Jump to content

Freeheel

Members
  • Posts

    486
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    7

Everything posted by Freeheel

  1. Very nice work. Thanks for sharing! Cheers, Brent Calkin
  2. Can't answer to the G3 specific nature of the question, but I can definitely say that wet people can really mess up your wireless range. I've seen it on both Zaxcom and Lectro wirelesses. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  3. The 552 is still being made, and will likely be repairable by Sound Devices for years. It is a very good mixer, but it's recording capability is not its strong suit. I find it hard to believe anyone at Trew would give you that advice to stay away from it based on repairability. The Zoom probably is their recommendation for beginner "bang for the buck" though- I understand how that advice could happen...the Zoom packs a lot of features into an inexpensive package. It's a tough choice though... the Zoom name is still associated firmly with an H2 taped to a painters pole as a beginner sound recorder... We'll see how (and if) that changes over the next couple of years. There's long Zoom thread on this site about the F8 - I'd read through that and then get your hands on both devices (552 and F8) in the store and play around with them. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  4. Not sure if you are aware Ed, but Gordon is the CEO of Lectrosonics. He goes a little stealthily, as Larry does... Probably wise to give his advice another try before you "contact Lectro directly" - which you kind of just did... Cheers, Brent Calkin
  5. Thanks Chris... You HAD to drag in Einstein and the theory of relativity... Now Martin is going to have to worry about how fast the camera is moving in relation to the sound recorder, as well... :-) Cheers, Brent Calkin
  6. Forensic Daily AA battery Accounting as follows... 5 X (2 battery) wireless tx = 10 X approx 3 changes for 12 hrs + some overtime if necessary = 30 2 lockits - 4 daily + 4 full change if day goes long = 8 Backup SD 552 4 batteries inside = 4 Ambient Lockit slate 4 daily + 4 backup = 8 Headlamp 2 AA's = 52 AA's I often usually take a handful of lithium single use as my backup stash, since most days are not going to need all those the backup batteries- So a realer number is 40 NiMh AA's and a 12 pack of Lithium AA single use. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  7. Sounds to me like there is something wrong with the Amp/Speaker system. A hit mic isn't going to create more sonic pressure than a kick drum mic. There may be a short circuit in one of the speakers, speaker wires, or amp outputs. Works fine at lower levels and then the amp breaker goes when there is a pulse of power going out- something to check- I've seen that a few times over the years...Often 1 strand of speaker wire touching the other polarity-sometimes inside the speaker wire connectors. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  8. It is important 'cause I'm mainly a doc guy. On a daily basis, I'm carrying around about 1.5 kg (3.3lb) of NiMh AA batteries. I'm always at my airline bag weight limit for travelling. If I can take weight out and not lose performance and not have to pay too much more- I'll do it! And as for transmitters- I'm sure you've felt the difference between a transmitter pack with 2 NiMh and 2 Lithium non-rechargeables. It's not an insignificant difference... Cheers, Brent Calkin
  9. If they don't cost too much more and have a similar runtime as a NiMh battery, but weigh ½ as much- I'd go for them. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  10. I've worked a fair bit with the Sony F55 and never seen this problem, but it is important to realize that audio outputs on cameras are not "reading off the heads", so problems can definitely arise where there is no audio recorded and the return is working fine. Last got bitten by this years ago shooting on a Sony F900R that had a head issue- video was recorded (with some minor dropouts) but the audio track did not get recorded. Fortunately, I had a recorder for that shoot- it had only been spec'd as a transcription recorder, but I was using a 722t so we didn't lose anything. The bigger issue with the F55 is the camera operator taking it off speed without telling the Sound Op, and not resetting the camera properly to normal speed and timecode settings. Offspeed shooting will disable audio recording. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  11. That's cool Mike! Do you have to hold it upside down when operating in the southern hemisphere, or is it the universal self calibrating version? Cheers, Brent Calkin
  12. Thanks Prahlad, I'll keep that in mind. Has no one tried to use an iPad for playback? I'm somewhat surprised, it would seem like a nice way to tidy the cart up and not have a laptop taking up a lot of space. (I'm actually dreaming of reducing the playback rig to my ENG bag and a few little extras) Cheers, Brent Calkin
  13. Hi All, As I sat down to prepare my Protools audio/timecode session for an upcoming shoot with some playback elements, it occurred to me that it could be a lot handier to use an iPad than my laptop. I did a bit of searching around the site and found a few hints that people have been doing this. I was hoping to get some feedback on how this has been working for people, whether the iPad and the software you've been using is crash resistant (especially for the fairly simple demands of playback) how easily you can program and use cue points, and even whether the iPad output is crosstalk resistant enough to have audio on one channel and timecode on the other. I've mainly been looking at reviews of Wavemachine's Auria, but i'm interested in what's been working well for people - especially those of you who are used to using Pro Tools for this sort of thing. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  14. Or maybe cotton, cotton and wool. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  15. Turn off main Power switch. Hold Menu button until LCD does a subtle flash. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  16. I stopped using the Powerex 2700 a couple of years ago - too much self discharge. The Powerex Imedions have been working rather well though and can sit for a couple of weeks without significant discharge. I'll have to try the Eneloops at some point.. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  17. Set walkies can have enough power to throw thumps or clicks (or worse) into your audio when you push to talk. I would be careful about using the walkie to chat during a take. Not sure if you intend to do that or not... cheers, Brent Calkin
