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Sooooo new at this...


giraffe

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True..leave the parachute pants (or the taffeta skirt) at home. I boom with one eye on the meters, one eye on mic proximity and one eye on my feet. Seriously though..I've kicked stuff, stepped on leaves, even shuffled my feet noisily. So yeah..it's kind of a creeping ninja thing. Sometimes I'll rock into a shot, rather than take a step, because I know in a few seconds, the talent will move back. It's a dance for sure. Footwork is highly important here. Soft squishy shoes. Plan your dance. Sometimes I'll ask to have a few cables skinnied up for my safe passage through the shot. I rehearse with the talent (or my boomie does). Get room tone for these moments. Hope it doesn't happen on a line. 

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Don't just "point at the mouth". Think of the voice pattern as a ball resting on someone's mouth, and the boom pattern is a cone. You want the ball in the cone. You don't want the person's head in the cone. The higher the mic, the wider the cone gets. You want the cone catching the ball, which is only in front of the actor. If you get too "pointy" with the mic, you get behind the actor and it makes it easier to miss cues when you have to "point" the other way. All the balls collect in front of people who are taking to each other. 

Cuing back and forth heavily will also cause shifts in background noise in poor locations. That is going to be more noticeable in your final product than being a little loose or a little off mic. 

Just listen with your ears and try to blend dialog and keep background noise consistent. New boom ops are best served keeping a mic a bit more vertical, a bit higher and more in front of the actors. It'll protect you from missing cues and shifting noise. If it's consistent, a lot will be forgiven. 

And no noisy pants, as previously advised. 

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Honestly when booming I think your foot work, stance and balance are probably more important then your hand work. Understanding how the the whole body/bone structure works will save you so much pain. That's a whole different thread.

Never walk flat footed. Use the sides of your foot and roll in as you step. The first point of contact changes depending on the step being made but generally it's the outside edge. 

Did a job with the SAS (elite soldiers) and we had a silent walk off. Now these guys have been trained. Guess who one. Well they did actually over a rough bush path walking slowly. I kicked their arse at walking at a moderate to quick speed on the same path. They did point out if they had to move that quickly they were probably under fire and quiet footsteps no longer mattered. The point is the were trained to walk the same way I do.

 

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Got the tascam dr70 today.

The preamps are noticeably better then the Rolland r-44, so that's a win.

Headphone amp is noticeably quieter though, so that's a bit of a bummer.

I'm using sennheiser hd280's which are pretty loud headphones, and the isolate some so they're pretty good.

I'll play with it for a while and see if the headphone amp is "good enough" or what.

 

The sound devices mp is just a small step over the tascam pre's frankly, but the limiting is much better. Gonna keep it.

 

 

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The difference between the pre's in the r-44 and the dr70 is pretty huge though, strictly from a noise floor standpoint.

And the dr70 has a (select line level) in the menu as opposed to just turning the gain knob down to +4, which makes me feel better about life, even if it doesn't actually change the result.

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5 minutes ago, giraffe said:

The sound devices mp is just a small step over the tascam pre's frankly, but the limiting is much better. 

would be interesting to know if the DR-70 has a "true" line level in. Some of the cheaper recorders basically pad things down and then everything goes through the mic-preamp anyway - that would explain if you don't hear a lot of difference. also I take it you compared the two with playback on a studio grade system and not through the recorders pre-amp (which also might level things).

that said, I'm sure sound quality is good enough, so time to focus on the recording part.

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would be interesting to know if the DR-70 has a "true" line level in. Some of the cheaper recorders basically pad things down and then everything goes through the mic-preamp anyway - that would explain if you don't hear a lot of difference. also I take it you compared the two with playback on a studio grade system and not through the recorders pre-amp (which also might level things). that said, I'm sure sound quality is good enough, so time to focus on the recording part. 

 

I edited my post above just before I saw this one re:the line level input.Don't actually know if the input is really truly line level though. I kind of suspect not.

 

And the test was strictly

Dr70 vs sound devises mp1 going into the dr70. So not perfect for evaluation, but "real world" for me.

I'm not saying "no difference" but if the r-44's pre's had sounded like this, I almost certainly never would have bought the mp1 in the first place.

I very much only expected "good enough" in my price range really. But the r-44 was hot garbage.

 

 

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Tascam DR70 specs state the HP "maximum output: 20 mW + 20 mW" ... p i t i f u l... and not nearly enough for a even high sensitivity HPs.. Most budget recorders and mixers have very anemic HP amps. The DR60 and 680 have 50mW (x2) HP amp which is about the minimum one can get away with using IMO.

"would be interesting to know if the DR-70 has a "true" line level in. Some of the cheaper recorders basically pad things down and then everything goes through the mic-preamp anyway"
-- The only Tascam I'm aware of that completely by-passes the mic preamps is the DR680. Most recorders these days just insert a pad in front of the mic input for line. (I recall even the SDs do this.. but of course their mic pres are primo). I suspect the DR70 just inserts a pad as well, but I haven't seen a schematic or block diagram to be certain. FWIW, the maximum line level input of the DR70 is +20 dBu, so it does support nominal +4dB..

 

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Bummer. Don't really want to spend more $ on a headphone amp.


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Any recommendations for an inexpensive headphone amp? Loudness is more important then perfection, frankly.


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I feel that a word of caution is in order here: if you plan to do this for a while, you will want to be able to hear above the tinnitus ringing, so don't monitor too loud in your headphones. Hearing damage can happen easier and faster than most people realize.

It's cool, I'm 40 not 18. As was said by other people above, the headphone amp in this unit is just particularly underpowered.


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I bought one of these type (generic with difference brand name) about six years ago on eBay for $25 (see pic below). The one I have runs on 18 volts (two 9 volts batts). I made another battery cover with a DC connector so I can use my external power. It's all aluminum and puts out enough clean volume to cause tinnitus and it's small enough for a bag (about 1/2 the size of a Lectro 195). I use mostly for after hours TV since my gear has adequate HP amps anyway.

HP amp.JPG

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