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I also have a couple of V3a's which I was initially not very happy with due to their quite high noise output, in practice it hasn't been much of an issue but it's something to be aware of if you're on a quiet set and the spkr is close by. Where they aren't so flash in my experience is power usage, 2 alkaline 9v batts will only run it for a few hrs so I could never set and "forget" them, even with sleep mode engaged I could never trust the run time and as a final power NG point the "power on" LED is useless, it stays on even when the batteries are to flat to run the amp so a quick glance to check if it's on via the power LED means nothing. I now run them off small SLA batts that I have stuck on the side and that is way better. Apart from that they are invaluable and robust enough to take a few knocks, I run them off lectro R1a's most of the time so you can put them anywhere easily. The key point in their use to me is DC powering and portability, not much else around apart from AR powered partners that do that and I've blown my AR's up using them for VOG but the V3a's have been solid. Yes their fidelity isn't the best but they're fine for their designed use. Like wise with the R1 rack spkr, saves me wearing cans all the time and takes up minimal cart space. If I want really good quality playback for music or extended dialogue viewing I break out the AR's. C.

I have a remote audio R1 on my cart with a zaxnet Tx sitting just below it, it gets RF interference from the 2.4G but not to bad. It also gets into the onset VOG speaker when the 1W amp is fired up but only very low level, not a real problem but on my next cart rebuild I'll try and eliminate it by repositioning the offending pieces. C.

interesting that some do post fade iso tracks, the reasons I like pre fade iso tracks is that it's a cover for a mis-mix and also if any actors ad-lib dialogue that you didn't mix for, like a get out of jail free card. I see no benefit in post fader iso's..? Level wise my old mix panel had a 7dB drop on the direct outs and I kept and my mix a bit hotter, now I run a zax mix 12 panel I don't have that option so I tend to run my mix faders at around + 6dB which means my iso tracks have 6ish dB more headroom than the mix. Interested to know what other Zax mix 8 & 12 users are doing regarding this situ? C.

Hey courtney, yes you are right, there are new Sony 64G SxS has a high enough data rate to capture 4:4:4 on the alexa also. I don't think the sound mixer / pix 260 / proxy rec system would be practical in reality as they don't have the functionality of an audio only location recorder. I also think the added work load / data management and responsibility is easy to under estimate and would deter you from your primary job as a sound mixer, I don't think that was ever SD's intention in the design, It's just a better unit to have on a bench or cart where as the 240 is designed to be camera mounted. My 2C.

I agree, no cameras that I know off rec 4:4:4 internally apart from the Epic. I have worked with the Pix 240 already, great machine, very well built and functional, excellent sound capability. I think SD have made a great step in a new direction. C.

one thing to also check is your relative headphone gain, I know when I crank up the headphone level on my Fusion the noise floor jumps up a lot towards the end and that noise isn't on the track. Preamp gain / accuracy is not a zaxcom strength in my experience. C.

Looking good, I think if we started a "Sister Cart" album (like Sister Cities) ours would be a nice match. Re 19" accessories, that is the hardest thing to sort in a way, well it was for me. It was fairly easy to find shelves and trays but they were steel and heavy or their design took up to much rack space, there are some places that do aluminium shelves and draws but they are very expensive. After this job I think I'll pull my rig apart and do a bit of a rebuild, always little improvements needed and a nice winter job! Curious re your main wheel attachment, when you unscrew them do the axles come of too? Some photos / parts info of that would be choice if poss (my ones do but not as easy as I'd like). Cheers, Chris.

Hi Vasileios, yes they are shure fins, I run this antenna distro system: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/520405-REG/Shure_Antenna_and_Power_Distribution.html It's 4 outputs feed 2 x Zax QRX's, 1 x Lectro SR5, and 1 x Lectro venue. I still have the RF loop outs of the venue available also but have never needed to use them as the above package gives me 11 wireless channels already. The Shure system has been very good, my RF range at least doubled from what my old system was and the active antenna are very good also, only caveat being that they don't pass a signal through unless they are powered, they won't work passively (is this the same with all active antenna?) When I first got it I thought the shark fins looked a little light weight for location use but they have proved to be fine, survived 9 weeks on the road no problems etc. I actually have another complete Shure system as above which is new in the box, I had a mix up with my order from BH and they sent two units, unfortunately I paid for them both too! It's for sale if any NZ of Aussie people are interested, any further a field and it would be cheaper to buy direct from BH because of the shipping cost (reasonably big box). FYI - those shure fins are from the 2nd unit, MU uses Lectro fins into a zax mic plexer distro and also gets great range etc. C.

ditto on the power switch panel, gorgeous, the engineering on you cart build is very good, love the detachable wheel system, way better than mine for sure. I really don't want to rebuild my cart but seeing all these great mods makes it hard not too!

