Jim Feeley

I have a couple Line Audio CM4 cardioids. I've mainly been using them to record music in various configurations. Rather flat. Small! Overall, seem pretty nice, especially for the price. Discussions here and on gearspace influenced my decision. I'll link to a couple of those below. Looks like $125US or so right now. Line Audio page: (they don't/didn't sell direct) http://www.lineaudio.se/CM4.html A/the main dealer in Belgium: (but they ship to the US, and rather quickly) http://nohypeaudio.com/lineaudioproducts.htm A discussion here from a few years ago (Note @Olle Sjostrom's mention of using CM3s for crowd recording). Line Audio CM4 for location sound https://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/34441-line-audio-cm4-for-location-sound/ And a typically really long multi-year discussion on gearspace: CM4 Is Here. Let's start a thread for it and let the CM3 go on https://gearspace.com/board/mobile-amp-location-rigs/1268518-cm4-here-lets-start-thread-let-cm3-go.html No idea if they'll do what you want. But hopefully the above links will help you figure that out.

I *think* Pete Verrando hasn't started doing the conversions again. But what do I know. Perhaps reach out to him here @pverrando or on his CMC4 T to P site: http://www.cmc4upgrade.com/cmc4upgrade.com.html And a year or two ago (after Pete bowed out for at least a little while) someone here mentioned that Bill Thompson is doing conversions. He certainly has the background to do a good job, imo. He's a co-founder of Ashly Audio. But I have no personal experience with him. https://billthompson.us/bt/schoeps-mic-conversion/

That's great!

Apparently there was a licensing agreement between Zax and Deity, maybe/probably agreed for the reasons Jeff states. So I'll guess some money for Zaxcom, lower legal hassles for both companies. There are probably press releases floating around announcing the agreement, but here's a web story that appears to have things straight, at least from the Deity POV (no dis; Andrew Jones of Deity is quoted. I don't see quotes from Glenn and his team). Deity & Zaxcom Sign Patent Agreement Giving the BP-TRX Ability to Transmit & Record Audio Simultaneously IIRC, Glenn said here that Zaxcom reached out to Rode about a license for their system. I don't know if they reached an agreement. I kinda don't care. No vitriol; I just have other things to do.

I may watch the rest this weekend or something. I just had to get rolling Thurs. I have some friends who've worked with Savage (Mythbusters was largely made near me) and have mostly nice things to say about the guy. And he's one of the regular interviewers for City Arts & Lectures, which is fun live and now on about 100 US public-radio stations. He's pretty good. So his YT videos are probably pretty good, too.

I watched the first few minutes. He gives props to Dan Dugan, and I think he obliquely mentions this very thread....

Really helpful responses everyone! Thanks!

Thanks everyone! Super helpful information!

Nope I've never gotten on the quick-release train. Because I'm an idiot. But now there are a few alternatives to the Ambient QuickLok (though none match the QuickLok's groovy purple). So what do you use and recommend? Things I'm considering (and that appear to still be available): Ambient QuickLok Quick Release Rycote PCS Boom Connector Orca Bags OR-45 quick release Sound Guys Solutions quick release Just standard boompoles (a couple K-Tek and a couple LTM; LTMs mainly used for sit downs ), all 12 feet (~3.5 meters) or shorter, and standard mics (Schoeps, Sanken, sometimes a 416), in standard screen (heaviest is a Rycote Modular for CS-3e). So not an unusual amount of strain on the connector. ANYWAY, what are you using and what do you recommend?

I've been using the B5D forever. I like them, but they're kind of delicate. Also, perhaps there's something better out there now. Better = at least as transparent, possibly a bit more rugged, maybe a bit more wind rejection. I've read some of the previous discussions here. So I'm considering these options: Schoeps B5D https://schoeps.de/en/products/accessories/wind-popscreens/hollow-foam-type-windscreens/b-5-d.html Cinela Leonard (The cinela.fr is **still** "Coming back soon" for me. So here's a vendor page). https://www.trewaudio.com/product/cinela-leo/ Rycote Baseball (not the BBG) https://rycote.com/microphone-windshield-shock-mount/baseball/ This is for doc and corp interiors. In other words, (usually) fairly under control, but not usually a true sound stage. Schoeps MK41 mics. Anything else I could consider? What are you using day in day out? What do you prefer and why? TIA!

