haifai

My favorites; izotope rx massey limiter uad pultec, fairchild avid tl space

You could buy one more speaker for the center and you are done or use a downmix plug to listen to your stereo setup, leave the rear channels and the lfe empty... the center is realy important because it is bringing the dialog upfront where the Movie plays... i find it more easy to mix with a dedicated center track even if stereo is the final delivery, you gain easier a balance of dialog, fx, ambience and music. if you have to make a dcp for festivals then a 5.1 mix is the most secure way for delivery.

Stable but no genlock, so long takes like concertrecordings may have a small drift...

I agree with Werner... As working in location recording and sound postpro i have experience with sd and zoom recorders... for me the pres of the sd gear (specialy new mix pre Series and 788) are the better sounding ones. Zoom F8 is good for its price but in post you clearly here the difference at the studio room. For me the more important part for sound quality is the analog side of the machine, i think zoom is jumping at the 32bit waggon because its cheap to implement as its mostly a digital software thing...

I would not grab a shotgun for voice over work, specialy not a Sennheiser as they tend sometimes to sound very sharp on „s“... with some voices this can be unpleasent, also the small sweetspot can cause a problem... using a shotgun makes more sence if matching the sound of a Location Recording is the goal, like for adr. if the room is basicaly threaded i would prefer a LD condenser, me personaly i like the neumann sound, but there are others with a more neutral sound...

At some of the projects i worked (documentaries for cinema/tv) we used audio tc for some reason, either recording to a dslr/gimbal rig or for small sets where mobility is important - Sony fs without the v-mount/tc plate or dslr... absolutely no poblem... files are synced by the videodepartment...

if there is only the header broken/ not written, there are some software tools you can try, some years ago there was a pro Tools version that left you with unreadible wav files after closing the session, there was a smart little app that repaired the header... i think it was wav fixer, maybe this one: http://www.railjonrogut.com/downloads/WavFixer.dmg.zip worth a try with a copy of the file

If its for dialog i would not worry mouch, for music or soundscapes its another thing.

Depends what you want to record...

Do you want to record long takes - concert or something like that? mix pre is only able to tc sync, means timestamp at the beginning of the take, no sample sync posible, so after certain time (longer takes) the takes will drift. simple tc sync is no problem, you will loose 2 inputs of the mixpre - connect the tc out of the 788t with the aux in of the mix pre and you are done, no need for external syncbox

Combination of digital and analog mics for ms is tricky, i tested it with supercmit and neumann kma 120, apart from the latency problem of the digital mic it was not possible to use a 5pin cable for the boom because of a hefty noise at the side channel introduced by the digital signal of the supercmit, i did not mess around too mouch with that setup as it was in a difficult documentary shot at the phillipines and i did not found the supercmit so mouch helpfull for isolation that it would be worth the disadventages...

https://www.bblist.co.uk/ is another site to consider. Bought some things there, worked flawlessly.

Gefell M310, i prefer it over the sennheiser 8050 and Neumann km 150...

Here in Germany most mixes for TV are done in Post with a loudness of -23lufs, for cinema release its even less, so no need to smash the sound to the limit while recording... compression/ limiting and distortion at the recorded files are not reversible. I prefer to have the limiter at my recorder acting only if absolutly needed. The companies i am working for often dont want a mixtrack at all and work with the isos. In Pro Tools and Avid MC its no problem to add gain in post, we have 2018, times of analog tape are over...

Hello, i am using 4 of there batteries since more then a year, no problems so far... 2 of my friends use them too, same there. There is a discussion at the diy forum: https://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/29497-diy-smart-battery-solution-dc-for-audio-bag/

