Wandering Ear

This is what i use. I have 8 space and 12 space racks that hang on mic stands. I put them on the front and back for larger village setups, so i get up to 24 on a single stand. these i had custom sewn for me, but the design roughly came from hanging shoe racks which can be found for pretty cheap. They just don’t last very long.

Thanks!

Good to know you don’t get any cross talk without twisted pairs! I’m guessing this is the wire used inside my dms pianissimo? It’s small and flexible.

As it sits today: there are poly fuses on each charger. The wiring’s a mess right now as I swapped out the AA chargers mid show and haven’t cleaned up. The xtar chargers are usb-c and I still need to add Buck converters to move them onto the distro. As always, the carts never done. I really like having everything wired to a single 4 pin xlr. I can pull the drawer off my cart and put it in a pelican, or i can charge small batteries from my LifePO4 bricks i use on my main cart. On the cart they are powered by a meanwell 12v supply

I use a mogami 4 ch snake for my dms setup. I wired it with the same breakouts as my old camera snake using the same wire. There may be a thinner option out there, but i’m never booming with it so it’s never been an issue.

Did they specify boom on left and lavs on right? If so maybe they are used to the old broadcast workflows and are planning on using those tracks and not using your at all?. If not I would give them a mono (or dual mono) mix as you think sounds best for the scene and let them use that for the edit. That will be a closer representation of the scene for reference. Hopefully they have a good conform workflow setup, or their post sound team will waste a lot of time.

Nice work Doc! Can’t wait to listen to these as a low profile option.

In my experience they are pretty hardy with moisture, but I don’t own them so have only used them a few times.

Yup. Even the new models that are supposed to be improved are giving me trouble often, especially as we cross through the dew point every night. I end up on a Sanken CS3e a lot when it gets really wet, and keep a 416 in the van, but haven’t had to pull it out in many years. The CS3 is too long for what I’m doing on this movie, the Mini-CMIT is a miracle for hiding all over inside of moving vans, so I’m just dealing with the moisture as it happens.

I like the rain and hate the heat. Don’t think that would work out well 😉

I rarely have to pull cards from my zax wireless, but when I choose to I have no problem popping it into my laptop and converting it into a wav file, naming the roll correctly and handing that off to the DIT. I’m not managing their delivery drives etc, but since I have to convert it from a proprietary format, I consider that step to be part of my job. I just sit at my cart and do it as the first part of my wrap as my team works on wrapping the rest. I don’t ask for permission, I just get it done, and my wrap is done when I’m off the truck.

Me too

Almost daily I have been mixing a Cmit 5u, a Mini-Cmit, and the Kmit with a cmc1u which is now a 2nd Mini-Cmit. I cannot hear the difference. It’s essentially a road trip movie, so more planting in cars and vans than traditional booming, and very dynamic performances going from whisper to screams. I initially tried mk41’s on either cmc1u, or cmc1so, and they just didn’t have the isolation I needed. I’ve used some dpa 4098’s when I need the size. The Mini-CMiT (or KMiT) have been incredible performers for me. The smooth off axis response handles the reflection heavy and noisy interiors really well, and I can still get very clean voices even when placement isn’t ideal while cramming 4 simultaneous cameras (full quality, not gopros) in a van. Having to have different accessories quickly became a headache as we are constantly jumping in and out of vehicles and moving super fast. Watching the wrong foam fall off during a take was the last annoyance and I sold the KMIT and bought a 2nd Mini-CMIT to go with my 2 CMIT-5U. If I didn’t already have a ton of shock and wind mounts for the CMIT range or was starting new I would probably go with the KMIT / CMC1U combo. My only complaint is that I am having a lot of issues with 1 of my Mini-CMIT’s “sweating out”. They supposedly improved the moisture resistance, but shooting all outdoors at night with tons of rain and frost I am often experiencing the popping/crackling/sizzling as we cross the dew point.

I bought one before starting the movie I’m mixing now. It didn’t occur to me at the time that the kmit is the same diameter as the cmc series (duh) which is about 2mm smaller than the Mini-CMIT, so the same accessories don’t work. This includes the foam windscreens which kept falling off during takes. I ended up selling it and buying a 2nd Mini-CMIT instead. It’s slightly longer with a Cmc1U too. All minor things, but not sharing the accessories with my other Mini-CMIT bugged me enough to ditch it.

I have been mixing on Etymotic in ears with custom molds for many years. Once I started, I never went back. My boom ops wear their headphone of choice, fed by a Zaxcom URX100. Most of the time that's in a pocket or inside a jacket so you wouldn't see it in BTS photos. Usually the cable is routed inside the clothes too. in between takes i also only wear a single ear, which would be really easy to miss on bts.