soundmanjohn

No chance: I was wearing my tinfoil hat.

Hi Josh, Back in the UK now, and I think you were pretty busy when I passed by on my way to a meeting. Nice set-up, though. Judging by the signage I saw being prepped further down the street, the show's about summer stock theater; correct? Hope you got safely packed up before the rains came. best wishes, John

I was in Florida, about sixty miles south of Orlando a few days ago, taking time post-Infocomm to do some effects recording with my new Soundfield ST450. After a lot of driving around, I found what looked to be the perfect place, five miles down a dead-end road with some sort of gated compound at the end, but no sign of human life and blessedly far from traffic. Once the built-in heaters of the ST450 had sorted out the humidity, I started to record and got some good material - birdsong & bugs, good "sweltering day" material that you can't find in the UK. After about ten minutes, I heard a regular electronic pulse, or ticking, in the cans and stopped recording to determine the cause. The only time I've had this problem is close to a radar scanner at an airport, but this was miles from any commercial airport. I tried moving around and the ticking remained constant and regular: whilst I was puzzling about what could be causing it, a van drew up, seemingly from nowhere, and the driver asked what I was doing. I told him and he seemed satisfied and drove off. A few minutes later, the ticking stopped and I was able to start recording again. The compound had high wire fences topped with barbed wire, so my guess is that there was some kind of intruder detection system in place that I'd somehow triggered. I should stress that I was on a public road, but pretty close to the fencing, as that was where the best bugs were. Anyone else come across something like this? Izotope will remove the pulses quite easily, but it was just an odd occurrence. I would have carried on recording bugs, but there followed one of those afternoon downpours,so I got some excellent 'rain on car roof' effects instead. Oh, and if there are any Floridians with ornithlological knowledge, could they get in touch and I'll send them some birdsong to identify! Best wishes, John

Saw this set-up and grabbed a few shots/ Crappy iPhone again - must get a decent small camera; the Nikon's too big & heavy to carry when I'm just in travel mode. Anyone recognise this cart set-up? John

A couple more sunsets: Drax Power Station, near York, taken from a train window on an old iPhone during the severe flooding of the area; and West Bay, in Dorset: spiritual home both to me and to my wife. Also old iPhone grab. Regards, John

Here's a sunset I took many years ago whilst walking down by Battery Park. It's a scan of a colour transparency, so the detail's not great, but it's one of my favourite shots. Enjoy, John

A generic file may well be possible, I suspect, but Len's very precise measurements of each microphonencan make a very clear difference. Drop him a line at Core Sound and he'll explain the process and tell him I sent you. He's a one man band, so it can take time to get a response, but persevere. Regards, John

Yes, I discovered the need for a notch, but the rather ragged hole for the slide switch also needs attention. I wll paint it when I get back. Regards, John

OK, built my little BDS system out of bits I had lying around, so nothing very pretty (must get a set of needle files), soldered up a Hirose cable and ran the 788 in record until the battery warning came on. I had the low-battery warning set at 10.5v and got five hours and ten minutes out of the Tracer, with the screen showing the external voltage at 10.9v. There was still one green LED on in the battery's fuel-gauge, so I suspect I could have probably have gone for six hours. Here's a quick picture of the set-up with a standard NP1 for comparison. Regards, John

I'm a great fan of the TetraMic, but it's very susceptible to vibration. For music, it's stand-out, but in a car, I think it may not be the best choice. I do own one, by the way. Mike - Harpex is an amazing piece of software and, once you've done the A-B conversion using the dedicated SP version of the SurrroundZone software, you can feed the resultant B-Format signal to Harpex and fiddle to your heart's content. I should also add that Len Moskowitz will take your SPS 200, analyse the output and make you a little file that will do wonders for the lower end of the frequency response. But you do have to send it to him in New Jersey and pay him some money. I know a couple of people who've had this done and are very happy with the results. Mind you, you're also in the same part of the world as one of the best Soundfield microphone designers - Richard Lee - who lives on that big empty landmass north-east of you... Regard, John

www.tracerpower.com/tracer-battery-packs.html Regards, John Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Pulled the trigger on a Deben Tracer 8AH battery, which arrived by return. Comes with a soft case with belt-loops, a mains charger, a car charger and a couple of connectors, one of which you can specify at purchase. I asked for bare end and am building a simple BDS box to go with it. It looks good and feels well made, so I have high hopes that it'll do the job. When it's all together, I'll post pictures. Regards, John

I use the ST450 (ex-ST250 and SPS200-SB) and Harpex and can highly recommend both, although it's not a cheap combination. The DPA5100 may be a better choice for simple 5.1 recording; no decoding required, just half a dozen record tracks and that's that. Also pricey, but you may well find it in rental houses in preference to the Soundfield mics. You can listen to a bunch of my stuff (and a lot of recordings from other surround nuts) if you've got the right kit by going here http://www.ambisonia.com/ The more spectacular recordings like the Thamesday fireworks tend to get used in surround demonstratons and a couple have freaked out listeners at large-scale music festivals here in the UK, with "When Geese Go Bad" being a particular favourite. Regards, John

