Jump to content

Philip Perkins

Members
  • Posts

    10,735
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    214

Everything posted by Philip Perkins

  1. The 664 may have been on a table, but if it was in a bag the power cable could still be stressed in some way. Could your power switch be worn or dirty? Could you have accidentally not firmly moved the switch completely to the ON position when you powered up that day? I would consider using some contact cleaner on that switch, and on the power connector. I have had power intermittents caused by not seating the removeable IEC end of the AC power cable all the way into the power supply, or it getting loose.
  2. Bose over-the-ear types have worked for me. Not great sounding headphones but ok for listening and working on a plane. No NR headset reduces close conversation (or baby-crying) very much, but they can reduce the continuous engine+air roar. After a period of time you'll want to take a break from them, since there is something tiring about being under them for hours on end.
  3. These can be helpful, but I used my SM7 just fine for years before they came along.... Mine work more with our ribbons...
  4. I have lost jobs due to not being willing to provide insurance for the production company. All of these companies were very big on telling me that "this is just how the industry works". I replied that in nearly 50 years in production I had never provided insurance for a client and would not be starting now. And yes, feel free to download any contract and cross out anything you don't like and add anything you want. That's the way lawyers do it. If they don't like your changes then can push back. Mostly they hope that you either won't notice what a fuck their contract is or will be too intimidated or desperate to push back on it.
  5. Agree that if you go this way you should factor in the expense and time of sending it to Sax in Switzerland for a checkup. Sax gear is really tightly packed inside, unless you are a pro-level tech with the right tools I would not attempt fixing it in any way. The work won't be cheap but I'd bet on you getting back a mixer that functions like it did when it was new (which was pretty great).
  6. I would not call the 6xx series finicky with media, and I think folks around here still using them would agree. The issue is the media, and that eventually, like all data storage types, they fail. You had a Plan B, that and making sure to properly format and test your cards is all you can do. I haven't ever heard of a failure like yours, and if it were me I'd be loading up some new cards and stress-testing the machine (very long records, and a lot of fast short records for instance) before I used it on another job. It could be a machine issue, it would be great to know for sure!
  7. The SD card could have been bolluxed by having Mac system files on it (some kind of corruption) BEFORE you tried recording on it, but I don't understand how the DIT ADDING Mac files to the SD would cause a file to truncate. Did the part of the cut-off file you got play? Have correct metadata? If so then it was closed properly... In any case I would consider retiring that card: you dodged the bullet this time. Did you ask the DIT if they transferred anything TO the card? That would be kind of irregular, right?
  8. Yamaha is very strict in all consoles about having only stereo recorders on board. Weird, but just as true for the top of the line "Rivage" as it is for this mixer. You can get clock i/o in a Yamaha mixer but you have move up the line a ways. Isn't there a way to add plugins to the mixer?
  9. You are good with the Dante clock unless your system needs to follow another system's clock (in a complex set up). If everyone goes Dante then you are probably ok. If everyone is syncing to a master generator in a production truck etc then your console needs to have its sample rate follow that clock.
  10. Probably a good thing for the sound side of Aaton, and probably the end of any support for their cameras (if they were still doing any). MANY years ago Arri sold a reel-to-reel recorder under their name that was pretty good, simpler and cheaper than Nagra. It was a re-badged Tandberg that was sold through Arri dealers ("Arrivox-Tandberg"), so there is some precedent for Arri selling audio gear.
  11. Have you checked in at the Gearspace Remote Recording forum? There you will find people who are doing work more or less like you describe, vs dialog recording on location for films, which is very different work from remote recording of music. In general thre are many more good solutions to what you want to do than there are for film sound work. If you have the money and know you will not need to expand into higher track counts I think Sonosax is a great way to go. But I find that in in remote music work the channel count has a tendency to creep upwards as the gig approaches, so leave yourself a way to accommodate those late adds.
  12. I have an operational slate that was sold to me by Mike Denecke himself in the 1990's that has been dropped (and thrown) innumerable times, survived years of air transport, was drowned in seawater at least twice, worked in rain, mud, dust, arctic/snow, jungle/humid environments and is still ticking. I wish I had survived all those shoots as well as my old slate has. That said please report on how well the Deity slates hold up in real world use.
  13. That's a Pilotone machine--maybe he did film sound too?
  14. My gear package is now much smaller than it was, and for one gig recently I needed to get more radios onto my antenna set up than I had "holes" for (only 4). I used my back up antenna rig, with one set of 4 being on the Venue and the other being on my old Ramsey dual LPDA fins. Noticed no diff in range at all.
  15. Yes they are, and production needs to understand this. It's bad enough that I have to allow actors to mess with expensive wireless TX and Villagers to drop, mess with and lose expensive IFB RX. Lav mics are subject to all sorts of stress when on talent, and eventually they will break. That is predictable and production needs to pay for that breakage the same as it does for camera, grip, electric gear props and etc.. I make clear that over a long job there will be lav mic damage and it will be billed to them.
  16. In truth lavs are a "consumable" or, in movie parlance, and "expendable" in our biz too.
  17. So if the FOH sound guy is recording everything off the QL5 and his RIO to Dante in multitrack, isn't the gig now covered? Or do they want redundant recording? It sounds like the FOH guy has made the mic choice and the client has bought off on that, so off they go. I'd be a little concerned with sync with the FOH guy's recording, like can his PT rig take TC from video? If you want your own recording you could take a Dante feed from his Rio to your own computer, and add hall and audience mics if that guy isn't doing those, as well as video TC.
  18. That'll work if what you want in the rears is a reverbed version of the LCR. Do you want reverb on the music all the time? Are you trying to make it sound like the audience is in a concert hall?
  19. Wait--you got the screaming and they complained about the low bits within the same take? I'd file that in the "Ignore" folder.
  20. This number of inputs is more easily handled by a real console (vs. a stack of portable mixer-recorders). My pref would be Yamaha (CL/QL) since they can have real Dugan automix cards in them. You seem to be in SoCal so there is a lot of rental gear available. (There are other mixers with various sorts of automix too, most of us here prefer the Dugan.) I'd record out to a laptop via Dante--that would give you as many tracks as you need. To get that many people on lavs in a reasonable amount of time you will need skilled (ie real pro A2) help, as was said, ideally 2. 20+ is a lot of wirelesses to manage, I'd be asking if we can go hardwire. I'd also be asking if they can live with neat small lav mics on the outside of the actor's clothes (since this is an obviously artificial situation, not pretend-real drama). You'll still have to give them a wardrobe-choice lecture, since it is likely the talent will be wearing their own clothes.
  21. When I used to use one of the "big" Kensington balls all the time (with a ball the size of a billiard ball) I would often have to take the ball out of the cavity, clean off the rollers and dust the thing out. The ball picks up grease and dirt and dead skin etc from your fingers, which gets on the ball which then transfers it to the rollers. See if a good cleanout helps you.
×
×
  • Create New...