David Waelder

Yes, that’s a known issue with the Neumann mikes. However, it doesn’t seem to be related to the noise issue. That seems to be some sort of incompatibility between circuits but the particulars remain a mystery. (At least to me) This problem was one of the reasons I stopped using phantom power supplies, like the Denecke 48v unit, in favor of the Sound Devices MM series preamps. At a distance of a dozen years I no longer accurately remember the sequence of attempted remedies. I’m not sure if use of MM preamps was a remedy or if the issue wasn’t resolved until I acquired the Sennheiser 8050’s. David

That is, indeed, a good line of inquiry. And, it was one of the first things I investigated. That’s not it.

Regrettably, I never did identify the cause of the noise I heard with some Neumann mikes in a radio boom situation. I did learn that the shotguns (KMR 81 & KMR 82) are electronically different than the shorter mikes but I don't recall how they differ. The Audio Ltd device is probably worth a try but I'm not sure that the noise came from RF interference. Rather, I think it was some sort of incompatibility between the components. But, worth a try. I acquired a set of Sennheiser 8050's and the mysterious noise problem was never heard from again. David

It has been awhile but I think that Location Sound carries NATO plug interfaces in their rental inventory. Even if you are not close enough to easily rent through LSC, it would be worth a phone call to inquire. They might be able to share a source with you. (I acquired a couple of adapters for a film about the Reno Air Races, both NATO and an alternate configuration. I think I got them through LSC but the project was ten years ago. I turned them over to the production company at wrap. It was an L.A. company specializing in 3D productions and they may still have the things. I might be able to dig out contact info if locating the connectors proves difficult.) David

Very nice work and an imaginative response to the challenge. David

I didn't recognize the mike until I saw the picture of it. (It's been a very long time since I used an MKH 435) As it happens, I own an MKH 435; I've had it for more than twenty years. It's a very nice microphone with, as I recall, pretty good reach and some of the characteristics of a hypercardioid. But there is a liability that I should bring to your attention if you still have the option of returning your purchase: Sennheiser no longer makes the capsule used in the MKH 435. If the capsule were to require replacement for any reason, you would not be able to make a good repair. You could choose to install another capsule but the microphone would never again perform as it was originally designed. Capsules can last a very long time, and your purchased example may have many years of service left, so this may not be an issue for you. David

You might try exploring the catalog of Lord Mounts to see if there is a suitable shock mount that might be fit inside your tube. https://www.lord.com/products-and-solutions/vibration-and-motion-control/industrial/isolators/plateform-mounts The Lord Company makes a dizzying assortment of shock mounts so this may be a rabbit-hole assignment. They made the small mounts that Chinhda used to shock mount equipment shelves on some of his carts. They also made the engine mounts for the B-17 bomber and I believe that the Brooklyn Bridge floats on Lord Mounts. A surprisingly big company. David

Very clever. I’ve seen cupholder mounts before but never one that incorporated a double shockmount. This looks like a very promising device. I think it may be a bit big but reducing size and bulk is a refinement you can work out in subsequent iterations. You might also consider incorporating a mini-Noga arm in the design for greater flexibility in mike placement. (Deviating from the objective of reducing size, I know.) David

Maybe. (Spoken with the inflection of the Liberty Mutual Insurance ads. "Is this a lug wrench?") Laying duplex cable out in the sun is a fairly common practice to sort out kinks - or used to be before radio booms were common. It never seemed to harm the duplex but, admittedly, that is more robust cable. A little hesitation regarding cooking equipment in the noonday sun is the reason I suggested only an hour or two of exposure. Monitor the progress and pull them in if they get too hot. As always, YMMV. David

I used to work regularly with Marc Gilmartin. He used a rack that permitted hanging each lavalier mike so it might stretch out. A small clip from a stationary store affixed at the bottom provided just enough weight for a gentle stretch. He did this regularly and claimed it kept the cables slack and free of memory coils. If your cables already have memory coils baked in, you might want to hang them outside in full sun for an hour or two. I think the rack Marc used was a commercially available product used by sound studios to keep patch cables sorted. Marc probably modified the slots to accommodate the thinner mike cable. David

