Jeff Wexler

Chat feature will be disabled as I work on installing something which I think will work better. Thank you for your patience. I installed the Chatbox on this site many months ago but it has gotten ZERO use by any of our members. I'm not even sure it is displayed in the navigation area on the main page. Is there anyone who wants to see if it is working (and more importantly I would like to hear if this is a feature anybody will want to use). Below you will see a screenshot that shows the button in the header for the Chatbox.

I pretty much settled into doing medium to high budget feature films and almost always had a transportation department that would deal with my cart(s) and equipment package. When I used to do commercials, I had a van which could easily transport my full size cart and cases. If I were to design and build a mini-cart (or what is sometimes referred to as a "bag cart") I would probably go for some variation of the Zuca cart (the ones that Eric Ballew does).

Philip said: "Those carts are gear-carriers. Our carts are personal workstations" I'm with Philip P. here, the sound cart bears almost no similarity to the carts that camera operators, assistants, DITs and Steadicam operators use except that they all have wheels. I'm referring mostly to rather high end sound carts that are used in major motion picture and television productions --- not your basic hand truck type cart that just serves to get your bag/gear to the set from the trunk of your car. A full sound cart is actually a specialized workstation, something which camera operators, etc. do not need --- they generally just need a means to house the equipment and have it moveable on the set. I have always built my own sound carts all the way back to the first one I did in 1970: a Sears television cart I purchased and then highly modified to suit my "style" of working (which was, of course, only just beginning to be developed). The big breakthrough for me was seeing Michael Evje's cart, the first ever upright style cart with sliding shelves for the Nagra and mixer. From that point on I always built upright carts, at some point standardizing on essentially rack mount width (in the beginning, none of our gear was rack mount stuff). My only regret was that I never invested in a lot of the right tools to do as truly proper build --- almost all of my carts were built with a hand drill and a hacksaw. When I needed welding or help-arc, I would get some help from someone who could do that stuff (several times this would be the Special Effects person on a movie I was doing). I built a total of 9 carts over 46 year long career. Anyone interested, I have a brief history (incomplete) of sound carts I have owned or built. LINK to personal website

Your question is little confusing (not the part about needing help, that's kind of obvious) are you looking for a recorder or are you looking for a microphone? Why something that s rack mount? Try and re-state what you're looking for and maybe we can help you out.

Quite often sound is the most under-appreciated aspect of filmmaking even though photography and sound are the two most important tools in cinematic storytelling. This is a workshop for those who want to explore the technical knowledge and set procedures required of professional sound recordists and mixers in a wide range of field productions. It will be equally attentive to craft and theory. Led by Oscar-Winning Production Sound Mixer Mark Ulano, the workshop covers the preparation, necessary equipment, processes and techniques for recording and mixing sound in the field. Students learn to appreciate the protocols common to all TV and movies, the importance of inter-departmental communication and cooperation, the correct use and function of equipment, and the physical and sonic challenges of working on location. LINK to Main Media Workshops+College

Thank you Neil for catching this. I have informed the company that this sort of advertising is not allowed on the site, actually, not even in the Manufacturer and Dealer section (though as a courtesy I have left a brief announcement of its availability left up on the site). I have made available to this company a paid banner ad if they wish to put one up for this product. There are many other sites that can be used for this sort of promotion.

Nice! Yep, that's my father! Not only a great cinematographer, a social and political activist, a great father. I really miss him -- made it to age 93 and was still shooting, still making trouble up until his passing in 2015. Here is one of my favorite photos, on the movie "Coming Home". We got to work together on several movies, hundreds of commercials and documentaries.

Glenn and Colleen did a really nice presentation with Thomas Popp for Trew Audio, showing the URX-50 and URX-100. This IFB system really takes IFB to a whole new level with features and functions beyond anything your basic, standard IFB. Take a look: https://youtu.be/5iA_JtcQgjg

This is a beautiful cart!! I hadn't seen the old version or this new one before. I like the solid hub wheels -- reminds me of the sort of wheels are on the vehicles designed to do land speed records. I have never considered having a cart that is adjustable height as you say this one is, too concerned about weight no matter how it's done. I think Simon Bishop built a cart that is adjustable to provide for mixing sitting or standing.

Love this!!

Your statement is incorrect. The Tentacle-E has a headphone jack to facilitate setup monitoring and for playback of audio directly from the card. For the US model, Tentacle decided to disable the headphone jack during recording -- this is obviously done so as to not in any way infringe on the Zaxcom patent. From what I can tell so far, Tentacle has done a terrific job is designing this unit and for its specific market I think it will be very successful. I will also add that generally for its intended purpose, placing on a subject to be recorded, disabling monitoring while recording shouldn't b e a big obstacle to its effective use. If you really need to monitor while recording, use a wireless transmitter and spit the mic to feed both.

Looking at the website, it appears that this battery is designed to be a drop in replacement for devices that would normally use a similar (physical dimensions) sealed lead acid battery. I have had experience with a few of these from other manufacturers and I have a few comments. They often are rated, amp hours, a equivalent to SLA battery in performance in the intended device (scooters, wheel chairs, solar installations, etc.) but sometimes turn out to be seriously underrated. This is difficult to determine in advance. Secondly, the website does not make any recommendation for battery charger which makes me think that they expect that you will use whatever SLA battery charger or charging system the the device already employs. This again is sometimes less than ideal --- using a charger designed for SLA batteries with a LiFe battery. You need to do some more research to be clear about these issues. As before, I highly recommend all of the product from Bioenno Power -- LINK to Bioenno website

Just to clarify, you are suggesting that you would like to see a Sound Devices mixing console that had inputs and the recorder is built in? This has been done a few times in the past and it has not seemed to be something that most people want. There is still a desire amongst some to have the mixer (panel) be standalone DC powered mixer that has all the physical inputs and outputs you would expect and ids actually performing the mixing function. This sort of mixer can, of course, be used with any recorder. What seems to be preferred these days by most is a fully featured mixer/recorder that handles all the inputs and outputs and mixing, with comprehensive routing, EQ and FX -- all of this under control from either the mixer/recorder itself or a hardware control surface.

No problem, no harm done --- you are welcome on the site (I will contact you privately to discuss support for your company on the site). Regards, Jeff Wexler -- JWSOUNDGROUP

Thank you, Shastapete for catching this. Definitely testing the limits of what is allowed on the site, This is full on advertising and should be paid for. If I do not hear from this company I may have to take the post down altogether.

I hadn't noticed any change to the attachment procedure and I have, I believe, made some posts with images in line --- text followed by an image, then more text and possibly another image. I will look into this. My procedure was always to write some text then "attach" an image by dragging to the window that accepts attachments (sometimes "choose files..."). Then I check to see where the cursor is in the text, click it where I want the image to show, then back down to the attachment window and click on the "+". I will try and demonstrate this for myself and get back to you.

Don made a few windscreens and shockmounts over the years as we were pretty much the first to use Schoeps mics here in the US. The general feeling amongst most sound teams at that time was that the Schoeps mic was a music microphone not suitable for production film sound. So, there were no windscreens available to properly utilize the Schoeps particularly for exterior work. While working in France, we went to a sound equipment place in Paris, AudioVisual I believe, and saw the first Cinela mounts. As Cinela developed their mounts and the windscreens, we never felt the need to build our own anymore and we went all in on Cinela.

Eric was a dear friend, founding father of the annual r.a.m.p.s. party at NAB, I think I met Eric first at the Lagoon Saloon over 30 years ago at the first party. I am going to miss him terribly.

I have made a Zoom meeting available to members for use whenever they want -- you can join a meeting without a host. I put up links, both in the Sidebar and at the top of the site in the global header. Clicking on the link will take you to the JWSOUNDGROUP meeting (with the link you will not need a password). Feel free to invite others by directing them to use the link and you can then have a meeting together. So far, I don't think anyone has made use of this. Let me know if it all works and if this is useful for our members. LINK to JWSOUND Meet

Actually, there IS an issue if you started this topic with a hidden agenda (well maybe not so hidden anymore) --- I welcome, of course, the majority of the posts here that have praised the site, celebrated its longevity and usefulness for so many, and those who have re-affirmed that it isn't Facebook and that is a good thing. From now on, at least in this topic thread, let's keep the personal battles or disagreements out of here.

