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David Waelder

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Everything posted by David Waelder

  1. There are whole bunch of tricks and techniques but no magic bullet. Nothing works in every situation. But with that disclaimer, let me share one that is often useful. Prepare your mike for mounting with double stick tape. Attach either topstick or a Rycote stickie to the backside of the mike. Then, affix a corn pad (Dr. Scholls or house brand, doesn't matter) to the front of the rig so that the grill opening of the mike is in the hole of the corn pad but surrounded by the foam. Mount the mike as ususual in the center of the chest. The corn pad protects the mike from contact with clothing without muffling or stifling it. This doesn't necessarily work in situations where the clothing is vigorously pulled across the mike but it is surprisingly effective in many cases. David Waelder
  2. Jeff, I started a compilation of equipment manuals on the site I share with Tom Brandau. There's not much available right now but if people were to supply me with some pdf files, I could easily add more. It would be no sweat to put them in alphabetical order. If there are a lot, I could divide the listings into recorders, mixers, etc. I posted to a section of the site called FYI: http://www.productionrecording.com/fyi/IndexFYI.html For a direct link to the page: http://www.productionrecording.com/fyi/EquipmentLibrary.html David Waelder
  3. I rather like the idea of using rechargeable batteries wherever possible and heard many good thing about the iPower system so I purchased a charger and set of four 9-volt batteries. In charging the batteries for the first time, I am measuring voltages that seem much lower than I would expect. I measured the voltage of the batteries before putting them on charge. When just unwrapped, they measured from 7.3 - 7.6 volts. A bit low but, then, they had never been charged. After a full charge (with the charger carefully switched to the LiOn setting) the cells still measured only 8.3 or 8.4 volts. I'm using a good meter that has always given me accurate readings in the past. I left the cells on charge for several extra hours in the event that they might come up higher after trickle charge. But additional time does not seem to have any appreciable effect. Voltage well under 9 volts seems much lower than I would expect, especially in the absence of a load. Do these cells start low and gradually come up to spec after several charge-discharge cycles? Or have I received some duds? I've not used them in any way, save to charge them. What experience have others had with them? (And my apologies to iPower if there's nothing wrong and I'm raising a fuss for nothing. Since I haven't yet used the batteries, I can't be sure there really is anything wrong; it just seems odd to me.) David Waelder
  4. Some people I've talked to have actually recommended matching a sharkfin to a less directional antenna. Sometimes, particularly as you near the limits of the system, the receiver will make frequent shifts between antennae if the performance is very similar. Although these are theoretically imperceptible, sometimes there is a faintly audible click on the switch-over. By using a system where one antenna pulls a bit more signal than the other, you minimize this liability. But the most effective way to employ your resources shouldn't involve crippling your system, essentially shooting one element in the leg to make it go slower. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend using a sharkfin paired with a 1/4 wave whip. But using a sharkfin for one diversity antenna and a something like the SNA 600 makes some sense. The dipole is tunable to your frequencies and provides additional gain compared with the whip. Being omni-directional, it ensures that your system can receive good signal even when people wander from expected marks (and away from optimal sharkfin reception). I don't know if this represents the best system or not; there's too much voodoo in RF reception to make definitive statements without extensive testing. I asked Larry Fisher about this set-up during the LSC sponsored radio seminar and he thought it might be a good plan but stopped short of committing to it. David Waelder