  18. I met an inventor years ago who had invented the silent leaf blower. He said it never took off because users felt like it wasn't powerful enough- even though it was measurably just as powerful as a noisy 2 stroke blower. I guess this is like the electric cars with the recorded engine sounds... Cheers, Brent Calkin
  19. Cool, thanks for those excellent replies. And thanks for the little details such as the unbalanced and potentially uncalibrated nature of the mic inputs. And the reminder that it would not be power able off the BDS. I'm aware the CL is a better solution as a hop, but the main reason I started looking at this rig is the recording transmitter element. I was doing my homework to see whether I should spend the extra money to get a versatile and powerful system or just spend a little bit on, say, a more limited ZFR300 recorder. Ideally a TRXLA2 AND TRX 900CL with the RX200 would be purchased- but that's raising the budget ante quite a bit for my original need for a recording wireless. If anyone has used the TRXLA2 as a hop transmitter, feel free to chime in with your experience. Jack and Rado have given me good warnings, but maybe I could use it as an occasional hop when my usual SR hop is made useless by a crowded spectrum while travelling... and maybe I'll pick up a CL further down the road.. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  20. I haven't got any Zaxcom gear and my regular rig is a SD633 with Lectro wirelesses and a Lectro SR hop. So i'm in need of a little Zaxcom education... I'm thinking of adding a Zax RX200 and a TRXLA2 for 2 reasons that may or may not be compatible. 1-As a camera hop. (most of the time) 2-as a regular talent wireless setup (at times when I really need to have the onboard TX recording capability) but I'm not sure if my multi-use thinking is possible or not. I've gone through all the promotional material, the manual and a bunch of JW threads without finding the specific answer. My first question is whether a stereo TRXLA2 (which can be ordered in Stereo or Mono) is useful as a camera hop transmitter? Will the Stereo option allow for a 2 channel mic level fed from a mixer? In the manual it talks about the stereo option as being for dual lavs. Second question is - if you choose the stereo option because you want to use the TRXLA2 as a hop TX, can you also use it with a single mono lav as a talent TX? Cheers, Brent Calkin
  21. If your goal is stereo sound gathering, a used Sound Devices 7xx series is your probably your best sound quality per dollar purchases right now. The preamps are topnotch with slightly better noise floor and slightly less harmonic distortion than the SD 633. And there's lots for sale right now. The SD 633's advantage is that it's a lot more intuitive when playing in the menus, and has way better metadata entry. Also has a lot more tracks and flexible bus routing and all kinds of modern stuff that makes it awesome. I have both. My 633 is my daily driver, and the 744 is the 633's backup and also dedicated sound effects recorder. It's funny, usually when you get a newer recorder, you resent using an older one for anything- In my case, I though I now generally dislike using the 744t for production recording, I still prefer it for pure sound capture when getting ambiences or FX. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  22. +1 on troublesome card readers/ bad USB cables between the card reader and the computer. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  23. Hi Faiz, Looks to me like the stuff that works with most UHF wireless gear is on page 29 from frequency 470 to 890MHz. It's listed as Fixed,Mobile,Broadcasting,Radionavigation Which looks pretty similar to how things are allocated in much of the rest of the world. The question of who has the rights to certain frequencies in your country is the main question. I don't know what laws Pakistan has for using radio frequencies. In much of the less regulated parts of the world, the best thing to do is to do a frequency scan of the area you are going to work and do it every day at different times to see what kind of radio activity is happening. You can use a unit like the handheld spectrum analyzer available from these people. www.rf-explorer.com If there is no or limited activity in certain frequency areas that match similar frequency blocks of wireless microphones, those are the ones to buy. Generally in the rest of the world, our wirelesses operate in the spaces between on the air TV stations; If you have TV station transmitters nearby, they will show up on any scans you do with the analyzer. Cheers, Brent Calkin
  24. Hey Chris, Checking a personal bag first is a good idea and often works. Just be aware that they can and will take your bags off if they have the personnel to do it. Once, I was 2 minutes late for the aircraft doors closing and they wouldn't let me on. (wasn't my fault- producer was late... ) It took them 45 minutes to take the bags off after that, and they had to hold the plane for that length of time, but somehow it made more sense to the airline that instead of letting me onto the plane, they would delay everything further and also screw up my schedule completely... Cheers, Brent Calkin
  25. The Ambient is made of light plastic and actually weighs very little. Cheers, Brent Calkin
×
×
  • Create New...