Philip Perkins

If there was both genny and local power available, and you really did need to power from something other than your own DC system, I'd want a pretty good reason to not use the local (wall) power. I've been really hosed by relying on genny power, even when the electrics were friendly. You don't see cameras running on AC, right?

Most of my carts used equipment that ran on DC power supplies, ie were made to run off batteries (I know, quaint). The solutions I used for powering them were at first always big gel cel batteries (even on a stage) with bespoke DC-DC convertors, then later the excellent old PSC "Cart Power' box (AC to DC, with power distro). The Cart Power had a 3-pin AC plug, and I don't recall any issues with using its U-ground really ever. My power issues were never with properly designed professional audio gear, they were always with flaky cheap monitors, low budget powered speakers, work lights or other lesser gear that did not have good power design and ran off wall-warts.

I did, as we all did, a long time ago when we had only 1 or 2 track recorders, scenes were often shot with a single camera and there seemed to be time for rehearsals. That's not how movie are made any more, and no one of any importance in that process is interested in my opinion about it. I might ask for another take if I thought I'd messed up the iso tracks beyond usability (or "lost" some of them due to forgetting to record-enable them), but this would not be something one would want to do with any regularity, and there is a very good chance that your request will be refused by production in any case.

Easier? I guess, in terms of having a nice mix for dailies and early editorial. But USA feature audio post is pretty much entirely based on the isos these days, starting pretty early in the process. It's not an ego thing, and the post team isn't looking to do unnecessary work, but the system assumes that the location mix will not be everything that the final dubstage dialog mix can be and it is simpler to start with the raw isos and build from there, vs. starting with a location mix and then having to do fixes to it that will match. We still do that in docs much of the time, but the assumption in drama etc is that the isos will be the basis of the mix. This is why all the tedious location-sound secretarial work is really important.

Sorry I never saw this--yes, "To Chris Marker: An Unsent Letter" (by Emiko Omori) is one of my fave mix jobs. Not because the mix was so great but because I like Emiko's approach to storytelling so much. She knew and worked for Marker, and also knew many of his associates and friends quite well. I felt honored to get to work on it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2555126/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_to%20chris%20marker I still use Resolve for the simple video edits I do, and I was able to figure out a lot of the color and matteing and etc +audio on my own with just web searches for help. Free is great when you are cutting low/no budg projects.

It seems to me that in these times (especially re: recent events) anything community oriented will only continue to exist if the people who like/enjoy/depend on whatever it is step up and support it directly. That means donations and ticket sales, particularly. Governments and rich people can no longer be counted on to support things viewed as "extras" (and possibly subversive extras at that), so if you want things like JW to continue please pony up folks.

www.sound-link.co.uk

There is a UK dealer.

So far no go for a USA dealer (incl. Redding). These are pretty expensive for what they are (like $300). I think they would work well but would probably be a tougher sell to production at the lip of stages where they'd be silhouetted from the audience POV (vs PCC160 etc). I wonder if someone has made a 3D printed knockoff or similar thing?

https://schoeps.de/produkte/zubehoer/anwendungen-tisch/auf-dem-tisch/maiersound-turtle.html I am looking for a USA source for the MaierSound "Turtle" boundary mic mount. So far the usual suspects don't carry them. Any ideas of who might have them? There is a dealer in the UK... thx

I'm in a long process of selling off old gear this year, and this is where I'm at now. For stuff that could be considered at all "current", like working pro soundies use it, JW is the best method. The personal interaction and the likelihood that the person you are dealing with is honest are just much higher here, and the listing is really very film-sound targeted without a lot of irrelevant stuff in the way . For anything that might be music-recording related the GearSpace Classifieds can work fine, but your gear easily gets lost among all the non-film sound stuff, and the board is heavily targeted by people using listing-bots so that gear that no one responds about keeps popping up at the top of the listings, sometimes for years. This pushes your new listing down very fast. Selling through Reverb works fine too, but they take a decent size bite of your sale $. Again, better for music gear. I sold a lot of gear thru Trew's consignment service back when their fee was lower and lower still if you "banked" it with them to use to buy new gear from them. In my current work I don't need much that Trew sells, so this doesn't work very well for me any more. I don't live in a production-centric area like LA, so local Craig'sList is rarely helpful. That leaves EBay. It works pretty well these days, but forces you to have whatever you are selling fully ready to ship before you list (re: packaging and shipping details). The reach of Ebay, and how fast you can move things that are not going to ever sell on JW, has got to be 10 times that of the other platforms. There is a lot to not like about Ebay, how it works and how scam-ridden it is, but for a lot of older gear it is actually the only way you'll ever sell it for any price.

