Sync playback

[bperlman]

This old dog needs some new tricks.  From grease pencil marks on 1/4" to DAT to time code on one track of a mini disc or cd, there have been so many different systems used.  Each way had it's pluses and minuses.  Try to jog a DAT to find that perfect "in" mark...  For non-sync playback I've lately been using Courtney Goodin's Widget.  It's simple and full of utilities like the ability to place cue points and easily add start beeps.  Although the time code can be read and even fed to a monitor, It cannot be stripped out to a slate.  So... I would love to hear what others are using these days (especially on HD shoots).

Thanks,

Bruce Perlman

[old school]

Hey Bruce, Crew C here, nice to see you posting at Jeffs site. I've had great luck using the M box that comes with , or is Pro Tools, it works with Mac or PC. You can set up your own tracks, program on 1 tc on 2. Send 1 to your board and then to Playback, and TC out of output 2 to a comtek and then to the slate. SSI also will set up your tracks this way, or any way you want them. They will send them to you on a cd or dvd, or you can download them from their web sight, which is very cool and fast. They said that they don't do dat any longer. On Pro Tools, the wave form on the edit window is easy to read and you can set markers, or loop sections or the whole track. Pro Tools is a very deep program/softwware system that will enable you to do just about anything you can think up, though it can take awhile to learn all of it, but basic recording and playback are simple. It may be worth your time to check it out.

Regards , Old School

PS say hey to Ron

[old school]

Also Bruce, call me if you have any questions, I can talk alot faster than I can type.

adios

[bperlman]

Thanks Crew.  I knew I'd have to come face to face with Pro Tools eventually.  In fact I've been looking for a good reason to get to know the beast and this seems to be it.  Will pick your brain later about a good place to get the program and hardware.

And Jeff, I don't know why it took me so long to find you guys here.  This is great. 

Thanks for your help.  Hope all is well.

Bruce.

[Scott Smith]

Bruce,

For the past couple of years, I've been using Adobe Audiition along with a Digigram Pocket VX card on a PC laptop. It has allowed me great flexibilty with editing and other chores, and doesn't seem to hog a lot of system resources. It saved my sanity during the shooting of "Roll, Bounce" where we had a lot of tricky music playback cues.

BWF-Widget Pro has the nice feature of adding cue beeps as well, but doesn't do editing within the program.

I am experimenting with a couple of ideas that will allow for outputting SMPTE code to a slate for music video style shooting as well, where the edtors prefer to see the source TC at the beginning of the take.

Scott D. Smith

[cmgoodin]

Just curious, Scott.  What kind of editing do you end up doing on playback tracks?

Other than placing Beeps, I can't say I've ever needed to edit a music track. (on a computer)  And recorded VO or puppet voice tracks usually have to match back to the original master, so cutting them would destroy the relationship to the original Time Code unless that code is on an audio track and you do multiple slates.

I used to have to splice on leader to 1/4" tracks that were prepared poorly. But haven't done any editing to playback tracks (recorded by others) since I went to digital.

---Courtney

[old school]

Hey Courtney, I understand and agree that one would never cut T.C. playback tracks, but I have cut and rearanged tracks for play back to be used as puppet or animated voices to cue on camera actors. I'm doing a movie for cartoon network right now and everyday I'm cutting and moving tracks around for creative reasons or to make my cuing tighter. Without a program like protools, I can't imagine being able to do this in a timely manner. The good news is the tools are cool, the bad news is we  are now expected to pull the rabbit out of the hat for the same money as basic recording plus a little for extra gear.

Regards , Old School

PS I still have my 1/4 in splicing block and tape roll, do you and all the others out in the sound world?

[cmgoodin]

Hey Crew.

I can see how you might need to re-arrange tracks for an animated character interacting with live action.  I used to use SAW from iqsoft. It worked pretty well for that kind of stuff and could build a playlist from several files with multiple cue points in each file.  It worked well, and SAW was a very small and fast editor. (it was written in assembler)  Today I think it has become as bloated as Pro-Tools though.

----Courtney

[Sound Intuition]

I am currently working on a show that has alot of playback. We use a program called Sound Forge. It is a dgital sound editing program for windows. Yes we do edit tracks on the day according to the scene. I leave the master tracks alone but take samples to use in the scene. It also allows me to split the audio from the TC and feed them seperately. When the tracks come from the music composer I can load them in as data or as wave files. This makes it very easy on set to get the meta data or to split tracks. I have tried to use BWF with the Deva for sound reports but find it a real pain that I can not mirror at the same time to an external source when I mirror to the internal DVD. Also I only use the lap top on days we have playback. I just don't have the room on the cart every day. With all the multi feeds and tracks going to and from the Deva I find that I have become more of a computer programer and less of an onset mixer.

