Alex Mitchell

You're paying for a faster card. I don't know your exact scenario but in my case I'm usually recording 6 tracks of 48kHz audio at 24-bit precision, which results in roughly 5-7 GB of data a day. My Sandisk and Lexar cards both read at around 75MBps, so offloading is pretty fast at the end of the day even when I perform an MD5 checksum. Getting a lower card will result in slower speeds but we're probably talking about a difference of a few minutes, tops. Still, my philosophy is that it's best to buy equipment with higher specifications than I need just in case. I've never looked back and bemoaned buying a card that was too fast or too spacious. That usually means I'm paying around $70 for a 16GB card rated at around 60MBps, but I can use that for video if I want too. Anyway, something to think about.

Indeed. I used mine on a K-Tek 152CCR in a K-SSM mount with a BBG on it. It was extremely touchy but I reckon that's how a boom op should cut their teeth.

I'm pretty sure the mic you're looking for is the MK-012, not the MC. I have one that I purchased through the Sound Room and it has lasted me in good stead until I moved up to an MKH-50. I can't go back now though; the MK-012 outputs an incredibly weak, noisy signal by comparison. Still though, everyone needs a first Hyper-Cardioid. The thing that was great (and not great) about it was that it taught me how to handle a boom properly. It picks up tons of handling noise so developing a light touch has lasted me in good stead.

I've always wanted a Cantar. It's shallow, but they've always looked like the most beautifully designed machines. The big hook for me is that they're supposed to be easy to use with gloves on, which would make them perfect for winter shoots (cold weather shoots take up about 7 months of the year). My only reservation is the cost of the thing.

Be warned: I didn't have any errors for a few days with 4.04, but then yesterday my machine went haywire and rendered the primary CF card unreadable--on my Nomad and my Mac. I'm not saying it's going to happen to you but don't let yourself relax because you had a stable day. For now I'm heading back to 3.13E. I appreciate that Howy is working like a madman to fix this though.

The operating system doesn't really affect what characters can and can't be used as much as the file system does (in this case, FAT32). Linux, Unix, etc. all have support for different partition and volume formats that support crazy things like case sensitivity or journaling. Until I hear otherwise, I'm just assuming that its a byproduct of using MARF. Again though, I'm not really bothered by the fact that I can't use spaces in my folder names--I'm mostly just bothered by the fact that their isn't any feedback if you try to use a space. A dialogue box that didn't kick you out of the naming menu would be a concession that I could get behind. Anyway, sorry about posting requests in here instead of the Zax forums Glenn. When I get off set today I'm going to cross post my other post to the Nomad subforum.

I have the same problem with my G3s and a third-gen BDS system. The only option that even gets remotely usable results is to crank the output of the Sennheiser Rx to +12 and then lower the input levels on the mixer.

Well, as long as we're posting feature requests... 1. Would love to have the ability to switch the primary record folder without needing to disable mirroring, while also having the mirror card adjust itself to begin mirroring the new primary record folder. 2. Similarly, being able to write a sound report without needing to disable mirroring would be wonderful. 3. A prompt should present itself if you try to use illegal characters or duplicate the name of a file or folder. Right now the default behaviour is to kick the user to the menu without letting them know what happened. As an example, I wanted to name a folder AtS 01 yesterday, but I guess folders can't have spaces in their names. Because of this, when I entered this name and hit OK I was kicked back to the primary card menu and my primary folder name was still z001. It took me a while to figure out that I had to name it AtS01 for it to work. A dialogue box would make things a little less confusing for new Zaxcom users, like me. 4. Less of a request and more of a question: why does switching to Input Type 7 in the Input Configure menu play a tone? 5. I know that there's a clear motivation for the way things are right now, and it's a pretty small request, but I would love to be able to select my meter colours. I rarely ever look at anything other than my card meters and I would prefer to have them be green instead of purple. 6. It would be great to have the new filename convention recognized in the sound reports. Right now I have my Nomad set to name clips 1_T2_Z001001.wav but in the report the filenames are written with the Z001001.wav convention in mind. 7. A question and a request: why are the Powersave and Autokill 48v Phantom power features mutually exclusive? It feels like it would be really wise to have both of them enabled, unless there's something I'm missing. 8. There is a bug--involving metadata entry after deleting a segment--that has been present since at least 3.06. I want everyone to try this out: - Start with a fresh primary folder. It can be named whatever. - In the metadata menu, enter Scene as 1. - Record a bunch of segments. For now 5 should be enough. - Delete the fifth segment from the main screen by pressing stop twice. Confirm deletion by hitting slate. - Go to the metadata menu. Notice that it allows you to edit segment 6 even though there are only 4 segments in your folder (remember, we just deleted segment 5). From here, several things can happen: You enter new metadata for segment 6 (increase the scene number to 2). If you do this, the next clip you record (seg 5) will be listed as S1 T5, and the clip after that will be listed as S2 T6. Subsequent segments will be S2 T7, S2 T8, etc. Disregarding the fact that it's weird to enter metadata for the next next clip, if I advance a scene number the take number should reset back to 1. You enter new metadata for segment 5 (increase the scene number to 2). If you do this, segment 5 will record as S2 T1. However, every subsequent segment will be recorded as S1 and the take field will be blank. I realize now that I should probably be marking takes instead of deleting them, but this is a pretty big bug that I got bit by today. Not the end of the world, but I have a bunch of mislabeled files as a result. This brings me to my last feature request: 9. If you change the metadata of a segment (like the take or scene) it would be awesome if the filename on the mirror card was updated to reflect this. Right now if I accidentally name a scene 23A_T3 instead of 23B_T1 my filename is always going to be 23A_T3_Z001003.wav even if I change the metadata later. Is it possible to get the Nomad to rename the clip (in this case, to 23B_T1_Z001003.wav)? Woo! Sorry that was so long. Hopefully this feedback is actually useful.

