Philip Perkins

To the OP: no amount of internet forum-reading substitutes for your own in-person comparison of the mics. It's about how they sound, not about how other people think they sound. Go check them out.

Exactly. In my case this is not conjecture, I've had to deal with recordings done this way in post.

AAT works if the AAF you get isn't really screwed up. I keep a "vanilla" version of ProTools around to check exports--often if AAT has a problem with an AAF then PT does too--good to know. The freeware DaVinci Resolve can also open and (theoretically) export AAFs. What NLEs are you getting exports from that are causing problems? At least 8 times out of 10 problems I have opening exports are caused by issues in the picture edit system, especially how they imported the files originally, have they mixed sample rates, frame rates and audio file types in the timeline, are they doing a lot of over- or under-crank speed effects on clips, how organized are their files on their drives, and have they followed a consistent naming convention, and so on. If the people you are working with are cutting on Final Cut X then there are extra issues to deal with, again on their end not yours. With inexperienced (or lazy) editors it sometimes takes a few tries to get it all to work, no matter what DAW you are using. I encourage you to email the AAT folks--they are very responsive and will run tests for you. One trick I discovered re: AAT, Reaper and crappy AAFs: try converting the AAF to AES31 (in AAT) first, then convert the AES31 ADL to a .rpp.

Not the worst not the best. If you have no TC boxes then jam the cameras (if they have the XDCA backs) from your 744 and then rejam them every few hours at least, if you can. If they don't have the XDCAs you can't input TC to the cameras, so then get all the devices onto the same rough time-of-day TC if you can (ie set their TC to a value), then start them all at the same time in free-run TC mode, and use a slate to mark the takes. Make sure you have a mic working on both cameras, that will help post sync to your files a lot. If you don't have a real slate a steady hand-clap, full frame and in focus, will work. Keeping some notes about what take is at what audio TC will help them too. If they have audio-to-audio sync capability in post (like PluralEyes) they can try that too.

The cameras need XDCA backs to be able to input TC. They have BNC connectors. So to connect, you need 5 pin Lemo to BNC, right? As was said the cameras will drift off a jam so to keep them in tight sync with your recorder you might want to consider putting one of the many available sync/TC boxes on the camera.

Dan Dugan was the last tech I know of doing authorized X4S service. https://www.dandugan.com/ Harvey's business partner, Andy Wiskes, is still around, but I'd try Dan D first.

There are no M72 compato xtals available from Comtek and there haven't been any for a long time. I bought what they said was the last of a few of the "letter band" types from them about 10 years ago. I did what was suggested, which was patrolled Ebay and equipment auctions and bought up what I could, often having to take more than I wanted. I'd advise particularly watching for sales by sound people retiring or quitting the business, who might still have been using the M72/PR72 units. But they haven't been made in quite awhile now, and I had to find other techs to fix mine since Comtek didn't want to service them either. If you can keep them going they still work just fine (no tuning issues ever with crystals), but I was always very paranoid about clients losing or breaking them since replacement was a major issue.

Innovativ's carts are pretty pricey, but shipping one of these to CA (for instance) from Poland would be expensive too, so it might be a wash anyhow. If you really need a case-cart for your jobs, like fly that much with gear and are opposed to the more pedestrian cart solutions (like Magliner etc) then maybe the price isn't really much of an object. These carts are cool once you get to the set, but maybe a little too complex in setup to be able to fetch from oversize-baggage and immediately deploy in an airport situation with a big package, or pull out of a cab and immediately roll your stuff to a hotel room etc...

Thanks, but only 1 of the Nagras in those old pix was mine, still have it. The rest of the gak (F1, Dolbys, DA etc) was mine at the time as well, but we are set up in a real remote recording truck that was very not mine!

Is Innovativ the only co making case-carts like this? And are these guys using bespoke (copied) hardware or off-the-shelf stuff (latches, wheels etc) that anyone could buy?

Here are some working pix from 1989, probably posted here before, but all I could find that was already digitized-- 1989, Stern Grove SF recording The Dixie Hummingbirds and other gospel acts for the film "Sacred Grove". Note 3 "Harveyized" Nagras (2 tag-teaming the mix, looking at the Dolby SRs on the bottom of the stack) with a 3rd Harvey Nagra rolling an audience pair and an F1 rolling mix back up on 2 VHS machines (with TC in their audio tracks). Bill Ruck's famous hifi audio DA in the stack as well. Pacific Mobile Recorders truck. Bill broke his foot during the setup and soldiered on to the wrap, for which I am still extremely grateful! When I came back to record the same festival for the same film the next year the budget had been (surprise!) slashed, so it was me alone in my Econoline with 2 1/2" 8 track Tascams and a TC Nagra….we didn't know how good we had it this day. This was early enough in the advent of the "Harvey Nagra" that these 3 probably constituted 75% of the total Nagras so modded at that point...

This isn't going to happen, right? This cat is not going to write a check for $82k for an ebay sale for an old recorder? So this was just some kind of pissing match?

Interesting for collectors I guess. For some of us the current bid amount might represent a big chunk of the value of all of the equipment we make a living with, which is sort of what we're about. Maybe someone will get $82k+ for that recorder if it turns out that the Beatles recorded several hit records on it or it was one of Richard Nixon's secret Oval Office recorders (I know it's not) or etc etc. Otherwise....wtf?

Super low noise is not a CS3e thing. I think it's a great mic for location work, but is a little noisy for studio use, although not as noisy as some older studio faves like U87. My 416 is just as noisy as my CS3es. If you hate the noise maybe look @ DPA?

I had Alexas blow their jam when switched to non-sync frame rates and back or over battery changes, which was why we left them hooked up to a TC box. TC boxes are so small and so light nowadays that camera depts who refuse them are doing so out of pure hubris, there is really no excuse. In the era of all the wireless video and focus etc gak being attached to cameras, WTF?