This is (still) Jeff's party. He gets to say what he wants to.

A slight breeze or even a decently stiff wind isn't my enemy: like any pro sound person I have zeps for the mics and sandbags etc for the stands. If need be I tie off the stand and the boom to something heavier. This goes for outdoor music recording too.

That sounds like a documentary. Which is kind of what a lot of us do?

That was an 8-in 54xx-series mixer made for radio work (that could run on DC). Big sound, but as they aged they needed a lot of love. By today's standards they were pretty noisy.

For a freelancer, a late fee is a nuclear option, just short of threats of small-claims court. To most people, especially honest ones, it will seem like an attack. I found it better to be a little patient and try phone calls and emails in which you leave them an opening to apologize and pay up, even if maybe they were really intending to "age" your invoice some? It's good to make them understand that you are paying attention to your outstanding invoices and that you mean to get paid in good time, but it's also good to start out with politeness and not threats of penalties.

Are your wireless RX in a remote rack? Monitor TX?

And of course those sync issues are the sound dept.'s fault, right? In this sort of situation I gently remind the posties that my audio files were recorded vs. a very accurate and very consistent clock, so your sync issues must be caused by the (gasp!) camera?

One of the nice things about being an independent location sound recordist is that usually you get to build up your own working rig anyway you want that you can afford. So if you want to use pres like those mentioned for location dialog work, build up a system, deploy it and tell us how it goes. As has been said, most location soundies would prefer gear that is lighter, smaller, less power hungry and less expensive than a vintage pre, where you are paying a premium for the name and rep. Location soundies have so much gear to buy that studio folks don't have to deal with, especially wireless mics, monitoring and time code gear that most would prefer to not sink so much money into name-brand mic pres. The other issue is that a whole lot of on-set mic booming is done via wireless anymore: there are huge advantages in mobility by doing this, but that would let out using this sort of pre. But if you can manage it on your jobs--have at!

Nice

I was wondering if anyone using a Yamaha DM3 on a cart was powering it off 24VDC, and how that is going? I would only need to do this occasionally, so I was wondering if a 24v camera block battery might work for this (rented)? The manual says it draws 43w @ 24vdc....

DM7: what they have instead of CL and QL. Venues I work at with those are looking harder at DM7 than Rivage right now. Those working with DM3 dante or no--are you able to use USB (or Dante) to get input into channels 17-18? Like via a USB interface box? Have you tried making a Mac aggregate device with the DM3 and an interface to ProTools or Boom Recorder or etc?

Quite a few years ago many talking commercials (ie with actors and/or "real people") became essentially very expensive documentaries, at least in the way they are shot. So the verite doco techniques for sound pertain, although unlike on a doc the soundie will have full camera, G+E, props, art, etc etc depts to contend with. Also unlike a real verite doc those other depts will not feel obliged to do their work quietly.

There are many directors for whom 50-50 is a way of life, due to their aversion to the call-and-response between AD, sound, camera etc and then slating. A few I worked with explained their reasons, and I understood them in terms of vibe management and the like. The good ones understood that work still had to go on, so they would engineer breaks in the action to allow this. Then there are the former art directors and reality TV types who don't care and basically want sound to never stop rolling ever, file organization be damned.... The gigs for the latter type were tough--I was often working solo, so didn't get a lot of breaks (to rest or to catch up on notes). On these I hoped that maybe the prod co was smart enough to have an assistant editor doing on-set syncing, so if we got really bolluxed on file naming we could at least glance at the files together...

"once you get to know the Origin C+ (which is not overly intuitive to use). " That is an understatement...