Actualsizeaudio

Are you telling us they changed the pin-out for lemo connectors on the Epic? Why on earth would they do that?

I was one of those. I did not agree with the dropping of some of the upgrade paths like DVTK2 to CPTK. I think they (Avid) are an atrociously run company, and their employee feedback on Glass Door proves it. The whole 999 for an HD upgrade, unless you buy into our useless phone plan, in which case it is 599 was just weird. It should be noted I bought into the phone plan, then found a CPTK on ebay. In the end, the upgrade to PT10 took up way too much of my life than it should have.

I've been mixing both in and out of the box for years. I swear the PTmix systems and PTHD systems' bussing sounded different to me, but supposedly it was all in my head. When I mix out of the box it is through a Manley 16x2 tube mixer. There's no mystery what I'm doing when I do that;' I'm looking for a less linear mix buss that adds a bit of distortion. People hear the difference and find it pleasing. One of the advantages of Pro Tools 11 going 64 bit and getting rid of the TDM architecture is that it will be able (finally) to do a non-realtime bounce. We shall see.....

Those DSLR guys already have stuff coming off that hot shoe. Frankly it looks a little bulky to share space up there. A.C.s will start mounting it on the back of the red rock facing the wrong way.....

I've been checking my Nomad's drift when powered down with my Ambient Master clock. Sadly, at this point, it is a major bug: the unit drifts every time it is powered down, no matter how short the power down is. On shoots where I'm using my locket boxes, I keep an ALL601 connected to it to deal with the issue. I've been told this will be fixed soon. -Mike

Nomad worked outside yesterday at Foxboro for about 11hrs. It was well frozen by the time I used it last. Low was about 12 degrees I think. Worked exactly the same as it ever has, and the screen never got slow like I've seen LCD screens act in the cold in the past.

BULLOKS!!! I didn't page down in my CH1 setup screen. The notch filter was on, and set at 7K. I meant to have all of that stuff off, but was rushing to complete this before the children came home. Nice catch!!!!!

Well here are the clips. I didn't have a ton of time to do this test, but I did my best in the time that I had. I did have to use a Jensen 1:1:1 transformer mic splitter. I sent the Nomad the direct signal, and the 788T the isolated signal. Using a Y-splitter did not work, since it would introduce noise into the mixer that was not sending phantom. Yes, I could have sent the mic phantom from both, and I hear that this happens at live events all the time, but I was too afraid; and aving to use my schlepps tomorrow, and my Nomad tomorrow, I wisely blew that off. I understand this is not a perfect scenario. After I did the record I imported both files into Pro Tools, edited the heads and tails, and then normalized both files to have a top peak of -1db so that those of you listening with your computers could hear them over the noise of your environment. Also, it is imperative that they both have the same levels for comparison. I can tell the difference between them in my studio, but certainly not over my laptop. I could EQ either one to get it to how I wanted it to sound. The difference is very subtle actually. I'm not telling what I hear, or which I prefer. The speakers I listen back on are Klein and Hummel O800s. My DAC is a Metric Halo ULN-8, and my monitor controller is a Dangerous music monitor SR. Not what you will find in any edit suite, but a decent signal path for a small post house. Schoepps was approx 16 inches over my head, the MKH60 was about 24 inches. I'm not sure how on axis I was. I was reading. Both mixers were set to about the same spot in their preamp gain. The 788T has a bit more gain. Neither one had their limiters or HPF filters engaged. You will notice the phasing from the book I was reading from is not surprisingly more pronounced with the MKH6o files, but it is there a bit in the schoepps files. Sorry. Next time I'll rent a teleprompter. While my speaking voice is grating, I assure you my singing voice is celestial. Hope you enjoy CMC6 NOMAD.wav CMC6 788T.wav MKH60 788T.wav MKH60 Nomad.wav

Glenn, I was thinking of recording some dialog, and then maybe something with some clapping. As an engineer who works on docs, there isn't much I hate more then clapping. I just finished filming Pre-K classes and to get sound out of 4 and 5 years olds I would have to really crank up my inputs. Then out the blue they would all clap before I could pull my mic far enough away. I would agree that the never clip system handled them pretty well if my ears, (and ultimately) the camera didn't. Where a limiter would normally be heard "pumping" in a situation like that, the Nomad inputs recover quite quickly and without artifact. It's impressive.

