AnuarYahya

I feel we are very lucky to be sound recordist on such a soundy planet. or unlucky if you are trying to isolate sound sources jaja 

Loved the podcast and article.

i agree the price is very high. At least its cheaper than the oasis.. but all things zaxcom have always been very expensive so no surprise there. Colored caps for the faders is an excellent idea. 

What are peoples thoughts on the new control surface?

I think it looks amazing and is a great successor to the mix 8. I do hope that the trim pots can be fully routable as faders or zaxnet trims tho, that way you can have 16 faders in a super tiny control surface. I have gotten used to mixing 12 tracks from the bag with my nomad 12 + fp8 combo so mixing with rotary faders is not a problem for me. I love how flexible and simple the fp8 is so I hope that carries on into the Aria. Either way I am very intrigued. Love the rugged design and maintenance free faders, also the zax hub integration and nomad compatibility. Great job zaxcom! 

I do not like that you need a phone to control it.. Also that run time is really low and the price is really high. I do feel the ZMT4 runs circles around the A20mini.  

Yea DPA lavs are crazy fragile, and they age terribly. I almost consider them expendables at this point..  Thats why I dont buy them anymore. They do sound great tho.. 

it would be great to have a mixed color bag (;

i think its important for your battery case to be able to operate while the lid is closed. Many pelican cases cannot charge the np1 type batteries unless they are open, which if you are shooting in crazy locations where there might be rain or dust its nice to have the case shut close (with a internal fan for cooling) while still charging all the batteries. I find for my uses your average tool box (adapted to our needs) works really well. 

7506s are the best location sound headphone in my opinion. They are terrible for music and dont sound very good in general,  but because you can hear all the problems very clearly they are the best. With upgraded cushions they are very comfortable. Also they are well priced and fairly reliable, and they are easy to fix or replace, and they fold, and the cushion on top is nice to rest a boom on, and the list goes on..

I bought mine to compliment my cs3e and i am very happy. I found that i like how it sounds more with the rycote wind muff on better than having the mic naked or with the provided wind screen. So I just keep it on all the time, even indoors. 

I know many sound mixers might have different opinions, but if you can afford zaxcom go zaxcom.. no brainer for me. They might be overkill for your intended use tho. Nonetheless they are good tools that should serve you well (even tho they have a bit of a learning curve). For more complicated shoots (narrative) nothing beats an experienced sound team that know how to listen and fix problems on set. Not to mention sound mixers normally have amassed large bags of tricks and tools for different situations. But for interviews and such you should be fine. 

1 hour ago, Rob Beal said:

 

Good point, I already have an old Decimator Quad box kicking around, so i could easily stick that at video village. A bigger challenge with that would be fitting a larger monitor in my current cart setup (right now I use a triple 5" monitor device that takes up 2 rack spaces). But that might be an easier fix since I'm already pulling wireless racks out of my cart to remote onto set, so cart space will be freed up.

 

Good thing we still have plenty of hiatus time to figure out how to retool our carts!

I have seen big monitor screens that fold away and only take up one rack space! its very expensive tho last i checked. 

4 minutes ago, codyman said:

Should be interesting to hear all the details.  I am really liking the idea of a 4 channel slot receiver.  I wonder if Sound Devices / Audio Limited will update their A10 rack to support 4 channel modules.  Would be sweet if you could have your 4 channel slots in an a10 rack and then if you needed to jump mobile or to a car rig, pull the receivers out and throw them into an SL2 and off you go.

its just a matter of time. 4 channel slots are the way of the future. Any company that does not go that route will just not be able to compete anymore in my opinion. 

the sony MDR7506 are not perfect, but they are the best for me. They fold into a little ball so its easy to transport them, they have the perfect headband for resting a boom pole on the top of your head, if you change the cushions to thicker ones they are the suuuper comfortable, and they are not to expensive. Because with the craziness of location sound work headphones get mistreated more than they should. Also fixing them or getting parts for them is easy and cheap. Also they sound good enough or bad enough so that I can identify problems. I also am a fan of the curly cable, but I know that is a personal preference. 

1 hour ago, Constantin said:

It is very simple: you take one cable out of your Lectro DSQD receiver and put that into your second DSQD receiver. Take another cable and connect it from you DSQD receiver 2 into your 888 and now you have 8 wireless channels showing up on your recorder without any cable clutter. After that, I‘m surpised people still want AES. Unless of course, they are like me and don’t have a DSQD receiver. Or a Dante enabled recorder...

Thank you for explaining, I guess some people will surely like and find dante useful in the 888. It seem to me it is more for cart based work even tho i have seen big bags with DSQD receivers so that is definitely an option (albeit an expensive one). It would make sense if sound devices is planning on making their own super slot receivers that work with dante and integrate into their recorders. They have to find a way to compete with zaxcom in my opinion.. It is also a nice feature of dante that you can daisy chain two recorders and make them behave as one. Still a bummer for me that there is minimal AES built in.

you can make your own or have somebody make it for you. The schematics are on the manual of the nomad. Also gotham sound or trew audio can make them for you. Surely somebody in hong kong can make it for you tho. 

AES makes more sense in a recorder with the 888 size and track count in my opinion. How does one even work with dante in a sound bag?? 

And the fact that you need to buy an aes expansion thing to have aes on a 7000 dollar machine is cray cray. 

seven thousand dollars!!! 