Also, this list of under-US$50 bluetooth speakers looks reasonably helpful: https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/best-cheap-bluetooth-speaker/

We can help. And by "we" I mean Meta/Facebook's Blenderbot 3.

Constantin, you might like the article. The writing in the New Yorker is a cut above most magazines, and this article is well reported; Seabrook did his homework (though there are a couple minor mistakes, imo). Anyway, it's a good read and gets a bit into the psychoacoustics of how we pay attention to some sounds and ignore others. Pretty interesting stuff... When I ride, I pay attention (because I don't want to get hit), but when I'm riding (what passes these days for) hard, I can't always hear EVs and hybrids that don't have alert sounds coming up on me.

In the New Yorker article, Seabrook points out the the (US-based) National Federation of the Blind pushed/lobbied for regulations around EV sounds. And as a cyclist, I really appreciate knowing if a hybrid or electric car is coming up on me (I have a small Garmin radar on my bike that alerts me to most vehicles coming up, but not everyone has that, and my radar isn't perfect). And as a sometimes pedestrian, I find that even after looking to make sure the road is clear, sometimes cars will turn onto the road from a side street. So ya, people should look when they can, but that's not always enough ime.

As Seabrook points out, Renault worked with IRCAM's Perception and Sound Design group. Poke around here and you can find some of their published research on EV sounds: https://www.ircam.fr/recherche/equipes-recherche/pds/ In one of my future lives, I'm going to work at IRCAM...

Here's how the Facebook/Meta bot responds to the question. We're not quite there yet, imo. The bot's responses are in the white bubbles, btw... https://blenderbot.ai/chat

An interesting article. The writer talks to engineers in Detroit, people at IRCAM, a sound designer in Brooklyn, etc. A well-written 20-minute read. What Should a Nine-Thousand-Pound Electric Vehicle Sound Like? E.V.s are virtually silent, so acoustic designers are creating alerts for them. A symphony—or a cacophony—of car noise could be coming to city streets. By John Seabrook August 1, 2022 I'm pretty sure nonsubscribers can read a few articles without problem: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/08/what-should-a-nine-thousand-pound-electric-vehicle-sound-like

Looks like it's for a Netflix docuseries that follows eight teams. Netflix Will Follow the 2022 Tour de France in a New Documentary Series https://variety.com/2022/digital/global/netflix-tour-de-france-documentary-series-1235219758/

Jonas Vingeggard wearing a Tentacle Track E (I think) during the awards ceremony for Stage 18 of the Tour de France. I doubt he wore it while racing that day. 😉

I think the odds of getting caught depend on how much the particular frequency in your location are being used, and by whom. Like are lots of white-spaces devices being used, and is someone working for the license holder super vigilant right now? I -USED- to know how the US FCC Enforcement Bureau worked. Interviewed some people there for a story that focused on pirate radio, LPFM, and spectrum policy in general. But this was 18-20 years ago, so I remember little and things might have changed. I.e., I might have this totally wrong. IIRC, the FCC isn't endlessly driving around in vans fishing for people operating on frequencies they shouldn't be on. They're waiting for a complaint. "My favorite radio station isn't coming in clearly." "I'm an engineer at a licensed FM station and here are the frequencies some pirates are operating on. And here are pictures of the building where the transmissions are originating." Or in theory, these days, "We paid a lot of money to use these frequencies. Get those freeloaders off 'our' spectrum! Here's where you can find them. Sincerely, Lawyers Working for Verizon/T-Mobile/etc." And then the FCC will maybe send out someone, and/or send out a notice of apparent violation (or some such language) that says stop now of you'll face big fines, like $10,000 or a million or something. You can check out the FCC's enforcement actions in this database. On Friday, the FCC sent out notices to five pirate radio stations in New York. And there are lots of robocall notices. I did a quick (and probably incomplete) search for wireless/600MHz notices and didn't see anything. Perhaps at this point, for small-time violations, the user gets a semi-friendly "shut down now" chat with someone from the FCC, and there's not an official notice but the local FCC people take note of the user's name, frequencies, etc.... https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/orders And for yucks, here's a map the FCC made of their pirate radio enforcement actions from late 2012 to mid 2020: https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/fcc-enforcement-actions-against-pirate-radio-location/ This might be where you'd find enforcement actions in Canada, though this might be the wrong data base: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/ce/actions.htm Someone like Bill Ruck, a local radio engineer whom I don't know (but at least one person here does), could probably fill us in. He was down on unlicensed/pirate radio, but also does work for some licensed low-power FM stations. Or someone from Lectro, Shure, Zax, etc. who may have heard from customers who've been visited and have spoken directly with people at the FCC et al about this...