My 816 lives 99% of it's life in a case in the van but for those special occasions it works like nothing else, to answer the question above a little better regarding the interference tube only having openings down one side, in normal use I don't think it makes much difference which way round it is but if I've got it in a rycote on a very windy day I always make sure the solid side is facing the wind as it seems to help with it's wind noise rejection.

I have zax, lectro and comtek 216 IFB systems running at the mo, Comtek for the sound team and any others who need live sound (cam ops, grips, ad's etc), Zax for Dir/Cont and others who need picture sync sound (delayed) and the the Lectro system for earpieces or wireless speakers. Range wise the comtek is easily the best and that is just with one of their small (non base station) Tx's, the zax IFB100 by itself is ok range wise but it really needs to be put through a 1W amp to be reliable, we have good range using the amp if in rough line of sight, doesn't really like going thru to many doors or walls (studio ones at least). The range of the lectro is the worst (using a T1 Tx (which has recently come back from a full lectro service so is in good spec). Antenna wise both the Lectro T1 and Comtek standard whip antennas are mounted up on my antenna pole so have good height. I'm sure the lectro system being UHF is one of the reasons the range is not so good as that whole spectrum is busier, I also don't have a scanner in my lectro IFB block so just wing it re freq selection which is obviously not the best, have tried many freqs with similar results though. Audio quality wise the zax with an amp is the best and although the comtek and lectro systems sound quite different I'd put them in the same kind of quality box, the lectro has a more accurate fidelity overall but also has a higher (noticeable) system noise (hiss) where the comtek is cleaner at the cost of being slightly more muddy. For me the most important thing for my sound crew is range, with the comtek system they are rarely out of touch and can be off set and still listen to whats going on, still be in PL range etc - and the quality is well good enough. I used to run a second hand comtek 72 system, that sounded pretty shite and range was never that good, the 216 system are a big improvement. If I could only have one system it would be a comtek 216, they do have a weird way of wiring their headphone jacks though, if one ear of your cans craps out you lose audio in the other too (I think it is a balanced output as opposed to L+R stereo), my comtek system is an older one (not freq agile) so the new ones may be different. Lastly robust wise it would be Lectro first then comtek, zax is def the more flimsy of the 3 units, the volume pots and LCD screens being prone to breakage. time to wrap!

I've had B6's in my kit for a while, didn't like the early ones as they had a kind of stiff glossy cable that didn't hide well, now they have a good soft cable and they do sound great most of the time, in my experience they are more prone to wind noise and the capsule seems to overload on loud stuff before a cos11 or DPA will (red dot not much better) . +1 on costume dept loving them, that's the same reason I like them, other mic's I use often are cos11 and more recently the 4063 DPA. For me mic choice is usually not to do with the "sound" of whatever mic but how well it will hide and sound in relation to the costume, I'll often have a B6 on one person, a cos11 and DPA on others in the same scene. If they're all really easy to hide costume rigs I'd prob go DPA's most of the time as they seem to have a nice open sound which better matches a boom, I'm a fairly new convert to the DPA since going with zaxcom Tx's so still a learner driver with them to a degree but love them so far. If I could only have one kind of lav which had to cover everything I'd probable go with the cos11. Also have some old sonotrams in the kit which are nice place mics when you need to go small.

great photos, B&W kicks ass. will get there one day!

not sure how long this has been around but it made me laugh, enjoy. C.

Good topic. I've always been a fan of recording offlines when possible but there are a few things to think about when doing so. Actors will give there best performance on their hero shot and when doing offlines may well pull back on the performance, some do, some don't, if I need a particular line that was NG on their CU I'll let them know and try and get in on an offline, generally that way is better than going for a wild after the scene is finished and it also saves having to ask for wilds which is also a good thing time wise. Overlap wise I def go for a 2 boom situ or a boom and wire if only one boom op, before I go for a wire though I'll try and get someone else on the crew to do a 2nd boom as it matches way better. Mic'ing offlines is the one area that I like (most) digital cameras as they tend to be pretty quiet when rolling so mic'ing offlines when the camera is right beside the off actor is possible. On TV jobs I probably mic offlines much more, a lot of the time stuff is cross shot anyway so there are much less "off" lines, plus post turn around time is much tighter so it can speed things up if good offlines are there as the picture edit may well keep the actor off screen so it helps if post doesn't have to go searching for the relevent dialogue to drop in. Film wise less so for the reverse reasons but these days most players are wired so if I have the option I'll mix them in if it sounds good. All that said if for whatever reason I can't get offlines I don't sweat it, they are called offlines for a reason.

