rcoronado

As a Texas who benefits from a tax incentive as well, I think they're kind of dumb because the money they potentially bring is so transient. There's no incentive to actually establish a business here, just an incentive to temporarily run a production here. Shortsighted IMO. I'd much prefer a tax incentive that rewards production and video game businesses with property tax credits and full time hire credits.

so to uncable myself, I would have had to run 3 more channels of wireless (L/R/TC) and I wouldn't have a return monitor feed in that setup. That's certainly a possibility, but the problematic thing about that is that the camera man in this shoot wouldn't have been monitoring his audio either (he's just the type that doesn't do that - don't ask me why) so I'd have less confidence that everything was running OK on his end throughout. (Unless I'm missing something - please enlighten me if I am) We WERE on sticks doing sit downs for 50% of the shoot, though to be fair I were were going very run and gun for the rest of it. It was a lot of "hey, this guy is giving us some of his time, lets mic him and walk through the event since he built it" kind of thing. All that said, I never really considered just hopping wirelessly back to cam for this one, and I certainly should have. Thanks for bringing that up.

90% of the time in my professional life, I'm a post guy. I deal with the audio that professionals (and non-pros) in the field record and edit into their projects. 10% of the time I go out and do production sound myself for various jobs. I've never dealt with the harrowing 12 mic reality tv situations. I've never dealt with the high profile film gigs. I'm not to that level yet. I have good equipment. We charge appropriate rates. I went out on a job yesterday, and it just served to remind me how challenging the production audio job is, and how much work goes into getting it right in the moment. This was what would be considered for many of you a typical Tuesday, but for me it was a full on workout both physically and with regards to production skills. 12 hour day - 633 in a bag on a harness tied to a camera chasing around various people at a premiere event for a 22 minute special to air in a few weeks. Sit down interviews with the creators of the event (lav and boom) a walkthrough of the event with the production designer (lav and boom) a red carpet reception (wireless handheld and boom) and man on the street interviews after the event (wireless handheld and boom) easy right? Well, fortunately I got it all done, and got it done well. But I'd never call that type of gig easy. Prep was meticulous and 100% needed. Call the DP, get his camera model number. Look up the manual and make sure I have all of the appropriate audio and TC I/O built into the rig. Build and test the rig. Build in wireless redundancies. Bring connector contingencies in case I got something wrong. Bring expendables (batteries, gaffer tape, etc) Re-package to reduce weight and clutter. I get to the gig and we're inside the giant inflatable domes that reflect all sound back down to the ground 1/2 second later. They're all filled with 360 degree surround sound setups cranked up, and are being continually inflated with giant generators and fans, and no one has the authority to turn anything off because the entire production of the event is being held together on a technical level very very delicately. At one point I found myself with 3d glasses on, a shoe untied, cables running to camera, and a shouldermounted cameraman whip panning from one side of the dome to the next while simultaneously getting commentary from the creator. I have no idea how we didn't fall down. I had a blast. I got waay better audio than I though was possible given the environment. I got along great with the rest of the crew, and I called job a success. I'm crazy sore this morning from carrying a bag and boom for that length of time. I still made mistakes. I should have brought one more NP1 than I did (only brought 2 of the 4 I have) I should have brought more storage (used up 13 gigs of a 16 gig card). I got away with those mistakes, but I recognize them as mistakes. I greatly respect those of you that do this well.

I'll also vote for the MKH60 over the 416. That 416 "bite" is unappealing IMO.

Does the phase alignment not move around as the person on camera leans about?

I second what what Jose said. Also Frogpole. Henchman and I differ on whether you can have a satisfying career outside of LA.

you could also potentially use rubber washers or spacers and paint them as appropriate. https://www.google.com/search?q=rubber+spacers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb#channel=sb&q=rubber+spacers&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=shop

my best guess would be to bookmark a user's profile. for example, click Jeff's name and his profile will come up. from there just click "posts" on the left and you'll see all of his recent posts.

yeah, its always amazing how much the acoustics of any given room can truly affect what you're hearing. Even in rooms with tons of expensive and well designed acoustic buildout - calibration and measuring can reveal a surprising amount of anomalies. If your mixes were translating well its likely because you had good source material that didn't need tons of eq to get in the zone. It's when you get into challenging EQ and panning situations that having a really good sounding room makes the biggest difference.

I've been having great fun recording stuff in quad for the last few years. never anything on set, but just sports crowds and other ambiences that I have access to. IMO those recordings are completely immersive and really do stand up without the need for anything extra.

Producer that don't hire experts suck at producing and will not build a reputable credit list until they figure that out or leave the industry. I see no problem there. Maybe the issue you're trying to get at is that its more difficult to get paid for expertise? In my experience credits and experience are still the driving factors as to whether someone gets a gig or not. Gear is very low on the list.