There is nothing in the ENG home screen, which is what I'm (clearly ) talking about. The card track home screen lacks a lot of data you might want to look at once you are booming that the ENG home screen has. Upon looking at that screen again, there might be room for a line under the input numbers, or maybe a dot next to them. I'm not actually sure though, it's tough to tell.

I hear you, but I'd take it over nothing, which is what we have right now. With the size of the screen I'm not really sure what other solution there would be for that ENG home screen Do you have a Nomad? i find the screen to be pretty easy to read, and I don't find the colors to be tough to distinguish between. For instance, when the ENG bussing and the main bussing don't match, it's very easy to see that.

Ahhhh, so in that card track home screen (which now only shows 6 of the 8 tracks my unit is capable of recording for some reason) if the channel has a line in the middle of it then it's not record enabled, but if it doesn't then it's enabled. Wow, I would have never figured that out. Thanks for the tip! I still think making that ch name appear red would be a better visual, and it would still be useful in the ENG home screen.

Hmmm, not in V2.55, and I can't see what my output is doing when I'm in that screen. For this shoot the output to camera was the primary record. It would be great to get that info on the screen that also gives you the most important info, which is the "ENG" home screen. I was walking around and booming a table full of people, so switching between screens wasn't really possible, which is why I missed the first 10 mins of record (it still went to cam). I'll update to the newest firmware and check out what changed in that screen.

I'd like to chime in regarding the preamps. They are in my opinion excellent. I have a studio with a few very high quality preamp modules. A Manley tube mixer, Focusrite ISA430 (MKI), and a Metric Halo ULN-8 to name 3. I also own every single mixer SD has ever made except the 552. The Nomad preamps are clean, if not sterile compared to the SD preamps. Some mics (Schoeps IMO) like a transformer on the input side more than others. My MKH60 and 416 sound better (slightly more direct) with the nomad than they did with my SD mixers, my schoepps sounds a bit thinner, but still nice. One man's low end distortion from a transformer is another man's "warmth". I personally would not use the preamps to record classical music unless I had to, but if I did have to, I would have zero problems doing so, the preamps are quiet enough. I'm going to do a wire split of a voice record with my 788T and Nomad and put them up here on JW for people to check out. On another note. I think we really need to push for more visual feedback about what tracks are record enabled. I got bit in the bumm the other day because during a rushed setup (call time 20 mins before rolling time) I forgot that I had the wrong tracks record enabled on my primary card. The suggestion I made to Glenn was that the numbers above the ENG bussing squares turn red when they are record enabled on any track. I know that the L,C,R letters already turn red when the ENG bussing and the bussing matrix do not match. However, that could stay the same and the numbers corresponding to tracks could change color in relation to track arming. At this point this is a big advantage for the 788T. You always know what's record enabled with that unit.

I use Sandisc Extreme 60MB/s UDMA cards with no problem. I prefer Sandisc, and the unit mirrors pretty quickly with them. BTW, I had my Nomad (#1 shipping unit) signed by Glen and Howie, it was cool to be in the shop and tell Glen about my ideas. If you look at firmware #2.55 my name is in there! Is there a thread where we bring our ideas to the table? I had a few for Glen that he gladly took notes on, I'm sure everyone else has some as well. I'll start a thread if there isn't one.

I'm using sandisc 32gig cards. $126 from B&H. I don't trust Transcend cards. I've seen them fail on DSLR shooters in the field. As for battery, I'm very happy. I've been going about 9-10 hours off of one IDX Lithium NP1. I have NOT been recording that much (just for my own interest), and have been powering my TRX900AA about 4 hours out of each of these days. I've also been poweing a Lectro UCR411 about the same amount of time.

Marc, thanks for doing this, let me know what you find out. When I'm doing re-recording it is very easy to monitor how loud things are here in the studio. Plus, I mix with a good amount of control over the dynamics so I never get whacked with unexpected sounds. I've found that I've had my worst ear bleeding experiences with unexpected sounds out in the field. Not only would I love a way to make sure I'm listening at 82db, but a way to prevent those tragic loud moments in the field to somehow get limited before they hit my inner ear.