Silent films were shot and projected at 16 FPS. Actually, the first films were shot at frame rates closer to 30 FPS. There were no standards in the beginning but that’s about the speed of much of the very early production. Persistence of vision needs about thirty images per second to appear as smooth motion. Very early on engineers discovered that it wasn’t necessary to shoot thirty individual frames and project each one. Satisfactory results were achieved with about half that many images if each image were projected twice. The projector was equipped with a butterfly shutter that flashed each image on the screen twice before pulling down the next frame. With that innovation, good results were possible using about half the film needed to shoot at thirty pictures per second. The cost savings were obvious so the rate of about 16 FPS came to be broadly accepted. All these frame rates are approximate, of course, since the cameras were hand cranked and steady speed relied on the smooth hand of the camera operator. When sound was introduced, the standard speed of 16 FPS was too slow for good audio reproduction. The higher speed of 24 FPS was adopted as a good compromise between economy and better quality. The practice of projecting each image twice using a butterfly shutter continued, thereby enhancing the smooth persistence of vision. That was probably needed as familiarity with watching movies made perception more acute. Sometimes the early silent films, shot at 16 FPS, and intended to be played at 16 FPS, would be projected at 24 FPS because that was the only playback speed available on many sound projectors. David

The Hush Lav's are an interesting and resourceful choice. I've had good success (I think) with Tygon tubing. That's a flexible tubing generally available in any good hardware store. It's used in scientific research and also in aquariums and similar applications. The tubing has a relatively thick wall and, while flexible, has enough rigidity to hold shape. It can be cut with scissors or a pocket knife. Once slipped over an antenna, it can be secured with a small swatch of tape. There are so many variables in radio use under "battle" conditions that it's hard to say how effective small adjustments like this are. My hunch, based on some experience, is that it helps. David

“ It didn't hold up as well in combat as the the PSC cart that imitated it,...” My understanding (I’m open to correction on this point) is that Ron paid a licensing fee for the cart design. He didn’t just copy. David

Hmmm... You're in Lynchburg, I see. It's a nice place but far from the centers of production. Would a road trip be possible? The established equipment rental shops, Location Sound, Trew Audio, Professional Sound, The Audio Dept., etc., are all located in the major production centers. If you could make your way to one of those shops, they all work hard to accommodate new clients and set them up with appropriate gear and some guidance on how to use it. Probably the closest professional supplier to you would be Trew Audio in Nashville. A bit of a drive, I know, but once you've been there, met the sales and rental people and opened an account, you could conduct future business by phone and have rental gear shipped in. David

Rockit Cargo is one of the leading expediter companies. They handle many films and a substantial number of traveling rock shows. https://www.rockitcargo.com/ I've not used them myself. (The company I did use was swallowed by a bigger fish.) But Rockit was recommended to me by Art Rochester. David

Typically an on-camera subject will be directing his speech to someone. If there isn't actually an interviewer, there may be a producer who serves as the "audience" for the speech. Position your interviewer/producer a little distance from the speaker, perhaps eight or ten feet rather than just five feet. The subject will naturally project to be easily heard and the stronger voice will carry better over the background. If you don't have anyone in that role, draft someone and instruct your talent to address that person. Better results, minimal extra set-up and no additional cost. David

Seven Series brackets are still available. I believe there are also one or two brackets to hold the CL-9 mixing interface. David

You might try using one of the circular cutting punches that comes with a set of grommet tools. These are available in any good hardware store and are sufficiently inexpensive that purchasing a kit for this sole application would not be unreasonable. Before buying anything, ascertain that you could get a punch into position where you need a hole and also strike it with a hammer either directly or through some material. I haven’t tried it on a bag but I think it worth a look. David

This issue of gear selection for a new player is about more than just the best tool for each function. As Phil Perkins (and others) pointed out, no one really cares or notices what components make up a sound kit so long as it seems to be organized and capable. This is true most of the time; producers mostly don’t know the advantages of one product over another and their eyes glaze over when the subject comes up. But there is an exception to that situation. If something were to go awry, it’s best to be working with gear generally recognized as an industry standard. Employers who never give a thought to what sort of microphone is being used can suddenly take a keen interest if it begins buzzing and causes even a momentary production delay. Whenever things go bad, it’s best to be working with recognized standards. That won’t make unwelcome scrutiny go away but use of less recognized gear provides an opening for criticism. This is is not an issue for an established pro; Mark Ulano could use microphones from Fisher-Price and everyone would assume he was going for an effect. But new players would be well advised to not stray far from the expected pro gear. David

I think this is the sort of question best answered by someone in the office who would have access to the latest costs. There are four people (at least) in the office competent to answer a question of this kind: Scott Bernard, the Business Representative. (He generally makes himself available to members but probably has limited time to discuss issues of this sort.) Joe Aredas, Assistant Business Representative, the Field Rep. Joe's father is a representative with the International and he, himself, has been a member and officer of Local 695 for many years. Heidi Nakamura, Assistant Business Representative. She has similar responsibilities to Joe. I don't know her personally but she has been in that position for a few years. Laurence Abrams, Education and Communications Director. Laurence has occupied that position for ten years or a bit longer. Previously he was a boom operator. While the information you seek isn't directly available from the website, there is a contact link that you might use to send a message to any or all of the people above. You'll find it on the "Why Join?" page: http://www.local695.com/html/whyjoin.html Clicking on the links on that page generates an inquiry through the website but you could make your query to the attention of any or several of the people I named. And, of course, you could call the Local directly: (818) 985-9204 David

