Sebi

Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I had a job for a small mockumentary as a "one-person-soundteam" (I know...) and realized the hard way that the SD MixPre's don't seem to have any headphone limiters built-in. There was going to be a one-shot of a scene on a theater-stage with lots of movement, screaming and also silent moments behind the stage and the camera follows. I had all the talents lav-miked and boomed it myself so I decided to try and use the MixPre-6 II in 32 bit mode since I couldn't adjust the gain during the take. So I was quite excited to have a practical use for a 32 bit recorder. Input limiters are disabled of course and I set a normal to low gain setting on all the channels. I even turned down the headphone volume (using MDR 7506) a fair ammount because I knew about the screaming. The mix I monitored was mostly boom with a little bit of lav-mics. I also used MixAssist on the radios. Then, during the first take when they started to scream on the top of their lungs it was just extremely loud on my headphones, so loud I had to push away the headphones with my shoulders while booming. I just couldn't stand it. I know these headphones have quite some output and the headphone amp obviously as well (volume was maybe 50 of 100!) but I never had anything that loud coming out of them. The following takes I chose a "safety" headphone volume that made me miss a lot of lines because they were too quiet. Now, I know this is not a professional workflow and a lot of circumstances could have been better. But I was kind of confused by the fact that obviously nobody thought about limiting the headphone output when input limiters are disabled. Or did I miss something here? Apart from the monitoring I was quite happy with the tracks when I checked in a DAW. No clipping and no noise when pushing the silent parts (kind of what should be expected but it was my first recording in 32, so I had to see myself). So considering the result it was totally worth it and I didn't damage my ears luckily. Anyway, I kind of wanted to share this experience and maybe someone benefits. Don't wanna know what happens when you record some light rain ambience in 32-bit (because you also want to catch the thunder without the limiter) and then the sudden thunder actually comes and hits your ears on a high headphone level. Since these are the situations that come to my mind when thinking about recording in 32-bit... Best wishes and protect your ears Sebi

Well, thanks a lot to both of you for sharing your experiences! That‘s actually a good point. A fresh perspective and the collaboration with others definetely helps to not get stuck creatively... Interesting! Haven‘t thought about regional differences in business habits yet. Well not in this context at least. But even though it might not be as strict in Germany or Europe in general there are still a lot of those who claim that you can only be professional if you specialize.

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum as a member, even though I've been following this community for quite some time now (so much knowledge! much appreciated btw :)) I've been wondering about this question (see title) for a while now and so far I didn't really find this topic somewhere. If this has already been discussed a lot of times and I'm just not finding the right threads then sorry for another post. For the last 5-6 years now I'm doing sound for picture but always as a student (still enrolled in a masters study). Over the last 2-3 years I got the chance to do more paid jobs and work as a freelancer but I wouldn't call that fully professional since I'm still enjoying the financial benefits of being a student. The work I do is basically sound for picture and usually includes location sound (which seems to be kind of rare at our university), sound editing, sound design and also "mixing for theatre" (we have a nice little mixing stage at our school that works quite well and translates kind of good to cinemas). Directors I work with seem to appreciate the fact that I kind of do it all and I'm very happy to be involved in the storytelling form the very beginning and being treated as a moviemaker. So I've learned a lot in all these projects and I think my location sound work was improving quicker since I also had to edit and mix the dialouge I recorded (badly, sometimes) and know the capabilities/limits of Izotope for example. I also like the balance of being on location frequently and then doing computer/studio work for some weeks. But at the same time I know there are a lot of challenges and disadvantages when trying to do it all. I've heard of people who seem to mange it and do both professionally but I feel like it's kind of rare. I think you might get the scenario already so I won't write much more. I'm just curious to know if there are people in this community who have some thoughts about this and might share some experiences. I didn't really talk about gear that much because I kind of got to know the stuff and know the financial aspects. I'm rather interested in how you manage to do both professionally or why you couldn't. I hope this has its place here and wish you all a nice sunday! Sebi