Ah, my local studio. Just around the corner and I'm lucky enough to be married to a very talented 'cellist, so get to wander round on the occasions that she's doing sessions and I'm being her chauffeur/porter. I also used to use the Penthouse studio there for small sessions before they changed it to a dubbing studio, or whatever it is now. It was also there that I first realised that I was getting old: I asked what appeared to be a teenage boy if he was on work experience and he told me that he was one of the house engineers... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

This was a while ago - the cassette recording was at Anaheim in 1987/8-ish and the DAT in the UK some years later. The DPAs will be body-mounted (my body, although I hate the rides) and the recorder will be in a zipped pocket. Incidentally, a colleague who designed the multi-channel on-board sound playback system for The Spiderman Ride at Universal Studios had to swap out the traditional hard-drives normally used for playback, for early versions of SSDs (made for aircraft Black Box systems) at enormous expense not completely because of the g-forces, but also because of the liquid Nitrogen clouds which the cars go through playing havoc with the drive electronics. Regards, John

How about recording on roller-coasters? I've tried twice in the dim and distant past - once with a DAT machine which couldn't cope with the G-forces and once with a Sony TCD-5M Pro II cassette machine, which managed OK, which is more than I did. A lot of heavy editing to cope with the involuntary expletives was required afterwards. Going to have another go in a week or two, but probably with a Zoom/DPA 4060 combination and a gag. Anyone else visiting Infocomm this year? Regards, John

The default reinstatement is what's causing people problems when trying to set the recorder to 192 KHz sampling rate. You need to clear all routing, regardless of whether tracks are armed or not and start again, and then select a single recording medium. SD recommend that you save the 192 KHz set-up as a pre-set. Regards, John

Thanks for the cicada info - sounds like they should be out in force by the time I get back to the east coast. As far as the batteries go, I was almost sold on the GlobalMediaPro DVU95 x 2 & Charger set-up until I noticed that they're in New Zealand. Carriage, import duty, VAT at 20% and Post Office handling charges at the UK end, based on the last item I purchased from that part of the world, adds well over £100/US$150 to the cost, which makes it a less easy decision. I suspect a pair of the Tracers may well be the winners in this competition. Regards, John

At the moment, my primary concerns are size, weight and air-travel safety. The Tracer packs are OK to travel with and weigh 600 grams for the 8AH packs. I'll only be using them to power the ST450 psu/controller, so an enormous amount of grunt isn't necessary. The cycle life is a bit worrying, but I'm told that it's a very conservative, worst-case figure. The company seems to be very open and honest in its replies to emails, which is encouraging, but I will look at the D-tap options offered by the other two companies mentioned. Thanks for the helpful and encouraging replies. Have a great weekend - I've just updated the firmware in my 788 and will be nipping out to get some local steam locomotive recordings, if the weather stays good. BTW, have the crazy cicadas started yet? I'll be over in the US in a couple of weeks and wouldn't want to miss them! Regards, John

My concern with a new mounting system (V-Mount in this case) is that I'll have to buy and carry an adaptor and a charger to suit the system, whereas what I'm looking for on this trip is something that's small, light, has sufficient lasting power and uses a compact charger. I think I'll take a punt on one Tracer, see how it does and then decide whether to buy a second. Thanks, John

Thanks for that: the main reason for going with the Tracer packs is that they have over-charge and over-discharge protection built in, plus the meter that at least gives you an indication of how much time you have left. What sort of run-time are you getting and what's the rating of the battery - not sure I've got the right ones on their web-site. Regards, John

<p>Hello all,</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I'm making a minimal-pack trip to the USA and have been looking for an alternative to the usual NP-1 suspects with regard to batteries. I've come across a company called Tracer</p> <p>(<a href="http://www.deben.com/tracer-battery-packs.html">http://www.deben.com/tracer-battery-packs.html</a>) which makes LiPo packs for the hunting community and at a reasonable price, 8AH/12v for around US$160, which seems like a good deal. I'm just wondering of anyone has any experience of using this type of battery on a home-brew BDS, or straight powering and, if so, if there's anything I should know about.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>It'll be used to power my ST450, which only uses 7 Watts, so it should give me a decent length of time per charge.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Any information or caveats much appreciated.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>John</p>

ANd if you want to get really fancy, there's always this box: http://www.studio-tech.com/product_m72.html Regards, John

Umut, In terms of power feed, the Xantrex device weighs in at over just over 60 pounds for the 2000W version and over 70 pounds for the 3000W version and this doesn't include the batteries. It would appear to be intended for providing 120v power from a substantial 12 volt supply in RVs and boats or as an emergency back-up power system, not really for use on a location recording cart, unless you intend running out of a support vehicle. Or have I looked at the wrong thing? Regards, John

A few YouTube links: