Brian Liston

I have worked on a lot of motor sports shows, both on location and in post. The "Standard Issue" Sennheiser headset that are used for broadcasters is not awesome. It is only OK, relatively inexpensive, durable and everywhere. The headsets come with the truck on those shoots. So I could see this being bought by truck owners who already have one point whatever million dollars in the truck. So four of them would be like 10K (Play by, Colour, Guest, Spare). Not so bad, considering they usually have 10K in 416s and 418s alone. How much do those Calrec boards cost anyway? Since the loudest thing on the broadcast is the announcers, it would stand to reason to put more money on that than the atmosphere sound I don't think anyone would expect this to be in our kit, even if you worked on these shows. If you were Sound Sup on one, it would just be a request item to the truck company.

Avid's policy of late is that a piece of gear will be supported for five years after it is discontinued. So, those people who bought a $100,000 Icon console last year have 4 years before it becomes more of a boat anchor.

It still sounded better than Superman from last year. That is still the worst sound in a major picture I have ever seen. The Subs clipped out a couple of times, but I did not strain to hear the dialogue as much as some that I have seen at the same IMAX theater.Maybe I'm getting used to this style? Egads.

I'm on an Amira shoot right now with an ERX-2 as a hop. At first they were complaining about a TC error code, and I assumed it was from the ERX. However, on day 3 the code came up and I didn't power on the ERX yet. It has taken the TC at 1V just fine and everything else has been nice and tight.

I've been on shoots there several times. Trust me when I say this: they don't care. The only country I've been in that is looser is Argentina. I have never ordered the "Selected Rectum" at a restaurant, but it appears to be quite popular with the locals, as is boiled chicken feet. Go to the night markets, they are pretty rad. If you can, get to the east coast. Just gorgeous! If you need a local camera/grip in Paipai/Taichung, let me know. I have a great dude who speaks perfect English and really knows the ins and outs of the film biz there. Your production company will love him. PM me if you're interested and I'll fire it to ya. That is my opinion. I hope it was helpful.

I wouldn't call the Dante compatable offerings from Yamaha or PreSonus "Small," Looking at A&H iLive, none of them are small by the time you'd have to add on a stage box to get some I/O. The Behringer X32 producer is the smallest I can see with 16 press on the board. Bummer that you would then lose USB support, and that is still a sizable mixer for a cart.

Hope your wife didn't just buy you a Jaguar All the best my man. Brilliant work!

Are there any small mixers that have a MADI out to go to this thing? Otherwise the rack of MADI converters that I typically use would dwarf the footprint of this guy.

I love Uncle Neil! I was shocked to hear his name getting put on a digital music device with the whole "Analog is like a warm mist on your face. Digital the same, but with ice cubes." feeling that he used to go on and on about. In the early nineties I remember reading that quote from him in Wired or something. Most people's mp3 collection sounds like poop because people re-encode their files over and over again, like a fourth generation cassette that people used to have in their cars in the 70s.

Pretty much what John said. Or, to be more jaded: Some processing like Elastic Audio doesn't work as well as it THEORETICALLY should. Stretch some dialogue until you can just hear the artifacts. Then, do a save session as 192, perform the same task and hear different results. Elastic audio is not the only one that suffers from this. They all should oversample, but many plugs don't have reliable schemes for whatever reason. The Massenburg Eq is a different animal at 192. It will be interesting to see if AAX can work better at 192K in PT11 than RTAS in 10 and prior. I've got too many bugs in the current version, 11.1.2 for me to really run it through the ringer just yet, but I've got high hopes.

On "what specs matter," I don't think any particular spec matters like they used to. Headroom and wow and flutter and the like had such small margins in the tape days, that any useful "specs" comparisons to today's digital stuff is near impossible. Some observation based on facts, personal observations, and a dose of optimism for the future. - Analog stages of the A/D and D/A matter far more than the digital stage. A Radar at 44.1K kills most 192K cheaper recorders. A Radar at 192K is tough to beat. So, good filtering at 32K can sound better than say a zoom at 96K. That would be tough to see on a spec sheet. All smoothing filters are not created equal. - Digital Clock matters. However, high sample rates mitigate clock problems. An Antelope Clock will make audible differences at 44.1, but is really hard to tell the difference at 192K. - Higher sample rates yield better results during manipulation. Elastic audio, noise reduction and other tasks performed by post every day yield fewer artifacts when recorded at 192/24. Post will often upsample before manipulation. - Rupert Neve believes that there is a sort of intermodulation/partials kind of thing that happens to audio. IOW, what happens above the range of human hearing affects things within that range. I worship at his temple of audio. - Every time you convert an audio file (say from 16, to 24 or 44.1 to 96K) the audio is compromised from some interpolation. There is then noise introduced (willingly!) to mask these problems. - DSD will never be a viable format due to file manipulation constraints. It needs to be converted to manipulate (see above). - SInce it all ends up as a 44.1 mp3, as the fatalists above have insinuated, it is best to record at the highest sample/bit rate possible. I believe: It all goes downhill, so make it sound better than needs to be before the manipulation/squish. Not the, "its just going to an mp3 anyway, so why bother." - Audio file sizes are becoming meaningless. Music was a pirating problem before video for that reason. On shoots, I'll turn in 2.4 GB, whereas the RED will turn in 4TB. I could turn in 5GB of 96K or 10GB of 192K, and the DIT will still have the same grouchy-ness level when handed a card. I wouldn't call it meaningless for RF transmission however! - I believe in the future, audio recordings will be 192K/32 bit. First in music studios (you can thank Avid for this not already being a standard), then on set, and then everywhere else. Computers 10 years from now are going to be so fast, our silly little 5MB/minute track weight won't be felt even if it is 25mb/minute. - I believe that in the future, cheap digital microphones will take over the market. Once the Chinese figure this out, look out. Converting the signal that far up the process eliminates most of the circuitry involved in a microphone amplifier, pre amp, DAC, etc. Much of the designs for these stages is about dealing with noise from the transmission from one component to the next.