I really did not want to get involved in this dispute, if that's what it is, but from my perspective there is some blame to both parties involved by bringing this issue to the various sites, JWSOUND and Facebook. It is my feeling that this whole issue, right or wrong in terms of administering social media groups, banning members, deleting posts, etc., should be settled privately amongst the parties involved. Personally, as creator and chief moderator of this site, I have been very lucky to have been involved in only a handful of "disputes" or contentious posts and I have not found it necessary to remove any members or even delete any posts. Our community here on JWSOUND has been really good at policing themselves --- certain members when they stray from the usually thoughtful and civil discourse, are called out by other members and guided back to reasonable behavior. I am grateful for that. Let's hope this current issue can be resolved between Doc and Rado privately --- I value the participation of both of these people. To Doc and to Rado, if there is anything I can be helpful with, off the site, please contact me directly: jw@jwsoundgroup.net

Thank you, Rado, for all your support --- it is the members here that make JWSOUND a great site. There have been times when I wanted it to be Facebook (I felt that we were losing a lot of people and had become less relevant). Now, I am happy to keep JWSOUND going, it is quite a bit different than Facebook in many ways and our core members seem to appreciate that. So, for me, I will continue to participate in all the social media, including of course the site that bears my name.

This is interesting stuff, curious to hear what you are saying the people at Bioenno have said about this sort of setup. I can only comment from real world experience (at least 10 years working with the cart power supplies I built that do a float, not as charging circuit). My typical setup was a 40 amp hour LiFe battery pack (Bioenno usually) and a Meanwell medical grade regulated power supply rated at 10 amps. The regulated power supply is connected directly to the battery and from there the various access point connections (the load, the equipment to be powered). I found that in operation, I always wanted to start out with a fully charged battery --- this was accomplished with an external, product specific charger (also from Bioenno). When on the set, I would power up all the equipment possibly even before obtaining AC. Once connected to AC, the load is now drawing off the regulated DC power supply and not the battery. If AC got pulled, or I had to make a move, the load would then be drawing off the battery alone. Once restored AC, we're back to the load being powered by the regulated DC power supply and "topping off" the battery voltage. This always worked. I imagine there may be some serious electrical flaw (which is what it seems you are saying Bioenno is saying) but I never suffered any bad result from this design.

First question: are these fires being created for the purpose of the shoot or are you shooting a documentary that takes place where there is a bonfire already integral to the event? If this is a dramatic shoot, the fire is probably being created for the shoot and will be accomplished by a Special Effects person. Typically, bonfires, fires in a fireplace, etc., are created with fake non-combustible materials (logs, etc.) and propane gas. This is so there is control over the size of the fire, keeping the consistency of the "burn" throughout the duration of the scene. Professional Special Effects people have developed many techniques to keep these on camera fires quiet --- I have worked on movies where you could get right down to the fireplace and not even hear anything! I have also worked with some less talented, or less caring Effects people who have created fires that are impossible to deal with. Give us some more detail on what it is you are doing and we can come up with some suggestions and guidance.

Remoting antennas and mixing log periodics and di-poles (which is what the RF Venue single unit does) is often a really bad idea. To weigh in on this it really depends on the type of diversity the wireless you plan on using utilizes. Most systems either use antenna diversity or receiver diversity, some systems can utilize either one or the other. There have been mixed reports from several people regarding the RF Venue single unit --- everyone agrees it is a really nice tidy package and easy to use, but performance has been less than stellar. There is even more evidence that separating the 2 antennas and spacing them very far apart (in an attempt to cover larger areas) does not always yield good results. I hope someone who is more knowledgeable about RF than I am will chime in here.