Hahahaha. Best sound mixer dad joke ever.
  3. Comteks are great ….. and terrible. They make us money and keep clients happy, even though they don’t sound that good. They are one of the items that i have come to see as the “face” of my sound since every client on set will interact with them directly and often. So last year I finally got tired of buying cheap hanging shoe racks (they only last a few months) to store, organize, inventory, and distribute my comteks and I commissioned a set of custom hanging pouches. Now that i have them I can’t believe I didn’t do this before. I have both 8x and 12x versions (I do mostly commercial and scripted narrative). I hang one on the back of my cart, or move it to a mic stand to put in video village. So i thought i’d post them here as a starting point to see how others are carrying and distributing their comteks. Please fill this thread with pictures and ideas that fit your individual workflows.
  4. Most of them. Specifications on the product page will list all the details you need to help you make the decision of which on best suits you’re needs.
  5. I don't get much call for it personally. I don't try hard to sell it either, and usually end up working against the rental by recommending they process in post instead of in production. Sometimes the video isn't going through post and a processed tracks helps move through a rushed edit. When I do use it it's a copy of the mix track processed, or a copy of the mix and boom tracks processed. I always record the unprocessed as the primary. Sometimes my favorite use for it is for my own reference of how well a particular noise will clean up in post. Helps me make a better judgement when something feels borderline. Also can be good for live feeds in corporate jobs, but
  6. That really sucks. I'll keep my eye out in Seattle in case it pops up.
  7. My position has fluctuated on this a bit over the years, but generally i believe people have the right to share their message even if i disagree with it. Now i usually draw the line when i believe the message is designed to cause real harm. Most recently i turned down a political job for a known conspiracy spreader who i believe was out to destroy. I do feel fortunate enough that i am not in need of money the way i was when i was younger, so i have a lot less pressure to say no to the jobs i dislike, even if they don’t cross the threshold of harm. With that in mind i often say no to ballot campaigns that i think are bad for my area, but i might work on them if i really needed the money. All those spots aired anyway, but i free’d myself up to work on other jobs that I didn’t have any qualms with, and being available and having energy to pursue what i believe in turned into more work that i care about and less that I don’t. There is also the consideration of who you want your clients to be. I’m much more likely to do a one off spot i disagree with for a client I generally like working with, than for a political agency who only represents what i dislike. They will only ever come back and ask me to do it again putting me in the same position over and over. I also believe that my job revolves mostly around quality and execution, and I’m not hired at all to moderate content, so it feels out of place for me to complain about what talent is promoting just because I don’t agree. I’ve done plenty of infomercials for products that i believe are borderline scams, but judging the product is not what I’m there for. I’m there hired to help them, not tell them what they shouldn’t say. If I had a writing or content contribution job i think i would feel differently.
  8. My hypothetical about an author wasn’t meant to say that i think it is better that way. I think the technology still has a long way to go before I can’t tell the fake from the real especially in long form. Once it gets there though …… I don’t know if i’ll still care if it’s the original voice or the synth voice, and the distraction of a new reality usually fades pretty quickly as we get used to the technology . If I don’t notice and can again get lost in the story, well, that’s what i want from an audio book anyway. Lots of audio books are not read ny the original author and are very enjoyable. As long as the author is in control of the process the same way they control the text, story, and characters, etc. I think i would not have a hard time accepting it. What i was trying to highlight was i think it’s perfectly ok for that author to have the option to do so if they feel it is the right choice for them. Or in other words, i am quite optimistic about this technology and what it can add to our art, despite the potential for abuse which is always a possibility with new technologies and should be mitigated.
  9. I have a different take on whether voice synthesis should be banned. I can think of many legitimate uses that already rely on synthesized voices, and making those voices sound more human can be a good thing. Think of services for the blind, or automated telephone systems, siri and alexa, etc. I do strongly believe your voice is your likeness and it should never be allowed for someone to synthesize your voice without your express permission. That being said i’m sure you could find plenty of actors that would be happy to let a studio adr a line or two for a show they star in as long as their are clear limits on what the studio can and can’t do with that technology. SAG/AFTRA will have a lot of work to do in that regard. Then what about an author that wants to release some of their old books as audio books, but maybe in their younger voice? Or just don’t care to spend the time recording. I see no harm in letting them synthesize their own voice. What about a company that allows voice actors to license their voice to be synthesized and get paid a royalty for every minute generated? I think this will become a lucrative market in the next decade or so, and with the amount of money being poured into generative ai I only see this sector growing too.