I really appreciate this update being uploaded considering the conditions that you guys are under over there. Thanks for your hard work and hope you're all still safe down there. That said, this update doesn't actually fix anything for me. Even after doing a factory reset (which I assume is done in the memory menu, right?) my Nomad continues to crash under 4.01. It's gone down at least twice a day every day on the feature that I'm mixing right now. Again, it happens randomly as far as I can tell. As soon as everyone at Zaxcom is safe and back to normal I'd love to send my settings into Howy to see what the problem is. Also, for some reason 4.01 has made the limiter problem even worse for me--in addition to forgetting the actual limiter parameters it also forgets which tracks/outputs have limiters enabled. I can 100% confirm that I am running 4.01 before anyone asks. [Edit] And like that, there's a 4.02 update. You guys are wonderful maniacs over there.

Where is the 4.01 update? I can only see 4.0 on the forum.

Has firmware 4.0 been really unstable for anyone else? Over the weekend I gave 4.0 a shot and it locked up on me constantly, sometimes even during a shot. When I updated the firmware I made sure to format all my cards, reset the mixer to factory defaults in the recall menu, and then built my settings back up from scratch. Lockups would happen at random. Sometimes it would happen when I was rolling and sometimes I would leave my mixer for a bit only to return to an unresponsive machine. It's frustrating and scary, especially considering that I start a feature in a week. I'm thinking I'll try resetting the machine again and applying the update one more time, but if this keeps up I might just have to switch out for another bag. It's a very ambitious product and there are a lot of things I like about my Nomad, but the platform is often unintuitive, unpolished, and unstable to the point where I'm seriously questioning my decision to go the Zaxcom route. I'm seeing a lot of people have similar issues with their Nomads out there so I'm hoping that the rough edges eventually get sanded out with time.

Let's say that the dealer I bought my Nomad through (B&H) had their Zaxcom dealer status revoked. How do I upgrade my Nomad 8?

Just to let you guys know, you can use Wave Agent to batch rename files from a Nomad according to their scene/take.

I thought it was Mark Ulano again, but I guess not?

Doy you know which features we will get?

More importantly, would anyone with a 552 and a Nomad be willing to see if the knobs fit in the correct orientation...

Sweet!

First gig with the Nomad today. I'm still getting used to it, but all I can say so far is that this feels much better than my previous setup. It's so light, so capable, and so interesting to use. I can't wait to do longer projects with it! That said, I am still compiling things I'd love to see changed: 1. Right now, if you want to use the date as your UB you have to jam it every day. Is there a way to automatically advance this? 2. In the notes section of the meta data menu, it would speed things up a lot to have a pre-set list of notes (good, ng, etc). 3. I was thinking how it would be nice to keep different sets of settings for different kinds of gigs. To better facilitate this, it would be cool to be able to name the stored settings so we remember what they are for.

Thanks for the link! As an aside, does anyone know if 552 knobs would fit on the Nomad? I can't say that I'm a huge fan of the stock Nomad knobs and I'd love to swap them. Also, does anyone know if SD sells spare knobs?

Oooooooh, I get it. Clever!

