JonG

I just hope that they don’t continue to make location sound more of a consumer hobby like we saw with music recording in the early 2000s. A good way to destroy an industry for corporate profits.

I worked on the Aretha Franklin Amazing Grace film, syncing a number of cameras worth of silent footage to a single mono nagra rolling in the room with just a 415t getting the nat sound. Cameras were totally trigger happy, we would be lucky to have a full 20 sec of footage at a time. The nagra reels would run out and there would be a gap in the audio. It took forever, but with different camera angles overlapping, even a close up of someone in the audience for 3 seconds were eventually identified and synced up correctly. There’s no way this work could have been done pre NLE software, which is why it remained shelved for nearly fifty years (and then released nine years after we synced the footage!).

And I’ve been dragging my feet on converting some mics...

In your situation I wouldn’t be taking notes. But sometimes I make a take at the end of the day called “notesT01” and verbally mention whatever needs to be said. That keeps you out of trouble if they suddenly expect a detailed report after the fact, and when it wasn’t possible to do so in the first place. Otherwise, my sound report is usually just so people can see the track names, and have my contact info in case they have any questions. Nobody has ever complained about that system.

The demands of the IA are perfectly reasonable and still leave a lot on the table imho. I stand with 695 and support whatever they ask of us. Hopefully we can get a safe, healthy, and humane work environment.

Why would you power up a peripheral after the initial machine? Do you turn your external devices that are connected to your computer on after the boot up so that the OS doesn’t see them and initiate them upon boot up?

I’m going to echo some folks here in saying that anything that requires an app to run it in the field is a no go. And anyone here that’s been in the business for more than a few years will tell you that when you’re in the field, things need to operate on their own. Apps are great and can make things easier, but are entirely unreliable. Cl-wifi was a great addition to the 788T, but at some point it was nearly impossibly to keep connected because of all the 2.4ghz stuff that other departments were bringing on set, and even though I kept a dedicated iPad for it set to not auto update anything, the damn thing somehow updated itself anyways and then the app was no longer supported. So that feature became entirely useless, and SDs complete refusal to continue to support CL-WiFi’s app or hardware was the writing on the wall that they were basically going to use their hand to push people along to newer products years before discontinuing the 788T. So the lesson here is that with that piece of equipment, it is still a very good machine that operates at 100% without an app, making it still completely useful after its being discontinued, and there are still many people who continue to use it as their primary machine, despite the app no longer being supported. When your devices have literally no way to manually interface with them, how reliable are they going to be today while they are supported, or tomorrow when a new product comes out. Frankly, at the price point we’re looking at, it seems like a bit of a gamble to me. That, along with non removable memory (finite read/write times), the choice of AAA batteries, and proprietary remote control from in house recorders (consider those who use other machines), makes this a hot no from my standpoint. Personal choice of course, but I feel like I should express my concerns here for people who have not yet had the experience of equipment longevity being cut down by controlled obsolescence. Not to mention the fact that people somehow manage to get to set in the morning with their phones needing a charge already and without a charger, I can imagine how many times productions are going to SOL because their sound department isn’t responsible enough to show up with a fully charged phone lol.

Yup. He’s done a few for me too, and about five or six years on, everything is still working flawlessly.

I would research what’s available and see if your needs are met by those options, and if the price point justifies the expense.

I have had many people over the years tell me that their turn tables were broken and asked if I wanted them before they threw them out. In every instance, it was because the belt had slipped. So that, and the somewhat unstable speeds you can get from belts, has lead me to go with direct drive. I had to give up my beloved turntable from my childhood when I decided to move abroad in my early 20s, but years later, living without a stereo of any kind except my computer, I decided to go back to how I loved to listen to music. I decided on the classic Technics SL-1200, mostly known as a professional turn table. It is solid, and sounds great. Paired with a high end stylus, a Grado Silver, it’s an unbeatable combination. The one thing that I did not consider when purchasing this turntable is that it has no automatic features, so when the record ends, you have to manually return the arm to its rest position, or it will just keep playing the end loop forever. If I could go back, I would have chosen a similar turntable but with those features.

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So par for the course. Wait six months after each update, like we’ve been doing since the beginning. Glad they’re improving that timeline

I don’t know if I’m the only one to have thought of this, but I use a strain-relieved shorty XLR hanging out of my bag (and MM1s for my boom ops) that my boom’s coily cable can quickly connect and disconnect from. Cheap, simple, nearly bulletproof option. (I keep a separate coily cable attached to all of my booms, strain-relieved, again for quick connect purposes). I have an HMa that I really don’t like so much, I don’t think it sounds nearly as good as hard wire or (again in the case of my boom ops, with an MM1 and transmitter). I got it as a means of convenience after Covid hit, so that I could get in and out of an interview set with one less cable to run. Otherwise, I’ve always felt that a single purpose transmitter was for the most part, a waste of money.