Hmmm, I think its all a load of bollocks... Looks like a very good prank to me :-)

personally I'd just get the hell out of there, they sound like a bunch of morons. If you really want to stay there explain to them that it's either radio mics on the kids or boom or ADR the whole lot. That is unless it's a feature documentary which gives you different parameters and a bunch of place mics might work. One thing to try is getting them to wear jackets and pre rigging lavs and Tx's into them, they just put them on and your good to go, if they get hot and want to take them off then their mother can just put them in time out till they cool off. Good luck, C.

some rough pics from set to show my SKB mounts, I think the are marine latches, strong and stainless steel, work very well. The attach the lower case to the chassis and case to case. Also have a dual wheel system, big ones come off when working in narrow access locations. Cart is built around 3 SKB cases, 6U on the bottom with a 3U draw and shelf, 10U main cart which has all the essential kit and can run without the other 2 cases so portable, 4U top case with monitors and rac spkr. Works very well, it is heavy but when broken down I can carry it, I don't think any other design carrying the same gear would be much lighter if it offered the same closed in protection which is the thing I love about case based carts, that ans also that they are easy to modify where everything goes as your gear changes. Regards, Chris.

nice work. there's hours of fun to be had going through the downfall back catalogue on those quiet set days

Hey John, I've been running that monitor rack on my cart for the last 6 months or so, bang for buck I don't think there is a better option. They handle all known frame rates and have been rock solid, I've used them on both studio and location blocks under bright conditions. Pro's: - price - well less than 1/2 the cost of any other dual HD-SDI rack monitors that I found. - build quality and finish seem pretty good. - lightwieght - 12 volt DC operation (run fine off 16v lithium batts also) - matte screens - good color and resolution - SDI loop out on both screens. Con's: - no external power switch (i power mine on/off by unplugging it or you could make switch) - no separate on/off for each monitor - off angle viewing not great - picture adjustment can only be done via laptop and even then are pretty basic - HD-SDI only, no composite etc - No speaker or audio display - No adjustable viewing angle. Brightness seems ok, I'd say average, was fine outside in sun when used in conjunction with a small hoodman type shade. Lack of external picture controls has been fine, I just set them at start of job and haven't needed to adjust them since, laptop connection and adjustment is pretty simple though. I have mine installed in a 4U high SKB case along with a remote audio speakeasy R1 rack speaker, works like a charm. Cheers, Chris.

Check out "NZ Film Invoice" , a local tech here called Ants Farrell wrote it a while ago and a lot of people here use it, I don't so not sure if it is easily adaptable to suit other film environments but it's a pretty comprehensive app. Regards, Chris.

I have been using a Blackmagic Smartview Duo for the last few months, love it. It was about 1/3 the cost of any other SDI rack mount options and it accepts all known SDI formats and frame rates which many others don't. It doesn't have great off angle viewing but that doesn't affect me and the lack of controls is a non issue because you just set and forget, plugging into a laptop to tweak is easy if you need too though. It would be good if you could independently turn off each screen but that's about the only issue, doesn't use much power with both screens on either. They are SDI input (and loop through output) only but all sets I work on these days have use HD-SDI monitoring so I don't think that's an issue, even the new film camera splits are SDI now.

Hey Glenn, it still goes fine but will be much happier (or at least I will) when it's new LCD arrives!

my cmc5 / mk4 (for sale :-) is an older one, I got it nearly new 2nd hand in 1995, still sounds the same to my ears and couldn't pick a difference from a cmc6 combo I used it with recently. Mine has had reasonably light use as mkh50's are our standard go to for int dialogue, the schoeps only came out when we had bad acoustics / overlapping dialogue / needed a good place mic / needed the knuckle etc. They are a nicer sounding mic than a 50 but only when in close enough or dialogue at a good level etc (in my opinion :-) on a side note, now using a cmit5U for int and ext, lovely mic. C.

Hi Jeff, have tried to upload a profile pic a few times now and not having any luck, keeps saying "failed to set new photo" (not trying to upload a big file, just an iphone pic). Any clues..? Thanks, Chris.