  10. I’ve been rewatching Better Call Saul and it always cracks me up when the film students drive away with the boom sticking out the back window.
  11. I would opt for suspending from the ceiling as long as you can arrange it. A setup with stands will always be more visually intrusive. DPA makes a version of the 4098 specifically meant for hanging in this type of situation and is quite non intrusive. I think it’s the 4098H
  12. Lower noise floor on 48v is why I asked. Also worth double checking that the cable you are using properly grounds the shield of the lemo connector. I think extra noise can be induced if the connector shell is not grounded to pin 1.
  13. Why are you running your mini cmit on 12v and not 48v phantom?
  14. To clarify my underlying point, I think all systems have failure points. Waveform sync, TC, etc. They can all go wrong, which is exactly why the industry has come to rely not on only one tool or method, but on redundancy. A TC slate is one piece of the redundant puzzle. Redundancy is a feature, not a burden.
  15. compare the time it takes to waveform sync a 1 hour long take vs using tc. You can batch process dozens or hundreds of hour long takes with tc in a fraction of a second, where waveform sync will take a significant amount of time. Doesn’t matter if you are using plurareyes or the built in abilities of premiere or any other nle. The real point is the existence of 1 tool doesn’t make all other tools obsolete. You may not hear from editors about the things that can go wrong, but that doesn’t mean they don’t or can’t happen. Just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
  16. This is a really cool project!! I have a double mid side schoeps setup that Cinela 3d printed the mic holder for, somewhat similar to your rig. I also think the cinela lyres are the best shock isolators i have used, so there may be some inspiration there. have you considered playing with speaker isolating pads under the feet of the stand in addition to the shock mount? This being an attempt to isolate the whole rig in addition to the wind baffling and mic isolation. I’ve done this using neoprene under mic stands on resonant stages to reduce foot falls and noticed some improvement. Also worth looking at the cabling you use as a lot of low frequency can be induced through the cable.
  17. This is great. I can’t wait to audition it once I’m back in my studio this week. Out of pure curiousity, what do you use as training data to remove room reflections and reverb? Impulse responses? Dry and wet versions of the same recordings?
  18. I thought that was only an issue on spinning disks and not solid state? I guess i could see the write controller getting overwhelmed, i just haven’t seen it except on disks.
  19. I say you are recording, and ingesting, so you get to do whatever you want! I’ve recorded mono bwav on the 788 in the past, the data rate to the cf card should be the same, except for a tiny bump of metadata at the opening and closing of files.
  20. Does this happen in Jam-Sync or Regen? Or both? That error sounds like an issue tuning the internal clock in jam-sync mode, but I haven’t come across it so i was just curious. One reason i ask is the following note from the Arri manual: “Note: Due to the tuning mechanism, jamming the camera might take up to 30 seconds and a timeout is issued if tuning could not be completed after 60 seconds.”
  21. I moved to full color laminated vinyl stickers from Sticker Mule https://www.stickermule.com and have been very happy. I’ve found them to be durable and hold up to all weather and abuse. With a lot of prolonged rubbing (like on talent tx) they aren’t quite as tough as the aluminum tags, but more than enough that i rarely change them.
  22. Especially when plurar eyes was new, i heard This is not where drift comes from, but that’s another topic all together, and fairly well covered on this forum already. especially when plural eyes was new i heard this and similar sentiments about waveform sync often. If they were true i would not need any of my tc gear anymore, however the vast majority of shoots i do still rely on tc primarily and all other methods secondarily. There are lots of things that can go wrong to make waveform sync fail (same with tc etc), and even if it’s only for 1 or 2 takes it’s an issue. This is exactly why we do as much redundancy as possible, and new tools just give us more options for redundancy, rather than a replacement. i would also argue that TC sync is actually faster than waveform sync. The NLE only needs to access a metadata stamp to line up the files and not process any media. On short takes waveform analysis is quick, but start syncing hour + long takes and tc will be considerably faster. None of that means you should or shouldn’t use any of the sync methods. I personally don’t care what the production workflow is, I’m there to support their workflow to the best of my abilities. If that’s recording on camera, great. If that traditional dual system, great. To answer your original question, i vote A, useful.
×
×
  • Create New...