Benjamin Gandy

It seems as if this is a real sync recording. Same as recording any other piece of music at the time, but with cameras in the studio. I need to remember to watch this entirely later today.

I may well do so, plenty of people here seem to love them.

The first voice ever recorded on a phonautograph in 1860. Must've been played back optically, because it was etched onto blackened paper and there was no reproduction method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Au_Clair_de_la_Lune_(1860).ogg And Bell's voice recorded onto phonograph in 1885, eight years after its invention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Graham_Bell%27s_Voice.ogg I wonder what people would say if you turned up on set and unpacked one of these bad boys:

I bought three 5100mAh Swit batteries (the bright orange ones) back in August. One stopped working about a month ago but I'm pretty sure it got shorted in my bag. Fortunately ProAV replaced it for me, and I've never had an issue with any of them aside from this. I did get an old flight case and cut up some foam so now they have their own case to keep them safe from knocks and things that could short them. I was thinking about this the other day; is there any product that you can clip to an NP-1 to prevent shortage if they're stored in one big bag? Like a cheap plastic NP-1 shoe without the contacts? I'm sure you could maufacture something like this for about 20p and sell them for about £2, or package them with NP-1s.

So it wasn't too long ago that I got my radios, the idea being that it would open up more work and give me more options. Their first use was on tie clips for a talk show, which of course worked fine but wasn't exactly challenging, but provided a good platform to use them for the first time. Recently I recorded a scene for a music video with four kids sitting around a table playing Monopoly. The shot was a medium wide and there was a gas fire hissing away in the background. Fortunately room was very dead so I figured it best to use my shotgun, but the scene was essentially ad libbed so I wouldn't really have a chance to get everything nice and close with the boom. I decided to tape a pair of lavs to the table under the corners of the Monopoly board closest to the kids (the board curled upwards at the edges a little). The cables I ran under the board and out from the edge closest to camera (which was just out of shot) and placed my TXs on the floor. It did well, the idea being that one would pick up the two kids on the left and one would pick up the two on the right. I was impressed with how well the technique worked, and thought it could equal the shotgun in terms of performance. It picked the dialogue up well, albeit one of the kids was a little muffled because he decided to rest his chin on his hands (but was also the quietest, and this shows on the boom as well), and they also picked up the board game foley fantastically well. My question is simply how common is this? Placing lavs as spots within the scene rather than on performers, given the scene and action permits it? I suppose this extends to plants as well. Do any of you have a tendency to just place microphones around and mix them as needed? Given how small and concealable the lavs are I think I might do this as much as I can if I think it might be of benefit and is possible. I know a lot of you like to spot car interiors with lavs, so does this extend to more than just cars?

Most of the dialogue I've recorded in cars have been only one person, and it's easier to just hold a microphone near them, given that most have been quick inserts, rather than full scenes. The one full dialogue scene I did was in a stationary Mercedes S-Class, and it was shot through both the driver and passenger windows with both subjects in shot. I rigged my shotgun between the legs of the person furthest from camera (with the lowest frame edge), and used my hyper below the guy closest to camera, but had it centred somewhat because they occasionally looked at each other. I just then sat in the back. Good results if I remember. This may have worked for the nature of the shoot, which was a feature, but I can't imagine such a system would work with a documentary. I didn't have radios then, so I might have stuck a pair of spots above the sun visor or on the steering wheel and dashboard.

Yeah, non native English speakers can be excused, although I know plenty who use better grammar than a lot of native English speakers. Nothing on the face of the entire planet Earth can get me riled up as much as poor grammar. Sometimes I really begin to doubt that schools actually teach English any more, and I didn't even leave that long ago. Poor spelling is at least excusable, because plenty of words aren't pronounced phonetically and have far from logical spellings, but misuse of grammar literally changes the meaning of the sentence, and yet it's so simple to understand and so easy to implement. The whole your/you're thing annoys me to no limit. Your gay. What about my gay?

Not going to argue with that. I did go to lower my limiters to +16 and it turns out they've been at +16 all along, not +18 as I thought.

I fitted my Rode with a coiled cable a couple of years ago, it worked well other than the cable kinking inside and the solder snapping every five minutes. I then bought a K-Tek Klassic 251, which it was my intention to fit a flow through base to. I can make the pole make noise. It depends on the angle of the pole, rotation, cable slack and speed of swing, but I've never got it on a recording. I ran my Rycote with the boom adapter, so the cable at the top of the pole went straight into the microphone, and I never got any handling noise. I now run the Rycote with the pistol grip with the XLR plug, so that must reduce whatever noise there was. My cardioid/hyper I still just screw straight to the end of the pole and plug the pole's cable into the back of it, and I never get handling noise on my recordings. The cable is a normal thickness double screened microphone cable. I fitted a straight cable to the Rode after I got the K-Tek, which now remains as a spare. I'd say that the longer the pole the lower the noise, because there's more weight holding the cable down inside the pole. Personally I'd put the speed and efficiency of my flow through against anybody's external cable. I can't really understand why anybody would want to use an externally wired pole. I mean you have a pole designed to get from here to there, is it not just natural that it would nicely hide the cable away as well?