Aren't I still recording blank tracks on the Primary card then?

Just got my Nomad yesterday. So far I'm in awe of the machine's capabilities, but if I'm being honest the user interface feels like it was designed by one person, who also happens to be an engineer. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but man... What a learning curve. Anyway, thoughts so far: 1. I'd like it if the clock froze when I adjust the seconds in the time menu. I know the Nomad doesn't have to match my wristwatch, but I like to start out the day by doing that. It'd make my life easier if I didn't have to hit a moving target. 2. I feel like the anti-aliasing on really small numbers, like the ones over the meters, is a little too strong. I'd like it to be turned back a little so that the numbers are shown in slightly clearer relief, albeit with edges that are a little harder. 3. Forgive me, but I don't understand why I have to disable mirroring to change the tracks that will be recorded to the mirror card. If you have to do that every time, why not change the behavior of this and similar menus to invisibly disable mirroring upon entering the menu, and then invisibly re-enable it upon leaving? Right now, for me to change the tracks on the mirror card I have to perform 14 actions from the main screen, which is a lot. I'm not a programmer and I don't design hardware, but as a user that feels kind of cumbersome. 4. Same thing with adjusting the sample rate I'm recording in. Unlike every other menu, the adjustment knob becomes way less responsive when I adjust sampling rates, to the point where I thought I couldn't go any higher than 48048 because twisting the knob was doing nothing. This is probably because the Nomad is switching its recording frequency while I'm scrolling through the settings, but that seems really unnecessary. In order to keep the user interface more responsive, wouldn't it be easer to allow the user to dial in settings in the menu, but only have it change/apply upon leaving the menu? Again, I'm not terrifically well versed in the mechanics of a topic like this, but it was jarring enough at first that I thought there was a problem with my machine. 5. It would be awesome to be able to adjust the name of the folder you're currently recording into from inside the meta-data menu. Having all those options in one place would be killer! 6. It's kind of a little thing, but how do I adjust the name of the mirror card? Right now when I put it into my machine it calls itself DEVA, but I'd love it to mount as DCPi (my company). At the very least, NOMAD would be more accurate. Other than these things, so far I'm having fun checking the machine out. I have my first gig with it on Monday, and I want to have everything ready by Saturday night. I'll be bringing along a 552 setup for redundancy, but I don't think I'll have to use it. To let you guys know, I'm running 400x 32GB Lexar cards in the machine and they seem to be working great. Tried all 8 tracks at 96/24 and it didn't drop out. Last thing! It's running 3.06, but I see people talking about 3.07. I can't find that on Zaxcom's website though. Where is everyone getting the 3.07 firmware?

I'm still out of town but my Nomad came in from BH last Tuesday. I guess I was one of the lucky few that got one from them; everywhere else (Gotham, Pro-Sound, etc.) either would not ship to Canada because of their dealer agreements or had a 6-8 week wait associated with them (Trew). On the one hand I was pretty sad not to be able to get my Nomad through Trew Audio Vancouver--my usual dealer--but on the other hand I'm euphoric to have the gear quickly enough that I could sell my original kit (552+744T) and transfer over before my next gig. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to develop a good enough relationship with Zax that I can turn to them the same way I've been turning to Sound Devices and Trew Audio when I'm in need of sagelike wisdom. I honestly don't see that being an issue though.

The biggest reason I went with BH is that they could ship my Nomad to Canada immediately. Trew Audio Vancouver (my usual shop) was waiting 6-8 weeks to get their Nomads in stock, and Gotham Sound would not ship to Canada. I'm selling my gear while I'm in Vancouver this week and I have some gigs when I get back in town in July, so having a quick turnaround on my order is critical. I'm buying other stuff from Trew while I'm in Van though, so they'll still get my business. As for how Zax got my info, that's a good question. I haven't even gotten the thing in my greasy mitts yet, so I just assumed that BH registered the device with Zax on my behalf. I don't remember asking them to, but honestly I'm not the tin-foil hat type to worry about it much.

I just bought an 8-Track Nomad from B&H a few days ago, and today I got a call from a 973 area code. Lo and behold, it's Glenn congratulating me on my purchase, and letting me know I could get in touch at any time. Does this happen to everyone? I was so stunned that a guy like Glenn took the time to get in touch with some random punk kid in Calgary, AB. Honestly, it was a really nice gesture and I'm looking forward to having a long relationship with the guys at the shop. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some of their wireless gear soon enough too. Anyway, if you're reading this Glenn I want to congratulate you on your awesome attitude and great customer service.