Yes, there is some truth to that assertion, especially as it applies to using a laptop for your backup machine. I’ve always worked with the premise that a backup was just that and nothing more. There is no necessity to duplicate all aspects of each file to make a useful backup. At the start of the day, I would log the date and basic production information in metadata. Then I would simply allow take numbers to accumulate throughout the day. If there were a need to use a backup recording, the editor/edit assistant would need to hunt through the files to find the needed take. But that should be a manageable chore as each take would still have the classic voice slate and all digital recorders include TOD in metadata. A dedicated recorder, like an SD 7-series, rolls with only a single button press. It’s very minimal additional complication. (But I wouldn’t employ it in handheld situations.) David

I favor making backup recordings wherever possible and reasonable. Like others, I began the practice when working with unreliable DAT recorders but continued even with more dependable file recording systems. The redundant recording provides me with piece of mind and also some insurance in high pressure environment of expensive productions. There are are two philosophies of backup recording: 1. Complete redundancy with each ISO track duplicated on a second recorder. 2. An independent recording of the mix track only. I favor the second method of a single track recording. That permits using a less expensive recorder as the backup machine. I use an SD744 as my second recorder and these, or similar, machines are easily acquired for about $1000 or a bit more. I reason that the mix track ought to work in the production in almost all cases. If it’s not sufficient, it does at least provide a suitable track for looping, eliminating the need to reshoot. That seems insurance enough given the remote likelihood that a backup is needed. On some occasions, the second recording can even guard against operator blunders. Goofing the “roll” and thinking that the recorder is running after a half-pressed switch is rare but it can happen. Goofing both the primary and secondary machine rolls is almost unheard of. Something of the sort did happen (just once) in my career. David

Have you tried contacting Location Sound Corporation? https://www.locationsound.com/ I think most on this forum already know that Location Sound is the direct descendant of Audio Services but I bring it up for those not acquainted with the history. The name was changed after the employees took over the company from Richard Topham on his retirement. (There was also a conflict with the New York company separately owned by Ron Topham that is too complicated to summarize here.) Anyway, they performed many of the conversions are likely to have any documentation that Harvey Warnke provided. David

I haven't been using Comteks in awhile so I tender advice with a caveat to check with a known source. (e.g. knowledgeable people in a pro audio shop - Trew Audio, Location Sound, The Audio Dept., Pro-Sound, etc.) 1. Comtek receivers output a mono signal. Any headphones with a stereo plug that you connect will give you audio in one side only. You simply need to replace the plug with a mono connector. (Some soldering is necessary.) An alternative workaround is to cut a notch in the plug at the point of the two hot leads with a file and melt some solder into the groove to short the left-right leads. With those little 1/8-inch plugs, that is probably more trouble than it is worth. 2. I don't know how many crystals are available in the PR-72 series (many I would guess) but you could always go on the Comtek website to research this. http://comtek.com But why would you need other crystals unless you need to change frequencies? I've never heard of a crystal wearing out although I suppose it could happen. I have some that must be substantially more than twenty years old and still functional. 3. I don't know about Audio Root headphones but many headphones work well with Comtek receivers. Location Sound sells rebranded Sennheisers for less than $20 each and can supply them with suitable plugs to use with Comteks. I don't think you can get much cheaper. Headphones for this application are considered expendables - Video Village residents sit on them, drop them and generally abuse them. You might want to have a medium good pair for the director but otherwise cheap and serviceable is better. David

Well, the context here is that you are seeking support for an analog recorder that hasn’t been made in about twenty years. Finding a shop that can work on the machine, have an inventory of parts and also provide a warranty for work performed with twenty-year-old parts, is a tall order. But help is available. I’m pretty sure that Trew Audio continues to service Nagra: Trew Audio 2243 N Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505 888-393-3030 323-876-7525 trewaudio.com Also: Location Sound Corp. 10639 Riverside Dr.North Hollywood, CA 91602 818-980-9891 800-228-4429 locationsound.com There is also Dan Dugan in San Francisco area but I don’t have ready contact information. And, the manufacturer continues to offer some support. The audio company, spun off from The Kudelski Company, is Audio Technology Switzerland: https://www.nagraaudio.com/ The company is run by relatives of Stefan Kudelski. David