Why? Do you mean ever at all completely whatsoever or nominally? What's the top bit there for then?

I usually explain to the AD on one man band gigs that I need a minute to write my reports out between takes. If there's not an issue with a take, other than consistent noises that are present throughout, I usually don't write anything down, but if there is I'll take the time out to write it down. I don't usually have a problem with this unless low ceilings and whatever mean I have to reduce my pole every time. I do ask for a boom op on pretty much every job, particularly those that are dialogue heavy, but on a lot of boom and bag gigs I can't get one, so I just have to deal with it.

I have my 302 limiters set at +18dBu and my +0 tone at -20 digital. I mean you'd have to hit a whole +58dBu within .5ms to get through the limiters before the machine clips at +20dBu, so I see no reason to set the limiters any lower. I've had countless editors tell me the dialogue is too quiet and then plenty that complain when the dialogue clips because they've kicked it up by 20dB. My nominal peaks (sort of quiet-ish talking) are between 0 and +10ish, and it's not uncommon for me to hit my limiters. I've had an editor come back to me and say "the dialogue is recorded too quiet, and this will introduce noise when boosting the levels." My response was "You try recording in a tiny café where you're not allowed to turn off three fridges, an AC and an ice cream machine."

Quite a lot. I'll usually ask the director if they can not step on each others' lines unless it's necessary, like someone interrupting someone else. If both mouths can be seen I'll usually try to swing between the actors, but not drift too far in case they do step on each others' lines. If it's tight enough I'll usually just stay between them if the cast are relatively static. I've not yet heard overlapping lines after the edit, so I assume I'm doing it correctly. If radios are on it's a different story, although I always pretend the radios aren't being used and try to get the boom spot on. I find the problem is worse with hypercardioids than shotguns or cardioids, because the shotgun picks up little enough of the other actor to not matter, and the cardioid picks up enough of the other actor to often be acceptable, but the hypercardioid picks up enough to hear but nothing worth hearing.

*Sound Devices 664 with mud*

If I use Pro Tools I usually create however many mono tracks and bump my stereo, 5.1 whatever track to them and hide and inactivate or delete the ones not needed. It's quick and easy, and can be done to hundreds of regions at the same time if they're of the same format. If I just need to convert them I could instead import them and then hit export regions as files, and select interleaved or mono as necessary.

It depends for me. If there's a shot in a particular location that contains no movement or anything I usually don't bother rolling, but I've had a script supervisor say to me "I've never heard of sound not rolling on anything, even if it is just a static shot of a photograph on a shelf" (which was the context). In that case I won't bother taking any tone if the short amount of quiet is satisfactory. If not, I'll usually ask the AD for a few minutes immediately after the last take is done, so wrap is only called after I'm finished. Sometimes I'll do it during lunch or first thing if the location's quiet enough. Most of the time I know it won't end up in the cut, either replaced or not used, but that doesn't mean I'm allowed to do any less a job on set. A lot of the time my room tone is three or four minutes long because I'm waiting for some intermittent noise (planes, trains, automobiles, whatever) to appear and disappear. I did once ask an AD to leave me ten seconds at the end of this one shot, and an argument ensued over him and the director because the director began talking after he was asked. I did a shoot where the director left thirty seconds after the end of every shot for no reason, wasting hours (I'm sure) plenty of gigabytes. By the second day the DP cut would long after cut was actually called, and I cut as soon as he did.

If it's just been serviced I would contact SD or whomever serviced it and mention it to them, see what they make of it. You don't really want it to be something that could pop up later.

I upgraded from a Rode straight to a 21' Klassic. The Rode was heavy and very creaky, and I needed any pole really, but it just happens that I found one second hand on eBay for a quarter of the price new; turns out it was brand new and never even removed from its bag. Glad I found it, they're impossible to get imported from the US without waiting years or paying extraordinary shipping. The 21' did have a flat base, but I bought a flow through from B&H (I think) and wired a cable in. Because it wasn't a stage pole I had to thread the cable and then solder the XLRs on. The flow through base works very well and the cable's not once kinked inside the pole. Having 21 whole feet is great as well, I rarely use it, but it's useful when it's needed. I could have considered Panamic, Gitzo, whatever, but I really wanted one with an internal cable, and Gitzos don't have as wide flow through ends, so they're more likely to kink from what I read. I have no idea how efficient their coiled cables are. The Klassic is a great pole, and I'm sure are all K-Teks are too. One problem I did have (once) through is that if the top section is dropped too hard, a tapered ring below the head can jam into the first locking collar. It took a few of us to pull it out. My remedy was to wrap black LX just under the head so it can't jam as easily, and if it does I can peel away the tape and it should free itself. I did purchase a 16' Klassic CCR from Pinknoise, but after not receiving it after two weeks I rang up and they told me it had been sold before I bought it. Fair enough, but the guy on the phone knew exactly what had happened before I even asked, and clearly had no intention of contacting me about it. Technically it was a breach of the Sale of Goods Act but I couldn't be bothered to deal with them again, even though I got refunded. I saw a great condition SQN 4S-IVe on sale from them for a decent price recently, and although it's exactly perfect, when I saw the name of the seller I instantly knew I wouldn't be buying it. I know it might be petty, but no seller deserves my custom after happily accepting my £500 for something that doesn't exist. It's not like they even intended to import one, I was told that it had simply been sold and they don't import them.