Put me firmly in the Ultrasone camp. I used Sony 7506s for the first 8-9 years or so of doing location sound. I was starting to really get ear fatigue at the end of the day to the point where it was ruining my relationship with my family. I switched over to Ultrasone about 4 years ago and it took a while to find a pair that were suitable for ENG. I have 3 pair now: one of which stays in the studio and never leaves (too bulky Pro-650), and one that come with me on every shoot (HFI-780), and a spare back home (HFI-700). All 3 models are different but the ones that I use now are just about as light as the 7506 (HFI-780). The other nice thing is I never have to buy another hopefully; I've actually had them repair these things for a very reasonable (less then $100) cost. I can't stress enough the cumulative effect of having 20% less SPL slamming against your ears. I feel like these phones have extended my studio career a few years at least, and made me a nicer person at the end of the day.

I'm with Jack on the nature of that job. You guys ever have to sit though those awful "Next Round with Skip Jackson" ads on ESPN.com? Those are shot with 4 cameras with the exact same requirements that Jack had on his job. I know the guys that do them, and I do the ones shot out here in NYC or Boston. I've only done 3 of them. The ones I do I split the audio exactly like this, but with my 788T and a 442. Now I'll use the Nomad probably. The editor reports back to me that a lot of them sound terrible, and the sound guy gets the track mapping wrong. About half of them they get it right, and about another half of them they actually sound OK. The moral of the story is that I'm one of the few that gets called back because I bother to actually split stuff out like they want AND do a mono mix that they use 80% of the time. I find so much more of the stuff I do is multi camera, and so much less of it comes with a warning about it. Throw on top of that that many of them ask if I can sync up there DSLRs to the big camera and its a veritable multi camera circus. I don't complain, often charge a bit more, and get more call backs because I bother to send audio to as many places as I can. The job he described was in no way over the top in my experience, albeit not an every day occurrence.

This is a good question actually. For now, my backup is my 302/TRX900AA setup. It is small enough to sit in the Pelican case next to my Nomad. While I would have less capability, it would probably cover 90% of what I needed to do in the filed.

Awesome. Thanks Glenn!

One of the things I like is being able to quickly and easily change what I can monitor in my headphones. It is a very powerful setup. Also, the camera returns are very adjustable. I had to record to one of those awful Panasonic HVX200 cameras with pathetic headphone output. I had to boost the gain 30db in the return setup window, but it was just enough gain to match the recorder/mixer output. The one thing I noticed was that the signal was much cleaner then I was used to with a camera return. A useful thing would be a "Favorite" headphone monitoring mode. When you hold the button down for .5 seconds the matrix number you are listening to goes backward which is nice. It would be very useful if i addition you held it for a whole second that it jumped back to #1, making that similar to the 788T "Favorite" matrix. The thing I'm not used to is PFL listening. The mix is still included in your ears post fader, which means that when you are listening PFL you hear original source and mixed source phasing with it. Very strange. Am I missing something?

I've been using it for a week now. There are some bugs no doubt, but it's a great machine. I promised Glen I would go over them with him first before I started listing them on here so I won't get into them now. Rest assured none of them are earth shaking and I think they are all fixable. I will say this: you do give up some speed and convenience not having dedicated transport, panning, etc. I do believe it is worth it (for me) to gain flexibility, and to reduce size and weight. It's an interesting trade-off, and I'm happy we are offered the choice. Another thing I will mention is that the compression and headroom are fantastic. Hopefullly I'll make it down there Friday or Monday and can go over things with them in person. Once that happens I'll feel comfortable that I can do a full side by side with my 788T. Like the thread title states: IT LIVES!

I've got mine and I'm enjoying it as well. I'm going to post a full review AFTER I use it for a week next week, and after I discuss a few things with Glen and the people at Gotham. Like Neil, I'm a current (and happy) 788t user. My overall impression is favorable as well. There are some quirks, and some things that need to be taken care of and gotten used to; but that was to be expected. The one thing that strikes me the most is how different it is from a 788T. We all need to be very grateful that Zaxcom decided to make a very different machine for a different kind of user. As I see it now, both machines will be recording in the field for a long, long, time. It isn't going to be easy deciding which one to keep that's for sure.

Timecode is dead eh........bwaaaahhaaaahaaahaahahaaa. I teach mixing at a university one semester out of the year. I would classify that statement as bad teaching. If you repeated that on a set anyone with a vast array of production experience would laugh in your face. You did the smart thing coming on here and asking people who actually work in the field. That shows me you actually care about learning.