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first wireless system


greg sextro

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all this talk about buying a first recorder inspired me to ask you all your opinions on investing in a first wireless system. 

up until now, i have always rented.  i usually get lectros, but have also rented audio limiteds and once or twice had to use sennheisers.  i think on my next job i will try to rent zaxcoms and try those out.

most dealers have told me that on a professional standard, lectros are really the best "bang for your buck."  i will admit though, that my favorite sounding set-up that i've used was sonotrim mics with audio limited transmitters. 

but without getting into a discussion about mics themselves - can any of you shed any light as to your preferences or suggestions about investing in a wireless set-up?  should i look to buy used first?  for those people using zaxcom with the built in recorder, how much extra time does it take you if you end up needing to pull the audio off that card to provide to production?

any advice is greatly appreciated.

thanks

-greg-

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A very good friend, and mixer, gave me an extremely valuable piece of advice before I set out to buy my own gear.  If you don't buy what you want first, you will end up buying everything twice.

Renting items you need for almost every job does not make much sense to me.  Each time you rent it, it adds to the cost of an item you will eventually buy anyway.  Even at a bad interest rate of 12%, it is usually cheaper to buy the items you want.  The interest is usually cheaper than renting, and you can be sure the gear is not abused, and you don't have to waste time-gas-etc. picking up and returning the gear.

I occasionally rent a 442, because I don't want to use any other portable mixer, but I don't need it often enough to cover the interest expense.  And when I rent it, I get accessories I dont' want to buy either.

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I use a slightly different philosophy when it comes to buying equipment.  When I first started, I looked at the types of jobs I felt I was going to get (very low budget very low pay) and built a basic kit that would be good enough for those types of jobs.  From that point forward, I didn't add to my kit until everything else was paid for.  Then I improved my kit - often several pieces at a time - but once that round of upgrades was made, I held out again until it was paid for.  For me this was a basic business decision.  Reinvest my earnings to improve the quality of my kit and improve the quality of jobs that I was willing to take on.  I learned a lot, listened a lot, tried out a lot of gear, and yes, have probably purchased several items several times over, but always better each time.  I've also sold off some of the lower end gear as I moved forward, and some I have hung on to so I have backups.  And now, I'm at that point again - this time going for a major upgrade to my wireless (going from G2's to Lectro).  Again, I'm doing this in incremental steps.  Is there more to improve?  Always.  But again, living in the lower budget world, it is very hard for me, from a business perspective, to rationalize going out and buying the best kit possible all at once.

A friend (a DP) and I were talking gear, and I told him the cost of a new Deva V and Cooper mixer, and he looked at me and said, "You could buy a really nice car for what those cost".  I laughed, but it's true.

So, a long winded answer to your question:  Buy the gear that makes the most sense for you, from a business perspective and a strong ROI.  If you don't think the payback will be appropriate fast enough, then start out with used Lectro systems and work your way up to Zaxcom.

Phil

(Pretending to be a business man when it comes to sound, when in reality it's a good thing I still have a day job to fund my sound job.  :-)

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phil,

i think first buying a used lectro system might be my best option.  i don't do nearly enough production work to justify buying a new system (i've already dropped enough on new mics!) plus i have two cos-11s wired for lectro.  (which i thought i might rewire if i went with something else)

i still would be interested in hearing from any zaxcom users out there.  mainly about the built in recording features.

thanks for the thoughts

-greg-

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i still would be interested in hearing from any zaxcom users out there.  mainly about the built in recording features.

-greg-

I think the recording feature of the new Zaxcom wireless is amazing but realistically it is not a feature or a function that will be quickly or seamlessly integrated into most of our work. The sound mixer who has had the most experience with the Zaxcom wireless, Billy Sarokin in New York, had a very enthusiastic and progressive thinking post group to work with which made experimenting with the recording feature possible. When you look at the reluctance of many of the other people involved to adopt anything new (the Nagra replacing the magnetic film recorder, DAT replacing the Nagra, the file based recorders replacing DAT, etc.) you can see that there are many things that will need to be worked out to make use of the recording function. That said, the way I look at the Zaxcom wireless with recording feature (and actually quite a lot of other very unique features starting with it being the only ALL DIGITAL system in use) is that it is a terrific wireless mic system on its own AND it can record as well whether you ever need that function or not.

My 900's have performed beautifully and I have not used the recording function in production, yet. But I am very pleased to own a terrific wireless mic system that also provides for features and fuunctions that I could not have with any other product.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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