Very nice! I always wished that SD would have done this themselves. The fewer wireless items on set the better. Keeping connection has been such a pain that I haven’t used cl-WiFi in years! I wish I had one of these as I still use the 788 as well!

Spend some time on Google before going out and buying equipment. Asking people here (or anywhere) what equipment to buy for something you don’t know anything about is going to give you a bunch of different opinions and potentially lead you down a path that you would have otherwise not gone had you been better informed.

I once wore the Lectrosonics “Accept no Subs” shirt to a shoot where I heard that they might be serving Subway. The producers eyes got really big when I walked in the door! Did the trick, no Subway that day!

Contact Lectrosonics

Honestly, you should know when to turn down a job. If you don’t think you’re up for it, pass it along to someone who is. Buying gear is not going to get you prepared, it’s just going to get you familiar with that gear. But you still need to do tons of research, and you still need considerable experience in the sound dept before taking on a feature as a department head, even if it’s painfully low budget. This is a technical job, a lot more goes into it than knowing how to operate a device. There is this dangerous mentality these days where people think that buying gear makes them a sound engineer. Realistically, the more you study and the more experience you gain, the more of an engineer you are. Equipment can be easily learned if you know the principals behind the technology and it’s functions. But memorizing individual pieces of equipment will only help you with those items, and not necessarily teach you why it works the way it does, and why you use it to operate in different ways. My point is: don’t be in a rush to be a sound mixer. The truth is that there are more mixers than jobs anyways, and if you dump a bunch of money on gear, you may decide that you don’t like the work, or aren’t cut out for it, or there just isn’t enough work to justify the cost, and you may not be able to sell it off and get your money back.

Don’t dump a bunch of money into gear. Get to know your local location sound people, and work your way up with them. Learn the business, don’t undercut your colleagues, and be grateful. Google is your friend. that said, this is a really small business with a lot of competition, it may be a very uphill battle, as there are already more sound folks than jobs these days. Stay open for other types of work, especially things you can do in your home studio in post.

While on this subject, I think there’s a pretty big elephant in the room. Imagine the logistics of how to pull this off: You are flying a helicopter during the Vietnam war. You have a huge clunky reel to reel player, in your helicopter, and you’re blasting Wagner from miles away as you’re flying towards the enemy on the ground to scare them. Your reel to reel is just sitting on the floor of your chopper, not secured in, and somehow manages to stay put while you’re swooping around in the air. And you also happened to be equipped with the most powerful PA system in the world because anyone able to hear the music at all, let alone clear enough to distinguish what it is, has to hear it over the sound of your fleet of helicopters from off in the distance, before the helicopters themselves are even audible. I feel like you’d need the Grateful Dead’s wall of sound to pull that stunt off! Talk about suspension of disbelief! You’ll never watch Apocalypse Now the same way again!

I seem to recall the use of a Sennheiser plug transmitter as a prop on the Hannibal Lecter movie a number of years back. Cracked me up when I saw it.

I’m trying to wrap my head around why someone would take such low end work that the price of a G4 is holding them back, and they’re considering no name toy brands. Honestly, the phrase “you don’t get what you don’t ask for” is everything when you consider this industry as a business. In your case, bill for sound separately and hire someone with proper equipment instead of doing multiple jobs for peanuts. You’ll never attract higher end clients if you don’t charge proper rates, and there’s no point in trying to do everything yourself when you can employ someone who specializes in sound for a living. Corporate gigs should be able to afford proper rates, and if you’re doing everything at a discount, you’re teaching them bad habits. It’s only a matter of time before they’re going to try to get you to do more for less, unless you start up selling them on the advantages of paying more for the product. Hire a sound guy, get better sound. Hire a gaffer, get more and quicker lighting options. That’ll let you focus on building your camera and setting up your shot. The day will go by faster and more efficiently, and the product will be better. A good client will see the value in that.

An indoor court would basically be a nightmare no matter what mic you have at the end of your boom, unless like stated above, you have something like an mk41 that’s nice and close to the coach. outdoors might be a different story. as far as long shotguns go, I’m a big fan of them. I recommend getting one that matches the mics you already have. If you’re a Schoeps guy, maybe get the Neumann 82i. If you’re using an mkh60 already, maybe go with the mkh70. I have the 82i, the mkh70, and the mkh815T, and love them all.

Like @Johnny Karlssonsaid, you would probably never want to add it to the ISOs, but applying it to the mix would make sense in some situations. As a post engineer, if someone handed me iso tracks that have been altered in any way, I’d be pretty upset, and probably tell production that they’d been tampered with.

I’ve seen plenty of used 788Ts with CL-8s for under $2k. Remember that this is a $7k combo new. It’s definitely going to be a better machine than a sub $1k mixer.