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Everything posted by Matt Martin
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The importance of lavs from the POV of post.
Matt Martin replied to Henchman's topic in General Discussion
This is a great question. I fear the answer may be that no one ever looks at it. But let's see. I also tend to take good notes, including "Remix from Isos" whenever I am not able to nail a take or I am somewhat unhappy with the background noise or overall mix. My hope is this would be read further down the line to save post-sound some time. I further hope that post sound trusts the ears of the production mixer. When I make a note that a take is "Good" or "Excellent" I would hope they believe me and attempt to use it. -
Not sure if this helps your situation but ... I just recently discovered what I believe to be a bug. Not sure if it is a bug with the ERX or with the nomad transmitting the zaxnet (or just my particular gear?). In my tests, the ERX2 only works correctly when my nomad is set to a sample rate of 48k. Anything higher and the audio in the ERX is distorted and "glitchy", the reception led turns red (even though it is still locked to the frequency and shows up as "RX" in the extended menu). Timecode also does not jam the ERX at high sample rates either. Turning the sample rate back to 48k in the nomad immediately cleans up the audio, led turns green, and timecode jams. At 44.1k on the nomad, the audio in the ERX is very glitchy but the led stays green and the timecode jams properly. Can anyone else confirm this with their gear? I'm still waiting to hear back from Zaxcom about this (posted on the support forum) and will let you know what I find out.
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Is mic transmitter power important to you? Might want to read...
Matt Martin replied to karlw's topic in Current
For those still wanting to comment, here is a link to the express form. At this link you don't have to upload a separate document. You can just type directly into a comment box: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display If it doesn't automatically show up, the preceding number is 14-166. -
The few times I've been severely sick for a job I've always either been able to find a last minute replacement or I just sucked it up and went in. It is definitely a tricky situation because as you said, we hold so much responsibility as a sound mixer. The only time I had to totally bail was when my wife went into labor with our 3rd child. With each pregnancy I made sure I had backup plans (a handful of local mixers ready to jump in) for any job I took within a few weeks of the due date. Fortunately, they both came during off days. But with our 3rd I got called for a job a month before the due date, so risk was low and a replacement mixer wasn't really possible (this show involves kids, so a background check is needed and the "talent" is very difficult to work with, so prior experience on the show is a must). I made sure to inform the production coordinator of the situation and let them decide if they still wanted to book me. They said they were fine with the risk. Well it happened. My wife went into labor the day before and delivered the morning of said job. The production company was great and told me not worry and enjoy it. While of course it was the right thing to do, I have NEVER missed a day of work and I still felt terrible. Fortunately, this show always has two full crews ( two cameras/two mixers) so the only impact was the crews couldn't split up (which they apparently didn't really need to do that day anyway). If I had to totally bail last minute on a job this was the best one to do it on.
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I wonder if the heavy use of wireless was due to how many guest stars randomly popped in and out of skits so quickly. I'm also assuming there was very little rehearsal time with the actual talent so the wires were the safer bet.
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The importance of lavs from the POV of post.
Matt Martin replied to Henchman's topic in General Discussion
I can only speak for myself, but I don't think I have ever mixed both a lav and boom together for the same character (meaning the boom was directly aimed at the talent wearing said wire). I know this is asking for big phase issues. I of course have mixed a bit of boom in for a character wearing a wire, but the boom is either far away getting me mostly "room" and "air" or is directly over another character more than a few feet away. And I don't usually bring the boom level near unity. Maybe just a touch of it to add some life to the lav. I always try to follow the "3 to 1" ratio rule whenever mixing together two or more mics of any kind. Henchman, are you saying you're finding yourself being supplied with mix tracks that have both lav and boom of the same character mixed together? I can see why you would say these phase issues need to be remixed, but at least from my limited experience, that is certainly not what we would do in the field. -
The importance of lavs from the POV of post.
Matt Martin replied to Henchman's topic in General Discussion
Along with RPSharman's great points, the mix track also has important level adjustments. Even if the boom sounds great and we decide no wires are needed in the mix track, the mix track isn't just another copy of the boom ISO at that point. We will constantly adjust the level if needed in order to help maintain the best mix. Carefully fading up and down based on the volume of the speaker and what is needed to hear the dialogue properly and fit the scene. When wires are needed, the mix track (again) is not just "switching" between ISOs. We are carefully cross fading in and out to maintain a constant background noise level, limit bleed and phasing, and make a natural mix. No, we can't always nail it perfectly every take live, but I would think starting with the mix track would save post time. It's very discouraging hearing that this gets thrown out often without even a listen. -
I ordered a replacement battery door (for a trx900aa) from Zaxcom a few months ago and they asked if I preferred it coming in a padded envelope through standard mail to save on the shipping cost. So they are conscious of shipping costs for small items, but perhaps in this case it slipped through the cracks and it was just sent UPS.