You may always buy a better quality mic second hand, the build quality of audio technica, neumann, gefell... is good enough for years of hard use in the field. I have some 20years old mics like neumann rsm and a km 140 that i use regulary without problems

https://www.texim-europe.com/products/RRC battery

shure for the weight the schoeps ccm and sennheiser mkh series are hard to beat... but the price is reflecting this and schops are to sensible in climate conditions for my taste and sennheiser unfortunatly refuses to make a figure eight in that shape. emesser i only know the old version (very noisy...) and the kortwich figure 8 is somehow okayish but coming from neumann kma 120 i here a big difference in audio quality. good hypers/cardioids in small condenser shape are gefell m310 (hyper) ore m300 (cardioid) 799€ or a used neumann km 140, rugged and nice sounding 500 - 600€. the neumanns you can use with a remote cable between capsul and body, making the mount very light - like a ccm combination. as for ms recording using a shotgun as mid is always somehow compromised and often translates not in a "nice" soundstage my combi for general ambiances is gefell m310 for mid and neumann kma 120 fo side signal. if i need a more direct mid signal i reach for dpa 4017 with the neumann as side mic or a neumann rsm 191, one of the short shotgun ms solutions that deliver a good soundstage, - miles better than the at, but lurky for camera mounting because you have to use a matrix box.

One more fan of ms recording here... i am doing mostly soundrecording and sounddesign for documentaries (cinema and tv) and record nearly everything in ms. The big advantage is that if you work in a rush - no time for recording dedicated atmo/ambience sound or change the rig for different stereo recording sets, with mid side recording you always have your matching ambience track alraedy recorded... Even for post pro its better to have a choice of available room and atmo sound at your fingertips without messing around in searching for sounds from libraries, that often do not match neither location nor the sound of the mics originaly used... The last documentary i worked on was shot in manila city, bangladesh refugee camps, us, turkey and london - at manila, bangladesh and london i did the job, everything recorded in ms stereo, no problems to cut a nice ambience floor and it woold have been nearly impossible to rebuild everything from library sound... us and turkey were made by local soundman - no ms recorded, mostly lav recording and mono boom - big hassle for creating a deep local soundscape! post pro had to be done quick as the film was taken by a big festival and the sequences from the states and turkey are not the ones that "pull" you inside the movie. Even for noisy locations i prefer to have a ms recording for post, because often a lightly spreaded stereo signal is sounding more pleasant than a noisey location sound compressed through a mono shotgun that jumps you right at your face. some of my collegues here work even with double ms rigs if the goal is a surround mix for the same reasons.

Nice one! Karsten

Hello everyone, i am about to buy a new shotgun. Recently i rented a DPA 4017 mkII with the b-preamp for a short docu shut and liked it very mouch, i want to buy one. Now i have to decide - c-preamp or b-preamp? I gonna use the dpa 4017 in an M/S setup - so less weight is better.... My recorders are SD 744t and 788t - so i could use the lowcut there (as i do if i have to use sennheiser MKH 8050 or 8060 that have a very boomy lowend too...) At the specs it seems like the preamp in the c-version even provides better dynamic range and less noisefloor... So for real field use - do i have to have the b - preamp? Thanx for sharing your experiences, Karsten

As i almost work with a m/s there is nothing special for me to work with 2 mic array, better them switching mics in the middle of a shot

What i do in situations like that is to take my M/S stereo mount for booming and put a short shotgun and a hyper (in my case a Gefell M310) in it, you record both channels and can decide later which works best, most times in reverberant rooms the hyper wins... on a third channel i record a lav mic, so you got 3 choices. mkh 416 i would not use indoor with a lot of reverb, thats the place where it shows an ugly performance, fart away from ear-candy...

My RSM 191 is housing in a standard sennheiser mzw 60 windshield, no problem... If someone prefers the muffled sound of the rycote windshields it gonna fit there too, anyway its shorter then a mkh 416. If you want to go rolls royce solution - cinela has suspensions for the RSM too.

Another rsm 191 fan here... I have experience with sennheiser 418 (not worth the money) audiotechnica bp 4029 (better then the sennheiser in my opinion) and rsm 191 (very nice soundstage). Here in Germany you may find a rsm 191 used for around 1500€ in good shape. I use mine often for documentary stuff beside my two mic combo gefell m310/ neumann km a 100 with kk120. The rsm has a very smooth stereo image and good "cinema" sound. I use it often for location and studio music recording too. As windshield i use a sennheiser mzw 60, for my ears is sounding a lot more transparent then the rycote ones. The rsm is used a lot in all weather conditions, from cold winters in germany to locations in india, africa and asia. In some really rar cases i had problems with RFI.