Mavericks has been rocking for me. Better battery life on my 3 year old laptop, and Protools 10 and 11 both seem quite happy. Adobe Creative Cloud, Quickbooks and any other app has had no problems. There is a report on DUC that there is a known bug n PT10, but there has been a workaround posted.

Awesome, a new slate. I would have imagined a new slate would be a more modern design (as in computer control, display face), priced in the laptop-price category that our current offings are (which is just crazy IMO). But hey, one at less than half the price looks pretty groovy too. My first question is: Does it get the sync error when jammed from a Nomad at what they call 23?

You've obviously not been to Madison. A very vibrant green plant culture.

Well done!

Awesome!

I use a 40 by default, unless I'm getting really weird low end, like say when I do Motorsports. I know a working LA guy who insits every filter be cranked to 240 or whatever the max is. I almost never go past 120. I told him he needs to spend some time in post, because all of the gravitas is gone baby. Just gone. Oh, and when using a Schoeps I always use the cut on the mic and not on the mixer. Better that way. And trying to explain audio stuff to an editor is often difficult. Telling them doubling the track is the same as turning it up 6db is often greeted with a "Wha...?" But we must educate our little friends lest they go around wasting tracks and resources by doubling. Then, if they use an audio post guy, we (audio post guys) then have to dig around and spend time undoing their garbage.

Not having any metal means that the diaphragm and other parts won't corrode in harsh environments. It seems from the specs and description to be aimed at permanent installs for communications and surveillance in labs, ocean crafts and other mic-killing environments.

Interesting. From the manual: The main areas of application of the optical microphone are acoustic measurement and communication tasks in industrial environments and EMC-sensitive areas as well as medical magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalographic measurement (MEG). Other applications are to be found in the field of non-detectable acoustic surveillance.

I guess I need some picks. 30 minutes with an Xacto and moleskin has not made any impact on the sound and put some tape gunk where I don't want it. It seems like the click is inside the button knob thing, and not from the button knob thing striking the faceplate.

LOL. Good one. I can never tell on the internet if someone is trying to be either cute or snarky without the little smily face. But seriously I said exactly that in like three other places. "He is known as a Les Paul Player except by.." was the heart of the thing.

Once again Jack, I think you have the best working Nomad. I have had mine for a year and a half now and I would say that multi knob is way too loud still. I hear the damn thing in recordings all the time. And yes I do the lean to side thing. I really wish I could fly around the menus while rolling to double (triple) check settings and enter Meta Data. I was recently comparing mine to a mate's, and his was loud as well. Instead I sit starring at the Nomad in terror that it will lock up or the blue ball destroy the take. I sure wish there was a Bright Screen Mod type thing for that button.

Watch the Zeppelin DVD. Concerts from 1969 to 1979. You won't see a Tele other than their 1969 performances. All LP. He played all Gibson at the Celebration Day show in 2009 as well. Jimmy Page is famous for playing a Les Paul, in fact mostly a Les Paul Custom. He is known as a Les Paul player except by a few crazed folks who insist on overstating the importance of their rushed first two albums. His Hero wall poster feature him with the cherry burst Custom. I bought one just like it in 1999. Heavy as hell. Also, Jimmy customized every guitar if it wasn't made specifically for him, to his own custom specs. So this conspiracy theory that Jimmy wanted a Tele, so he modified his heavy-ass LP to be one is silly. He modded his LP to get a greater tonal range on the guitar he preferred to play, because he's a bad-ass. Even funnier is I remember seeing Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii. There's a part where some acid-riddled member is trying to explain what it means to use equipment. Archer Vs. Arrows as discussed above. It was something to the effect of: As long as we're in control of them (machines), and not the other way around its aright, isn't it? I mean its not like if you give someone a Les Paul they're going to play like Eric Clapton. I always thought that was funny because Eric Clapton was a Strat player. Specifically a Black Strat. Turns out Eric played a Les Paul in his early days exclusively. He claimed in his book to be the reason Gibson designed the SG to replace the insanely heavy LP. He ultimately feel in love with the Strats when he bought like 20 of them in the early 70s. I know cats who work for both Fender and Gibson and they laugh at this hubris. And Eric's custom Strat design is an abomination. Yuk. So Eric Clapton will be forever known as a Strat man, and Jimmy Page a Les Paul player. Doesn't matter what they both played early in their career. Oh, so Gibson bought Teac? Interesting. As stated above, Gibson has a terrible record with acquiring companies and then squander the purchase. I still feel burned about the Opcode thing. I miss Studio Vision Pro so much. There are still things I could do with that program that nothing else can do. I don't currently use or plan to use any Tascam stuff, but the new field recorder does look to be a step in the right direction. I wish them the best and maybe Gibson can actually get some good tech going besides the Robot. Remember Magic? Sheesh.

And is usually greeted with questing looks as to why they are being given multiple cards. Then, when the benefits of TX recording is explained I have been answered with, "So there were dropouts from the audio? Our other audio guy didn't have any. What were the problems? I usually just get one card." Ahh, producers.

Awesome, thanks. I'm in the same boat and appreciate any other independent research on this. I just messed with the Roland M200i. A bit bigger than what I would like, and feels more like the Edirol line than the Roland line, if you know what I mean (I hate to keep harping on build quality...). I arranged for a few days next month that they will be loaning me one, so I'll report my findings here of course.