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Everything posted by Ramsay
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Funny you should notice that Jeff. I am renting it out next week and the person picking it up asked if he could install wheels on the front instead of the posts. I said go ahead!! BTW I bought a portable 7" LCD TV from B&H photo. (Coby 705) for the cart and everyone at work loved it. It has built in l'ion batteries ac and car chargers and will run most of the day. It is great for the pretty department and others to watch the set and it's only $100.We ordered another 15!
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Mac reliability, Apple satisfaction
Ramsay replied to Jeff Wexler's topic in Macs... and the other computer
I got my first Mac, a tangerine Imac in 1999. I only got it because my brother couldn't use it in his PC world. It is in my sons bedroom now with a 120 gig hardrive and a bunch of music. (no internet tho, surfing in our house is done on a new intel dual and I can keep an eye on sites visited). Except for an over used 10 gig hardrive in the original imac which eventually died (not without warning) I have never had a major failure. I have two laptops as well. Like any computer if you do dumb things or overtax its operating system it will stop working. If you had a stock 440 motor would you keep revving it to 8K and not expect consequences? The biggest advantage to the Mac OS is all of the useful home based programs it comes with (Imusic, Iphoto, Imovie...). Exept for the purchase of Microsoft office, you have everything any household could need and look mom, no viruses! As some of you are aware I use Boom Recorder as my main recorder and as long as I don't do something stupid like fooling around repatching firewire or USB devices without forethought, I have a never had an issue. I have never missed a take. I have been told to replace my hardrive every two years as a safety measure and I plan to do that. I look around our sets these days and it's odd to see someone with a PC. -
That's a comprehensive cart Richard! Ready for anything. I'm sending 7 splits from my Sonosax to the Motu-Ultralight and 2-4 mix channels from my aux outs to the 744T. The 744T is the master clock and TC. I send two mix channels and TC from the 744T to the Motu. This gives me 9 channels of audio and 1 TC channel. I record on Boom Recorder. My only backup is the selected tracks recorded on the 744T. I use a Maxtor one touch external 100Gig HD to record to. I haven't invested in an 8+ channel non-linear 'hardware recorder' because nothing out there has really grabbed me yet including the Mini R8 which I had for a couple of months to demo. I'm very interested in the new Sonosax 8 channel recorder and will be testing it out in the fall. Sonosax may eventually have the internal recorder able to interface with all of the other equipment but the ease of inputting Metadata and flexibility of Boom Recorder really has me hooked. The big issue for me is matching Metadata to two recorders at the same time. Being able to mirror in real time would also be a bonus. We started a new film on Wed. and the editor was pleasantly suprised to get such a comprehensive printed sound report. I look at the 'recorder ' these days as a method to deliver my tracks in whatever the format of the week is. Take has done a great job of providing a robust interface between my board and editorial.
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Hi Take, The interface looks good. Why do you need so many patch bay buttons now? Is that for video too? That's a fine choice of project name you used on the picture! Post was so happy on AVP2 with all the Metadata that Boom Recorder gave them. Just a thought but do you think it is useful to have the record and stop buttons slightly larger than the others? (Doesn't really matter to me because I use the Apple remote for both functions). If I had the USB TV receiver hooked up, do you think Boom Recorder could record a seperate file of a mono mix with picture without maxing out the Mac? I'm thinking that for rehersals it would be an interesting tool and it would be pretty fun to be able to playback takes with picture. I could make great outtake reels! I haven't been able to wrap my head around the group metadata idea yet. Part of the issue is getting continuity up to speed. Most everyone I work with is pretty old school and they just sit with the giant binder and hand write everything, even though there is a good scripting program available to them. Video assist and sound are aways writing Metadata and camera could really use something better than soggy camera reports which get so messed up they have to be rewritten. Camera and continuity would probably do well if they could interface with a palm type device for Metadata and video and sound could work from their computers. Bonjour is a good communicator someone mentioned. Just my two cents. As always Take, Thank you for creating and growing such a useful program. Patrick
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Here's some more pics. A few things to note. Boom poles fit on back of cart and one of them extends up to 14 feet with the shark fins on it. The Lectro IFB antenna and 216 transmitter sit on a little pole at the back of the cart. The Sonosax is on a slide out drawer and there is a thin drawer beneath which has my pens, sound reports etc. The cart breaks in to two below the thin drawer in case we need to grab the whole electronics and go in to a super small area. The fold out shelf holding the other Mac can also be used to hold the printer or the other Sonosax if needed. The drawer on the side of the cart holds raw stock, mics and various "We might need it" stuff. The power distribution is the small rectangle with a bunch of 4 pin XLR's coming out of it. It has regulated voltage and 1 Iso'ed output. (Built by Cramped Attic and really efficient). It is connected to a 30 or so amp hour battery on the bottom of the cart, which is daisy chained to a 15 amp charger. Also at the bottom of the cart are a pair of Sony speakers for music. We have a cover for all of the electronics.The follow cart holds all the comtecs, cables and on set supplies for the sound assistant. More importantly it is a real comfy chair.