[Scott Smith]

Hi Courtney

I have done (sometimes extensive) editing to music tracks that were used for playback on various films over the past few years, as well as dialogue for phone calls, etc. Not every project requires this, of course, but having the option to perform edits where needed has been a great help.

I have done this quite a bit for music projects where we have been re-tracking new vocals comped with an existing pre-recorded track. I have also been in situations where we have pre-recorded a track on set, and need to edit it for subsequent playback. I actually used to hand splice 1/2" and 1" master tapes to accomplsih this back in the day. A real nightmare when it came to sync!

While it used to be that I would not want to touch a pre-recorded sync track, the realities of how films are edited nowadays has changed much of that. When we did the movie "Roll-Bounce" recently, I probably edited at least half of the tracks we used for playback, mostly to accomplish the segues between music sequences within a shot, extend a vocal sequence, or shorten a piece within the track.

I usually send the re-cut file to the editor (as well as recording it on the production track for dailies). Obviously, the edits have to be duplicated on whatever master material the tracks were originally sourced from.

--Scott

Just curious, Scott.  What kind of editing do you end up doing on playback tracks?

Other than placing Beeps, I can't say I've ever needed to edit a music track. (on a computer)  And recorded VO or puppet voice tracks usually have to match back to the original master, so cutting them would destroy the relationship to the original Time Code unless that code is on an audio track and you do multiple slates.

I used to have to splice on leader to 1/4" tracks that were prepared poorly. But haven't done any editing to playback tracks (recorded by others) since I went to digital.

---Courtney

[Philip Perkins]

I used Sound Forge a lot for various playback and on-set editing chores for years, until my IBM laptop died.  It's a great program--I use it every day in the studio as well.  I had to go w/ a Mac laptop to run Metacorder, so for playback work I've been using Audacity and its been great.  I don't do music videos anymore, but for other playback uses I don't deal w/ SMPTE much anymore--it seems just as good to re-record the playback track to the master recorder (on a film shoot) and slate it as a normal sync take (like we used to do pilotone playback jobs in the last century).  Post gets each take synced up to a guide track after telecine--seems to work well.

Being able to edit on location really rocks.

Philip Perkins

[Roger Slater]

I use Audition  on a Thinkpad. Last winter  on an exterior night shoot, it was so cold that ice formed on the screen, yet it performed faultlessly.

On one shoot I had a backing track delivered  that was in a key that was too high for the actor to sing to. There was a moment of production panic, as the composer had gone on vacation. I lowered the pitch  and put it back in tempo, using Audition, in about 45seconds. Try that on the good old NAGRA......

Regards

Roger  Slater  AMPS

Malvern UK

[bperlman]

I guess by now I should know that when you open the can of worms, the worms WILL crawl out.  Shortly, after I opened this thread I recommend a mixer friend to cover a job for me.  He is told, last minute, it involves sync playback for a well known chanteuse.  The PB material is on a DAT tape!

He, of courses, suggests transferring to either a CD or a non SMPTE laptop program.  Something that is easy to cue and to manipulate start points.  Not having Pro-Tools he has no other options.  A brouhaha ensues.  The director/cameraman insists that SPMTE playback is a must, the producers are clueless and the mixer is forced to use the DAT tape (and aren't they fun to cue up?).  He makes it work, but feeling are hurt. He and the director are not likely to work together again and I've got to make the ugly phone call defending the mixer.

Anyhow, Blah, blah, blah... The story is familiar.  Like most of us lately, I've been doing it the way Phillip and others described.  Forget the playback timecode, shoot new slates and let post deal with it.  It is certainly convenient and I never get yelled at by the editors, BUT is it really the right way to do it.  Probably not but it works. 

Some editors have told me that their programs don't like repeating TC anyhow and it makes a mess for them.  Others have said that the TC visual reference is helpful but not necessary.  Other have said, huh!  Interested in your thoughts.

Also, would the Edirol (with TC out, jog wheel and edit capability) be a good stand along playback unit?

Thanks,

Bruce

[curleysound]

IMHO the Edirol R4 would be the perfect location playback device. Add an Anchor speaker, or a PAL speaker, and you can go anywhere, and do anything (Except speed up the tracks I think). Are they even on the market yet?