Wow thats a lot of bang for your buck. Could be a good back up mic.

I might get one of these just for shits and giggles. 

13 hours ago, Kvark said:

Really wish it had a 3.5 mm jack for headphones as well. Use the big one for normal work. If the jack breaks inside the socket you switch to the 3.5 mm instead and save the day.
I've gotten rental gear (664) with one of two headphone outputs broken because of this.

Two sockets. One professional and one consumer. The latter will save you when you have to buy an emergency headset in a rural town somewhere in Africa, and the only thing they got is a Casio or some shitty noname brand.

That's redundancy.
 

Could not agree more. I had not noticed it has no mono-tape or hp 2.. maybe there was no space left in there? Also the keyboard thing is such a bummer. To be expected to name 8 plus channels with the onscreen keyboard is crazy. And I do not care for cell phone apps, I hate relying on my cel phone to work so I hope they don't bring that as a solution. Not having a keyboard slows down the other wise insanely fast workflow you can achieve with the nova.. I know it has track name presets but still.

either way im going to get one as soon as i can. Man its crazy how far we have come, this technology seems like it is literally from the future.. maybe it is from the future? Geniuses at work no doubt. Congratulations to zaxcom. 

3 hours ago, Constantin said:

I‘m having trouble reconciling those two statements. Sure, the lighter the bag gets the easier the bag jobs become, but isn’t that partly the reason why we need ever lighter gear to begin with, because we are indeed the sound cart? 
I see that as a negative development. So many jobs out there where people are loaded with gear for two and trying to hold a boom as well. Those jobs shouldn’t be for just one. Nova is helping them improve their health, and that is brilliant. It’s also helping producers continue to cut corners

You are right this is true. Ultimately I guess I just like being on set, and I enjoy booming a lot, so that is why I say that. Also, unfortunately it is hard to get producers to pay for a second boom op now a days. That is why many times I opt for being the second or main boom just to maintain the two booms sound. But yes it is cutting corners.. I agree it is nice to have linear faders, and a nice seat and monitors where you can focus on just the act of listening. I do find that it is easier to fix things when you are on set instead of in another room at your cart, but that is just personal preference. And a good boom op makes a big difference off course. I guess the nova is just another tool that gives us more options. And at that price point it really is not going to cut that many corners because you can charge good equipment rental fees. (in theory) 

I think regardless whether you want to give up your cart or not, the nova helps reducing weight overall. Sound carts can be redesigned to be a fraction of the size and weight, which is always a good thing. Unless it is a studio production where it is all shot in a sound stage you can always benefit from a lighter sound cart. And honestly for those type of productions youd probably prefer a deva 24 and mix 16 anyways. The nova also helps streamline all your workflow because having such tight integration makes everything easier and faster. It just makes a lot of sense to me. 

The pace of productions is not what it used to be before. Directors are getting used to working faster and faster as technology improves. Now you barley need light for cameras and that speeds up things a lot. The sound department is also expected to keep up and that is where integration and lightness really make a difference in my opinion.  

Zaxcom did it again. They killed it and there is nothing out there that even comes remotely close.

Yes, it is putting all your eggs in one basket but the benefits are huge. It is a no brainer for me. Also there are many ways of having redundancy in an all zaxcom system. And you can always buy two novas.. lol. I know thats an expensive proposition but its not that much more expensive than what sound mixers spend on their primary and their back up rigs. 

The zaxcom system gives me so many advantages over other sound mixers that it feels like im outright cheating. It makes my life easy and makes location sound work just a joy. I cant count how many times zaxcom has saved my ass. And now with the nova it opens a new world of possibilities for me. Personally it is making the need of a sound cart more and more outdated. A sound cart can just be a stand now, or better yet you are the sound cart. You can get closer to the action, and be in the set booming if you so desire easier than ever before. Not carrying many pounds of equipment destroying your back. Just that alone is priceless.

We all have different approaches to location sound but the nova is just undeniable at this point. All it needs is keyboard support! I use my wireless keyboard so much in my nomad 12. I cant imagine not having that. But like I said, it is just undeniable. 

will it work with a usb keyboard?

Zaxcom again kills it in the innovation department. Truly genius work. The nova is on a legue of its own. 

External cable hands down for me, specially in long poles. You need to get a hang of it, and learn to manage your cable. But once you do it is way better in my opinion. You are much quieter because you can hold the cable tought with your hand. Also you are not forced to have the cable exit at the back of the pole. And if you are going wireless you wont have any cables to deal with inside your boom. Its also lighter, cheaper, and more reliable. 

 forget all about straps, velcro or clamps just wrap your cable around the pole avoiding twisting the cable so it stays neat. 

I think it looks interesting, and the price point is very impressive..

I dont like the internal battery, but I guess one could adapt a workflow to make it work. However, jury is still out on how they hold up in real life. I also wonder how they sound? how stable the signal is? how relaiable they are in the field? and what their costumer service and support is like? I am also very skeptical of it being 2.4ghz and dont like that the outputs are 3.5mm jacks. Also it looks like its made out of cheap plastic. 

It might be a good option over the rode link, but thats not saying much in my opinion.  

We will have to wait and see.

Eather way its unfair to compare them with pro gear since I doubt their target market is professional sound mixers.. so its probably fine for most people.