Bash

How or why were you shocked? sb

Although a canny line producer might manage to work out that the cost of a radio mic may be more than recouped over the entirety of a long production shoot, they will not be taking into account stuff like the risk, the maintenance, the love and care, the cables, the flight cases, the spares that you keep etc..... All of these add up, and in truth, they may well add 50-100% more to the apparent purchase price of the transmitter and receiver. Can you imagine saying to your line producer that although you 'require' only 6 radio mics, can you have two spare tx packs, and youd like lavs in black, white, and flesh colours, and you'd like 8 of each please, plus a spare OP loom, adaptor p[lates for when you go bag kit and pull the receivers from the rack, and spare aerials and aerial cables, blah blah..... If the production company 'own' the radio mics, then who will pay you to prep them, build them into your rig, clean them, care for them on the days off, guard them, etc.... Who will ensure that at the end of the shoot the tx packs are not put into storage with batteries left in them (cue next series, leaky batts in the packs). There is no incentive for you to 'love' the kit that is not yours. A more likely scenario, which I have seen happen (not to me - Iam not this lucky) is that a production might buy some specialist piece of kit (maybe comms kit) and at the end of the shoot the mixer 'buys' the kit from the show at a massively knocked down rate, like 25%. This has often been agreed before the kit is bought for the show. Also - would you want to be the guy that 'lumbers' the next mixer with not being able to charge for their own radio mics on the subsequent series. For all or any of the above reasons, and also that as you stated the kit is going to be paid for within the 6-7 months of the show, why would you NOT buy the kit, bank loan, credit card, borrow from your parents/children/boomswinger/whoever, and simply own the kit from the off. Enjoy your new kit ;-) Simon B

Thankyou Jim for an enlightening post - I never knew that Don had so much fascinating history. Is there any chance at all that someone might take on the Loon Boompole designs and continue to make them? Thanks again, Simon B

There was a piece on BBC Radio 4 a few days ago about the latest state of speech synthesis. They had a computer that was doing a pretty passable job of synthesising Trump. Ift was not totally convincing, but if you added a bit of BG noise and made it as if through a phone it was pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing. One of the points that they made was that it is now close enough, that from now on no one should necessarily believe that anyone in particular has actually said anything, unless you are in the room and hear/see them say it ;-) Happy days..... Simon B Can you imagine the big studios being cool with the dialogue editor sending off lines from their not yet finished film for some online service to process? sb

How very, very, sad. For all the Loon 'eccentricities', they made damned good product. About 2 years ago my Darling Emily and I made a fantastic vacation 'noodling' around the US in a hired car, About a week after we had left the area, I realised that we had literally driven within 500yds of their workshop. I so, so, wished that we had gone to visit........ RIP Don, sb

I am pretty sure that as JW mentions, there is no mix engine in the PIX recorders. That will pretty much for certain scupper that idea. The concept of an external mixer/fader surface for a pix is a great idea, but what you are basically suggesting is something of the ilk of an Allen & Heath QU-16, or better still a GLD, but with a DANTE card. You could maybe pipe the ISO feeds of the inputs out on DANTE to the fader panel/mixer, then pipe them back in on other DANTE channels. The devil in my ear says 'delays'. TBH I wonder whether the PIX is the machine on which to hang all of this. The no mix engine breaks the idea really. Enjoy, sb

you get the answer at 8'00

On the occasions that I have started something (episodical) that I think might run, hopefully with me in the main mixing role, I have done a big memo to post prod before we have started. This memo will include general settings like sample rate, file type, bit depth, Cedar mix on Ch1 and maybe 2, clean mix on ch 3 and maybe 4, Isos starting with booms and plants on 5+, radio mic isos starting on 11+, PB etc.. on ch 21+ etc..... By the time I have finished this email, I pretty much have the document that I need to send to 2nd unit mixers if they come on board. It works pretty well. Kindest regards to all, sb

The Mix Pre's will not grow with you, dont have proper TC, etc... 633 is a good basic all rounder Sonosax is a stunning machine, which has the ability to grow with you (extra IPs bolt on, fader panel coming, etc..) Maxx is... an interesting machine!! All of that siad - if you have a limited budget, and I say say this often to starter uppers, buy the kit that you will use the most, first. Buy a boom mic and a boom first - you will use it every day. Buy radio mics next, get second hand, quality stuff, not G3s Then but a mixer recorder. By the time you do this you will know what you want. If you cant afford the one that you want then sell your grandmother or wait. Do not buy a compromise on the mixer/recorder - you will be beholden to what you paid for it for so long that you will delay buying the one that you wanted and will then regret that. Good luck, and enjoy every day at work. I still do ;-) Kindest, sb