  5. Gee, I must be just lucky - I've had a Cooper go into catastrophic failure twice in recent memory! I should state right away that neither occasion was in any way due to any defect in construction or design of Andy's panel. To the contrary, the excellence of construction made it possible to rapidly correct the problem and continue using the mixer. On the first occasion, I was working in the rain and had to go to base camp and leave the sound gear in the care of my boom operator. He was a hard working fellow but he was inattentive that day and didn't notice that the pattern of rain shifted and water that had been deflected was now dripping directly on the board. When I returned, the board was thoroughly soaked and completely inoperative. I was lucky and the immediate shots could be recorded with a single mike so I patched directly into the recorder. I removed the channel boards and the main output board from the Cooper chassis and put them in a dry place. In a couple of hours, all was well again. The second occasion came while doing promos for a show called "The Nine." This was a pretty good budget TV show (as these things go) and I wanted to leave a good impression. We had been doing little set pieces with the actors as they were available from first unit. There was a minor glitch in my headphone connection and I removed the output board to get at the conector. Later, as I was returning from craft services and an actress was already on her way down to our set, someone called my attention to bizarre behavior from my sound cart. The mixer would spontaneously shut itself down and then "reboot" to the accompanyment of double beeps from the oscillator. I repatched power and did some other frantic stuff but the board was in full failure mode. I was supplying both a DVD and a DAT back-up so I couldn't just patch into the recorder. However, I had a Sound Devices 442 with me and hurridly connected that to the recorders. I don't use the little 442 all that often so I had to refamiliarize myself in a hurry. But all was OK. Later, when I had five minutes to think without the pressure of an actress on the way, I remembered the little headphone fix I had done. Checking the connections, I found that a ribbon connector was pulled just a little loose and would slip in and out of connection. Even when the equipment is the greatest, the capacity of the human mixer for messing things up demands back up gear. David Waelder
  6. I've gone through quite a few different mounts in my quest for something simple, quiet, field-repairable and less expensive than a tankfull of gas for a Hummer. For short shotguns, the Panamic works best for me and meets all the criteria except, maybe, the last. For shorter mounts, I have been using one of the old Rycotes, the design with clips suspended between the arms of two "U" pieces. This worked very well and was exceptionally quiet but the chore of replacing the Rycote elastics was a nuisance. Following a tip from David, the parts guru at LSC, I changed over the system to use the orange elastics from the PSC mount, fastening them off to the "U" fittings with nylon cable ties. Nearly a year of frustrating adjustments followed. No matter what I did, the system seemed noisy. I changed elastics again to use the flat rubber bands used in the LTM mounts after David suggested that a twisting or rolling movement in the round elastics could contribute noise. Finally I got the whole busines quiet by making certain that the cable ties were securely tightened. To me, this was counter-intuitive. I would have thought that a bit of slack in the tie-off, so long as the elastic was stretched a bit, would help keep things quiet. But, I was wrong. Some of the noise was apparently the cable ties shifting position on the mount. So, now it's a Rycote mount with the blue LTM flat rubber bands tightly secured with cable ties. I also have a PSC mount with the orange bands and that's quiet too but the Rycote is a tad quieter. David Waelder
  7. My pleasure. I'm glad it worked for you. I also keep a mike pre-rigged to a degree. I have a Sonotrim that suffered some damage at the head. The electrics are fine but the plastic head will no longer comfortably fit a vampire. So I just designated that as a Rycote Stickie mike and keep it with a Rycote mount and corn pad attached. It's good to have some application for a mike that might otherwise have to be tossed. David
  8. I don't have a magic bullet. Much of the time I work with Sonotrim mikes and I keep small pieces of acoustifoam in the mike boxes. Whenever there's significant wind I'll cut a tiny piece, about 1/4" x 1/4". I mount the mike in a vampire clip with the open screen facing into the mount. Then I push the cut piece of acoustifoam into the space between the mike and the vampire mount. This seems to work pretty well and the resulting rig is no larger than the usual configuration of the mike. I also use Rycote stickies to mount mikes, Sonotrims and other brands. The Overcovers they make look very clever but seem, to me, a fussier rig than the simple foam in the vampire clip. Sometimes, though, I'll fit a corn pad over the mike head when using the stickies. The corn pad provides some shelter from rubbing. Mount the corn pad upside down to utilize the adhesive on the Rycote stickie for attachment. Then the adhesive on the corn pad serves to hold the Overcover. But that's a time consuming rig. The foam in the vampire is fast. David Waelder
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