I still completely disagree with the conclusions asserted in this thread. There ARE still experts in the world. There ARE still people who have legitimate insight and true knowledge into the various arts and sciences that make up the world we build around us. The presence of fakes does not negate the existence of the genuine article. All it does is force the rest of us to tune our antennae a little more finely. It has the side effect of forcing the experts to sometimes show their work more than the might have in the past. This is not a bad thing. honestly, what's the REAL complaint here? From my point of view posers claiming to be experts do not detract from the knowledge and insight that true experts posses.

wild speculation: the rehearsal was recorded but not cued and played at the moment the talent began singing live. live singing begins, audio guy says "dammit!" and then scrambles to cue the rehearsal and try to match sync. at some point it's good enough, and the crossfade ensues.

I feel like I disagree with many of the conclusions and assumptions made in the original linked article. While its certainly true that mob rule in the comments section sucks, and that it does have a real effect on the conversation of things - my general impression in life is that actual expertise produces actual results. As such those people that really are experts still tend to get all the benefits that true experts have always enjoyed (references by non-experts, professional compensation, etc) - its just that those benefits tend to come more from the things that one has done than from the title or degree that one holds. IMO this is as it should be. The other thing that happens with instant public critique is that BS gets sniffed out and discredited much more quickly. anyone with 30 seconds and a google machine can find all kinds of info to tell them the real effect that spending $200 on a monster USB cable will have on their sound. This can get annoying for experts who hold certain misconceptions in their minds that won't survive the scrutiny of the mob, but as an aspiring expert I personally view this as a needed reality check to keep my views grounded in what I can observe, what I can execute, and in what I can explain to the layperson.

We did a recent tonebenders ep with Gordon Hempton where he discussed his binaural ambient recording technique some. Generally you can only use it for ambient fx, since the binaural mics capture 360 degrees. The effect is not too far from spaced pair omnis IMO. With that said, you can use bianural recordings on ambient recordings due for speaker playback. Gordon won an emmy for his work in the PBS documentary Vanishing Dawn Chorus using this technique.

@dominique - that makes WAAY too much sense.

beautiful photography! glad the shoot went well.

the guy from the Here Be Monsters podcast explored this a bit (killer podcast btw - worth a listen) His slowdown techniques were pretty rudimentary, but in the end its likely to be a fake. http://www.muleradio.net/monsters/29/

my buddy Tim did a nice blog post on cold weather recording. You can find it here.

I do tons of sound design and mixing for the in-arena stuff for the Stars and Mavs. They have 14channel surround sound at the AAC. what kind of things are you looking for?

thats what I figured as well. wrt frequencies at 750kHz (!) interacting with things at 16k - I've got some real estate to sell ya.

"Up to 1536 kHz audio sample frequency for the highest audio fidelity" because we TOTALLY need that.

so is your argument that random acts of chance can always be overcome with perserverance, personality and skill? As much as we'd like to believe that, I don't think its exactly the way things work. We need to have you on our podcast sometime to hash this out.

@nick: congrats on the move and on the success! ---- regarding the luck vs work thing - Its really just semantics, but I like arguing semantics. I think everyone except for henchman is arguing that luck and work are not mutually exclusive. If you substitute "random chance" for "luck" you shouldn't change the argument any. Hench, I don't know if you're arguing that your career path was not in any way affected by random chance, but if you are I'd guess you've never seriously played a sport like golf or poker or baseball. You're probably more of a chess or a tennis or a boxing fan. In golf/poker/baseball the better player will indeed win out over the lesser player over the long run, but in the short run the luck factor can truly break the weaker player's way far enough that they can win one or even several matches against a better player. The thing that most people can't intuitively grok is the fact that the short run actually can last a very long while if conditions are even enough. Poker is especially illustrative of this - very good players can go on very unlucky or very lucky streaks for hundreds of thousands of hands - this is especially true if they are playing against opposition that is near them in skill level. At the same time, luck shakes out into skill differential much more quickly if player A is dramatically better at the game than player B. Luck also manifests itself in non-obvious ways. Again - poker can illustrate: If I catch two pair vs you and you catch nothing, then I both got unlucky and won the pot simultaneously. (DUCY?) --- conversely, chess is a game that truly has zero luck involved. Every factor is known in advance: the pieces on the board, the pieces available to each player, the moves available to each player, etc. There is no hidden information, and there is no physical real world interaction with the pieces that affects the outcome of the game. (eg: wind and uneven surfaces in golf/baseball) Based on a few moves worth of analysis, player A can be confidently ranked above or below player B, and that ranking will accurately predict the winner of any given match between players A and B almost every time. at the higher levels of chess, it will be every time. Even minor seperations in skill levels can cause one player to lose 100% of chess matches against superior opposition. that's why no one bets money on chess. its too obvious who will win, and luck can never swing the outcome the "wrong" way. ---- to come back full circle, I'm assuming that Hench is arguing that life is more like chess (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there) and I'd argue that life is more like poker. In fact, given the emphatic nature of Hench's statements he may be arguing that life is chess - and that effort and skillset alone predetermine success or failure.

kill your darlings. - stephen king