I'm extrapolating from what little I know, but since witnessing something kinda maybe similar, and since cheap(ish) d-tap/p-tap camera batts are increasingly part of my little world, I've learned a bit that *might* be relevant. Short version: D-Tap/P-Tap cables and ports aren't optimally designed or made...and different brands of connectors and ports don't necessarily connect cleanly...and all this can cause shorts. I have no idea if this is what you're dealing with Brian. Best of luck. If your were powering your R1a units with the same battery used to run the camera, maybe the p-tap cable shorted the R1a units? I'm pretty sure something like that happened on to a C300 a few years ago on a job (not my camera or department, "luckily," but all around bummer). So the camera battery that powered the camera had a d-tap port that was used to power a small monitor....and when plugging in the d-tap cable, the SDI BNC port on the C300 went down. The camera had to go back to Canon for repair. That's the only incident I've witnessed, but I've heard of people having the same problem with d-tap/p-tap connectors powering external monitors leading to fried camera SDI or HDMI ports on a few brands of camera (paraphrase: "This all worked fine for months...and the all of a sudden..."). Arri and Red both warn about stuff like this. And while I haven't heard of issues with RX, maybe... Apparently, when connecting a d-tap/p-tap cable to power, sometimes the d-tap/p-tap positive pin connects before the negative (especially on crappy or damaged connectors), and if the same battery is powering both the camera and an external peripheral connected through a BNC, HDMI, and perhaps audio port, then that port is used to close the circuit and sometimes fry the port (and perhaps peripheral). Not sure that's clear. I'll embed a couple links that explain things succinctly. So when using a single battery power to power both a camera (directly) and a peripheral (monitor, rx, etc) via d-tap/p-tap, first connect the battery to the camera, then connect the d-tap cable to the peripheral. And only then connect the audio (or monitor) cable to the camera and peripheral. When disconnecting, disconnect the audio/monitor cable before unplugging the d-tap cable. Or power your RX/monitor with their own batteries... Here's a three-page PDF from Arri titled "Preventing Damage to SDI outputs" https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/194752/d3093e6af632150787ec95d176a39958/download-technical-information-data.pdf Red has similar info: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/articles/360057166453-Preventing-Damage-to-SDI-Outputs Here's a one-minute video from Arri explaining the SDI short problem (google doesn't show the video on YouTube, so this might not embed): https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/195968/994529ee419abe1e2ca0dfbf95c4b4e1/marc-shipman-mueller-data.mp4 HTH!

Sigh. That sort of thing disappoints, me too. I saw a YT video (or series) a few years ago that claimed to show a guy building a camera from scratch. I was kinda "ya right" and then yep: He harvested a tree for the wood for the body, and then melted sand and borax etc. to make glass for the lens (and I think made tintype plates). Not sure this is the same video, but this one is pretty impressive. Also 22min long.

Location Sound posted this yesterday on Facebook: (You may need to click on the three dots below to see the whole image).

That's pretty weird/cool. You could ask on the Facebook TV Freelancers group. Lots of camops there who do sports. Active and not too crazy group. So you could probably get a quick answer... Though DIY doesn't seem too difficult, uh? https://www.facebook.com/groups/223729490971388

Scott Shepard sells a bunch of different mounts for ORTF, NOS, XY, etc. through Shapeways. 3D printed. https://www.shapeways.com/shops/srsrecordingservices And when I search Shapeways for ORTF, I get 117 results: https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace?type=product&q=ORTF Many other choices, of course. From Schoeps, K&M, etc. https://schoeps.de/en/products/accessories/stereo-accessories/bars-and-clamps.html