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I use the HP portable deskjet 460 for printing. It has wifi or bluetooth capabilities
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Hey, before I hit the sack I just want to mention my boom operator Dave Griffiths who has been with me for almost 9 years now He's built so many of the modifications and tweaks and like Don is to Jeff, I just wouldn't want to go to work if he wasn't there.
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Thanks for the kind words guys! Jeff I bought the Sonosax with the AES outs last year. I think you are right and will find it can be configured just about any way that you can think of. The 4 Aux outs are great for creating 4 discrete sub mixes and the extra 12 db feature on the ultra quiet strips is very helpful. No more input gain riding is needed, headroom is exceptional and with the transparent Sonosax limiters I can't say anything bad about the console except the price. I would say that for someone not needing the extra features of the new Sonosax, finding a good , used one saves alot of money and if you can work out the track matrixing you can just use the direct PFL outs for your splits and maybe the single aux out for a master mix. That being said, Jeff, you've just finished another big feature and I really think you need to treat yourself! You won't regret it the minute you power it up and most of the Trew mods are good choices too. Yes that is an Ultralight underneath the 744 Sergio. I use all 8 analogue ins (#8 is T.C) and I run 2 tracks of SPDF out of the 744 which gives me 9 channels in to Boom Recorder and 1 for TC. Enough channels for 99.5 % of what I do. Philip, I just use the keyboard on the laptop for data entry. I angled it on the cart and it is within easy arms reach now. I do however roll and cut Boom Recorderfrom the Apple remote sitting on the Sonosax. Thanks Take! The 744 is only 5 inches away from the Apple remote so I just push record. It's pretty simple but at 4 in the morning with no brain left I need to keep it that way. The 744 has 4 numbered connectors (for ease of repatch) so if we need to go ultra mobile I just grab it and my old Sonosax or mix-pre and run. I just got home from a Tech scout (man, we SO need to go on these scouts. So many fixable issues which would be major bone-fests on the day), so I'll post some more pics. in the A.M. Thanks again, Patrick
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Just wondering what blogs are everyones favorites. I've recently discovered these things and it's kinda fun. There's two I regularly look at. http://www.techeblog.com/ and http://www.autoblog.com/
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I love music and have 12,186 pieces of music on my home Mac. It streams throughout the house. On set I play music most of the time and very carefully try to reflect the mood of the set. Mostly I play 'Ambient' type music. Very little vocals but a good 'feel'. I usually have funny "themes" ready for those moments on set when the time is right. On Firewall I waited three months to play the Star Wars theme for Harrison Ford. He has a great dry sense of humour (as some of you know) and was fun to work with. I was set up in an unfinished cabin on the second to last day of filming and he walked in to the area next to me for final touches. He heard some quiet film music I was playing and started to rant about my ball-less pussy music. I had the Star Wars main theme on in about 8 seconds at full volume. He REALLY hates that piece. Man we laughed!
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Nice looking labels. I like to use the shows 'logo' as well. Noticed you are both running a -20 ref. tone. I usually check in with Post for settings before every show and I've always used -18. Any comments?
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I agree with the worry of prosumer connections My cart is designed and wired so that except for sliding out the cover on my Sonosax and opening the lid on my Macbook, nothing is ever repatched. Even my radios are normalled to channels 2-8. Rarely does anything go through a repatch and critical prosumer connections including those to to the Macbook are velcroed and stabilized using chloroplast 'strips' in place. I've never liked 'undoing' my sound cart. Too much wear and tear in pro connectors too. The 744 has 5 numbered connections for idiot proofing if we have to de-velcro it and run and gun. I've been a Mac user for 6 years and like any piece of gear, you get used to it over time and know if there are no-no's but it has never actually failed. I keep my 'work' one free of any odd ball programmes. That been said I've done just about everything I can think of to blow up Boom Recorder (burned a DVD opened 6 applications and surfed the net while recording 10 tracks). I will always carry a dedicated recorder like my 744 (which gives me two backups) or the Sonosax when all the TC/word software is completed, but a computer based recorder handles Metadata and more than 8 tracks very easily and I have used more than 8 a few times.