These things do exist commercially. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/812175-REG/Boom_Audio_HD_HARNESS_HD_Harness_for_use.html http://www.boomaudiovideo.com/index.php/en/products/kit-cool-boom-pole-support I'd have little use for one, although I did once do a two hour corporate video of a man standing in front of a tractor without radios. The pain plateaued after forty five minutes. I would prefer to have the more extended movement range of holding it with my hands. I would definitely have a go at modding a harness though if I needed one, depending on the cost benefit over a commercial design.

Seeing the meters together here reminds me of something else. I've always preferred the VU meters on my SD for whatever reason, and VU 4-IVes are impossible to find. Would this be a decent reason to go for a 5S over a 4, or would PPM meters be a better choice over VUs, going by other peoples' experiences? I would prefer Nordic PPMs because they meter higher than standard VUs and lower than BBC PPMs.

See I don't see why SQN recommend the line up tone to be at -12 digital (and thus why the limiters are set at +12dBu) if the mixer clips at +~20dBu. According to SQN: "Typically, the Line-Up tone should be placed 12dB below the allowed peak level" "Coming into operation just below peak level" "with the nominal Line Level (0dBu) represented by 4, the nominal Peak Output Level of the mixer (+8dBu) occurs at 6 on the scale." So I assume that the only reason for the 8dB headroom above the limiters is in case any peaks get through the limiters. But I've had my 302 limiters set to +18 with my tone at -20 digital and I've never had any problem with that, and the SD's limiters have twice the attack time. My nominal peaks with the SD would be between +0 and +12ish; if they hit +16 I'd bring them down a tad so they don't ride the limiters. So I'd run the SQN exactly the same except -8dB; my peaks would be between 4 and 6, with occasional 7 but I'd still record with 8dB headroom above the maximum output of the mixer just in case? Because editors love to have a go at me for recording too quietly "which makes more noise when I bring them up in Final Cut", and then complain when "the loud bit is very distorted". Are there any benefits to going with a 5S [/ -II) rather than a 4S-IVe if I could get one for a good price, other than age? Is the 5S the same size, or an inch or so wider? What were the sort of features that drew you from SQN to SD?

See I thought the clipping point would be higher than ~12dB, but if that's the case, why would 0dB only be at -12dB full scale? I read the -10dB part, I suppose it's logical that the faders'd be at 12 o'clock for that.

I currently have a 302. It serves its function well, but I'm starting to think that an extra input might come in useful, and I'd really like some direct outs from my mixer to provide ISOs and a mix to my recorder. The reason I'm drawn to a second hand 4S is that I want the channels and directs but haven't the money for a 442 or a 5S or similar. I'd always disregarded SQNs because other than the 5S they don't have all direct outs, but I came across an SQN on eBay just and noticed something printed on the baseplate: CH1 Post Fader Unbal. Out CH2 Post Fader Unbal. Out CH3 Post Fader Unbal. Out CH4 Post Fader Unbal. Out Now this was the 4S IVe. I did some scouring and I found that only the IVe is the only 4S that has all four direct outs, great, but the IVes have BBC peak meters. I understand the scale of BBC peak meters, but does anyone know what the clipping point of these mixers are? According to SQN, the line up tone should be set to -12dB from the clipping point. I'm assuming that the tone is defaulted to output at .775V RMS? I know that 4 on the scale is 0dBu, and it goes up to 7, with each step 4dB, so that means the clipping point is just above 12dB (which would make sense for the -12dB calibration). This may sound like I've answered my own question, but on a standard VU meter the clipping point is well off the scale, so I just wanted some clarification so I know what I'm getting into. Secondly, I know the 5S has this set with its direct out grounding, but is there any way of taking the channels pre fader? I don't particularly need pre fades, I just wondered if there was some fixed gain pre fade that the direct outs could be taken from. I mean if the inputs are set to line there must be some point on the faders which corresponds to 0dBu? Thirdly, how do these compare performance wise with an SD? I have a 302 and there's nothing I use on the 302 that I couldn't do with an IVe, so I'm more concerned preamp wise. I get that some may say they're not as good as SD pres, but just how not as good? What about the limiters, how do they compare with SD's? I'm sure there must be some of you that have used/still use these and are familiar with them. My plan is to get one for a nice price, see if I like it and then out my 302 if I'm satisfied. Any ideas on whether £800ish would be an appropriate price for a good working used one? Cheers - Gandy.

"This is a digital input jack. The signal input through this track can be recorded to tracks 5 and 6 or the stereo track." "MIX (default): Record a mix of the 6 inputs on the stereo track. DIN: Record the signal from the DIGITAL/SYNC IN input jack on the stereo track." Hit [MENU] ≥ 'REC' > 'ST REC' and set it to 'DIN' and this should route the AES to tracks 7 and 8. I've yet to use it on mine, so I don't know if it's that easy.

Apologies Matt, I take it all back, I had no idea that the preamps can be run through to the outputs.