Confidence/roll beep in headphone monitor

[Phil Palmer]

I had one of those "oh my god, I'm not rolling situations today".  Yes, it happens every once in a great while.  I hit the bell, light, metadata, slate, record, blah...blah, 80 to 100 times a day, and it's bound to happen.  When we had Nagra and DAT, there was always the confidence delay of the headphone return that gave us the warm fuzzy that we were recording.  I'd love to see an option in our HD recorders, CF recorders, and whatever...that would give a short beep tone in the headphone feed when we go into record.  Just a little audible message that things are going down...

Any thoughts on this before I send this to the DEVA newsgroup?

Thanks!

[Guest repete86]

Ouch, I know the feeling.  Luckily on my recording unit there's a brief delay when it starts rolling where there's absolute silence, so I know when it's recording, but still I've missed it a few times.

[Jim Rillie]

available currently on the Cantar

Jim Rillie

[Jeff Wexler]

available currently on the Cantar

Jim Rillie

Hey, Jim, just for clarification, what's available currently on the Cantar, a beep in the headphones when you go into record?

-  JW

[Phil Palmer]

Yes it beeps

Very good to know.  I have passed a link on to Zaxcom regarding this feature.  Hopefully it will make it on the list.

Thanks!

PWP

[Guest Glenn]

No problem we will do it in the near future for Deva IV and V.

Glenn

[Andrew Bellware]

Honestly, this is why I use a backup machine. I figure that I'm bound to get at least ONE machine into record on a given take if I have two machines. I figure I blow about one take on a feature by not going into record on my primary machine. So at the next break I roll the take into the primary machine off of my backup and nobody's the wiser. . .

As for confidence: I liked the audio "gulp" on my old Fostex DAT machine when it went into and out of record. And it was nice with those DAT machines and analog machines to have that delay in the headphones to indicate recording (although now I'm usually too far from set to hear dialog acoustically from outside my headphones).

[soundtrane]

Last year on one of my gigs, it was the longest day of all, and it was the last shot of the day. it was 'round midnight. very quiet medieval castle perched on a hill many kilometers away from the nearest noise-source (town). intimate scene, very very quiet dialog, strong wind and the night. "roll sound" and i hit (a) button on the Deva IV and yelled "speed". in my headphones i head myself rather too loudly announcing "speed". i did not get it then, and the shot went on until I heard 'cut' and immediatley afterwards, another 'cut'. that's when i realized that i had hit the play button instead of the rec button. most embarassing moment of my life as a sound mixer, even more embarassing than having my 4.2 run out on a long take that went too long. a lot more embarassing than a big hit on my rf or TC not rolling on the slate or my cooper conking out or the battery running out on a wireless or my discovering the 'small folder' in the Deva IV... i HIT the WRONG button.

i did not know whether to laugh or cry when the producer came up to me and hugged me and said it's ok. on the way back to the hotel, 2 hours away, and later in bed i didn't feel ok.

a beep would have helped.

-vin

[old school]

I too have spaced, and not hit record when I first got my Deva 4. The system i came to to use was I hit record when i hear the stix, the 10 sec pre roll is a great advance in recording tech..  I haven't missed a take in 6 months,  probably will miss 2 on monday.  Kudos to Glenn and the peeps at Zaxcom. Also a recording beep in the headphones would be a nice upgrade.

Regards, old school,