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I agree with Darren. Whatever you hand in for dailies should be from your master recorder. I'm using Boom Recorder as my master recorder (Yes I have to burn a DVD at wrap but it's not that big of a deal). and backing up (up to 4 of the tracks) on my 744T. I use the 4 Aux outs on my Sonosax for the master mix and a choice of 3 other mixes/splits exclusivly for the 744T as backup. All splits and the master mix go to Boom Recorder and my Clock/timecode source is the 744T. I understand it can send 48048 if I ever need to record that way. Boom Recorder can also record 48.048. I use the Motu Ultralight and it fits very nicely underneath the 744T. Its' footprint is nearly identical. I remote roll Boom Recorder from my Apple remote. Sonically I have no complaints. I have been extremly happy with Boom Recorder and all of the help Take offers. Boom Recorder just gets better and better and with a 744T sitting right on the cart. I can (and have) gone super mobile. There is an issue with reading the Metadata from the 744 files in Boom Recorder and being able to add them to the sound report but given the way Take works I wouldn't be suprised if he figures something out.
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Taylor (or anyone else who might know), is there an issue sending in a dailies mix which doesn't have the same Metadata/file naming as your multi-track? I've been told that it may be an issue in the auto-conform if you dailies "source" metadata is different from your "master" source metadata.
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It's interesting that Jeff should bring this up today. I was at the library and MacWorld had an article about a Macbook  tablet being tested right now. It can act as a touchscreen with the supplied "pen". Macworld also had a small article about keyboards and in reading it I realized I can have my keyboard displayed on my laptop screen and enter Metadata using only a bluetooth mouse. No need to reach up to the laptop keyboard. This is only usefull for Boom Recorder and not the 744 or others but it is a bit of a help. I would love to find an easy way to enter or match Metadata on the 744. The people in Post are getting very good at mining for our Metadata and the more we give them, particularly in the "note" field the happier they get.
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Just a quick note. The files I record as backup on the 744 are not corrected for scene# and take unless I have had to run and gun with just the 744. In which case I import the files and rename them before burning a dailies DVD. It is too much trouble to do the scene and take on the 744 when it is so easy in a computer based recorder. In a perfect world Post would like backup recordings to have the same metadata as the material you send in on your dailies recordings. But again, backups are rarely needed and as long as the TC and date match, it's still going to save the day. Master mixes and splits are naturally backed up as soon as your daily DVD is burned.
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Ever since the advent of Dat I have run a backup. Either Nagra or Dat. Only once was it needed. The Post audio company called me two months after production finished on a movie and asked me if I had any backups by any chance. They had actually lost the last ten days of the original Dats. I sent them the whole show which I had recorded on my backup HHB (for free) and it was a good feeling to be able to help. For them and for me it was a very weird experience but I guess these things can happen in any situation. Now that we are non-linear, I record the multitracks on Boom Recorder and back up at the same time on the 744 the mono mix and any splits I feel are very important. At the end of every show I keep a complete hard drive of the entire production (including the backup recordings) and don't erase anything until it has been released.
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Jeff, Your forum is my login home page in Safari. Quality beats quantity! I think your professionalism, humor, and dedication to a somewhat esoteric craft is what has kept this forum on track.
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Who is really wringing out Boom Recorder?
Ramsay replied to Philip Perkins's topic in Recording Direct to Computer
I have used Boom Recorder on two features now and am very pleased. I have recorded up to ten tracks without any problems. I wish we could mirror to a DVDram but there is something making it a bit inconsistant which I'm sure Take will figure out (It is not related to his program). Never a failure to the external Maxtor one touch 100Gig drive. Overall a great recorder. BTW the Post people like the file name to be scene and take #. Post was VERY happy with all of the info. I was able to write in the "note" window and the single Excel spreadsheet which contained the info. for the whole movie. I'm using the Motu Ultralight, 744T (supplying TC and acting as backup) and Sonosax ST8D. -
Has anyone been able to simultaneously record without incident to both an external Firewire Drive and DVDram using Boom Recorder? Maybe I'm trying to do something which just isn't possible. Thanks, Patrick
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I selected "repair ext HDD" when the DVDram drive was attached but not "online" and the 744 locked up. I had to remove all power and reboot it.