Dare I suggest that you take any MS recording, and play just the M, and then play the decoded. The difference is usually stunning ;-)

The brackets look dead cool. Any chance to make them in black? v3 soft is excellent. nice limiters - thankyou for these ;-) sb

If I remember rightly - Zaxcom recorders communicate with their panels in the realm of RS422 or RS232. Whilst I believe one can convert from USB (most music fader panels connect via usb, yes?) to 232/422 I suspect you would then need to remap the entire function and communication settings of the fader panel. Unless you are an excellent hacker/programmer I genuinely it could ever be financially practical to achieve this. On a related note. I believe that Sonosax are considering making their SX-R4+ look at standard fader panel protocols, which could be interesting. That said - does anyone know of any location practical fader panels with more than 8 faders? From the land of the hung parliament, Simon B

Go on then - you big tease - tell us some more about your new 24 track Dante rig, please!!!! sb

so it would probably cost twice as much !!!!

We may well need a far better mind than mine, but...... I have only ever experienced antenna combining for antennas of similar frequency bands. I have no experience of combining something from 216 with something much higher, like UHF, 606 etc.....Could you explain what you are trying to achieve please? Also - you dont often mount the antennas directly on the combiner. Usually there is a cable between the antenna and the combiner. More details please ;-) sb

Ron is definitely one of the good guys ;-) sb

Well spotted David. These will be significant ;-)

So.... Where are the photos????

I couldnt find those words. I got " Axient Digital combines two discrete RF signals per receiver channel using a quality-based maximal-ratio-combining algorithm. " which suggests to me the 'ratio combining' that Kish mentions in his 1010 video. It must be the new in thing ;-) No portable receiver though!!! Kindest, and envious of anyone who is at NAB ;-), Simon B

I couldn't agree more. I can't decide whether to stick with my existing 1010 6 way rack, which would give the potential for 12 channels of RM, or to go with the new 4 slot rack which would in fact make it easier to swap out from trolley to bag ;-)

Might it be an idea for us to start a brief list of which companies brought what new products to be shown at NAB this year?Feel free to edit/amend/improve etc..... Simon B Audio Ltd - 1010DDX twin digital Receiver/1u 4 slot rack unit with DANTE OP AudioRoot - Quad Charger Ambient - Nanolockit/MasterLockit Plus DPA - D-Vice Digital Audio Interface for phones/tablets K-Tek - Boombox and Sidekick Lectrosonics - Duet IEM Mozegear - QBit tiny TC generator/Mongo HP Amp Rycote - New Stickies and Overcover/Baseball Sound Devices - Mix Pre 3/Mix Pre 6/MD4 Analogue to DANTE 1U interface Timecode Systems - Ultrasync One Zaxcom - Deva 24, Mini Recorder, Mini Tx with 48v Phantom, Mini Tx with XLR IP, Rack Mounted RX12,

4.5hrs for lunch? I doubt I'd be capable of working after that long ;-) Is it me, or did I notice that Vitec are including Timecode Systems products in their publicity for various of 'their' brands? This, to me, would suggest that they may have bought TCS?

I believe that Fairlight have been building some quite big systems that have been used for big sports OB events, though I have not actually experienced the same in the UK yet ;-). I believe one of the big post audio places in Soho, London, has a lot of (networked) Fairlight kit.

Apologies Daniel, I happened to be passing Audio Ltd on Friday, and thought this might be of interest to a few folks so Kish and I just 'knocked it off. It plays OK on my phone. I should have flipped it in an edit program but it has been a busy weekend. Sorry for the neckstrain ;-) Hi Vas - I do not believe that Audio Ltd and SD have sorted out the comms to enable full control of 1010 Rx's with an SL6.... yet ;-) I believe that the intention is there to do so.

Not quite sure about the orientation of this when viewed on a laptop. It worked on my phone just fine.... Anyways. Here is a short video that I made on Friday when I happened to be passing Audio Ltd. It tells us a little more about the DDX 1010 receiver, which Kish should be showing at NAB. I am fascinated that the march onward in technology allows them to fit, literally, twice as much 'stuff' into the same sized box as the single channel 1010 Rx. That's technology for you ;-) sb Link here if it helps....