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Weird on-location mixer technique; YouTube link
Matt Martin replied to Corbin's topic in General Discussion
I've always loved this video. I wish there were more like it! Here's one more I found : -
Lots of good thoughts already mentioned above. My usual philosophy on narrative projects is to only wire when necessary. Necessary meaning too wide for boom, long "oner's", when unacceptable room acoustics or background noise might be lessened with wires, adlib, large casts, when requested, etc... I rely on my boom op heavily whenever I can. He's a ninja. And I have come to really embrace the "perspective" of booms sounding wider on the wides and tighter on the tights. It took me a while to get past the urge to get every take as close sounding as possible. I used to associate "close" with "quality" and "distance" and a little extra "room" as being sub-par. I would strive to make every take sound as clean as a voiceover. I quickly learned that it just never sounded natural in the edit. Sure, it was "clean" but sounded like ADR when over a wide shot. Now I embrace the perspective whenever possible. I try to remind myself that movies (great movies) were in fact made before wireless mics (or wired lavalieres) were ever thought of. With all of that said, on some projects I tend to wire often for safety. The last feature I did was with a first time director and first time DP. We would do blocking, maybe see a rehearsal and we thought it would be a piece of cake to boom. Then everything would be changed last minute and we'd go wider, or DP would request a new light after the first take, or blocking would change etc making the boom not work at all. I'd then have to quick wire up and it would make me look unprepared. So on jobs like those I sometimes will unnecessarily wire just for safety in case the situation changes suddenly.
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And another good thread:
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Here is a thread talking about wiring soccer players. You can see my more in depth post in there, but long story short... I do FOH sound for a pro soccer stadium and our in-house video crew was experimenting with the Q5x system for wiring up players during game play. I wasn't really involved other than routing the sound through my board to monitor and route to the video record decks, but I did observe and ask questions. They ended up having great results. Basically they went with a pre-rigged Under Armor shirt with a B6 mounted and run through custom sewn channels. The cable ran to the back of the shirt and was placed in a sewn neoprene pocket. Sounded great and barely any noise from the loose jersey on top, even during fairly physical game play. I would highly recommend the Q5x system, especially because the transmitter is rubber and softer than a normal transmitter for comfort for the player and less liability.
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+1. No issues. You'll love it.
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I have really been liking this setup lately. It is a Nite Ize gear tie (18") folded in half and one end wrapped around the inside frame o the Orca. http://www.niteize.com/product/Gear-Tie-18.asp I like it because it can be folded flat when not in use, made it the shape of a hook for quick access, or wrapped more tightly around the phones so they don't fall off in transport.
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Yes, particularly with this problem it is extremely easy for it to slip by almost unnoticed. On my particular Maxx, it worked perfectly fine upon testing. I first fired it up with internal batteries which allowed the TX to work just fine. Then once I rigged it fully into my bag, I used a slightly used Np-1 (must have been charged around 15 volts or so) and it worked again just fine. Testing my gear at ALL voltages is something I have never even considered doing. I assumed (as I think so would have anyone else) that everything was working as it should. I'm glad I found this out before I took it out for a gig instead of in the middle of a work day when switched to a fully charged battery. As others have said, the registered email system should start being used as planned immediately.
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I also have a fairly bad fader lag with my Maxx. It only seems to be when the fader goes up from all the way potted down (or the reverse). Zaxcom has said this is there for a reason, and is the same on all of their mixers. I am looking for the quote now but can't find it (it is either here, on the facebook group, or the Zax support site). But yes, it is quite bad on the Maxx (at least on mine) and needs to be tweaked to react faster from full mute. It is nowhere near the slight delay on my Nomad.
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Yep, me too! This seals the deal for me. Yep, me too! This seals the deal for me.
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Great! My plan was to buy a Maxx and a camera link to share with my Nomad bag. Looks like Christmas might come early for me this year!
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This is great news! But just to be clear, it will also work with a camera link, correct? Just making sure because you left it out of your list.
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Looks amazing, and I'm really looking forward to what you might come up with for Zaxcom mixers and receivers. Congrats on the launch!
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I believe so far it's not possible to assign just the mix8 trim to the zaxnet gain. Similarly, it has been requested for an option for Autotrim to be able to linked zaxnet gain instead of input trim. Hopefully both of these things can happen.
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I would agree with Senator and Constantine that turning off the fountain when not seen could be a very good option. To help clarify, the concept would be to not use any audio from the wide with the fountain noise. The dialogue editor would only use the clean audio from the close ups, even when cutting to the wide. A wild track of the fountain on could be laid under at an appropriate level to help sell the cheat. As long as they don't try to use the wide audio, you won't have jumps in the background noise. But this should all be discussed with the Director and Script Sup so that all know that the wide dialogue is no good and for reference only. This may or may not be an option, depending on how much improv of the lines there ends up being, how long/often they plan to stay in or cut to the wide, etc. Just another option, but it definitely works in some situations and sounds great in the final mix. It can give the post mixer total control over the fountain noise.
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Proof that we should always be invited to tech scouts. You may have saved them a lot of money in ADR! Good work!
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It sounds like a wifi dongle (attached to the qrx's serial port) is needed to receive commands from the app and then the IFB transmitter (QIFB ) is used to send those commands over zaxnet to the transmitters.