Jim Feeley

Also, some pretty great music. Just posted from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the fantastic free music festival (most) every Oct in San Francisco. https://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com Some details. From a video apparently for a general audience. But great gear, instruments, and vibe:

Thanks for the update Madno. Please keep us informed!

Brilliant!

Thanks Frank and Phil.

Ya, but this is for stuff I'm producing. My fairly limited experience in sending a box of parts to someone and expecting them to configure everything correctly is really time consuming and not consistently wonderful. A couple people have gotten into it, and gave us a FaceTime/Zoom tour of their location (a house, and an office) to help us find a decent background etc. But others stressed at having to mess with a small camera and all that. So as much preconfiguration as possible seems really good. My current idea is ship them a laptop and an iPhone. Just about everyone knows their

This looks potentially useful to me: That picture (and another of the mic attached to a laptop) is part of this DPA PR article: https://www.dpamicrophones.com/news/gene-martin-calls-on-dpa-4097-micro-shotgun-for-sales,-rentals-and-field-production This quote from Gene Martin is promising: “The commercial was shot as a series of video chats from mobile devices and laptops, so we needed something where the actors could be walking around with their phones and not have a large recording device with them,” says Martin. “The client was happy with the vi

And yet, you commented! Wait. Let me translate that into Nolanese. @#%^*(&. ?( ______________%&^P{}>:K I kid. Ya, I'm mostly done with this. But I find it interesting that general-interest media such as The Guardian, are noticing and discussing. And for me, it really does get in the way of his films. But at least having Nolan take credit/blame for this lets people know that the sound department didn't screw up... Some of my non-film/video friends have also commented on Nolan's sound... I don't recall them mentioning that in other mainstream (e.g., non mumblec

In case you're not tired of the topic, here's a column from today's issue of The Guardian, prompted (I guess), by Nolan's new book. ==== Tenet up: listen, Christopher Nolan, we just can't hear a word you're saying The Tenet director has dismissed critics of his poor sound mixing by blaming us for being too conservative. Why must he keep toying with our perception of sound? We’re all aware of the impossible situation that film currently finds itself in. Screens started shutting in the summer. This is because the big new movies have all been postponed. This

Ya, Down Home and Arhoolie are less than two miles (~ three kilometers) from my house. Les Blank worked in a room up the stairs by the back racks (his Steenbeck sat unused in the back corner because it was too difficult to move down the stairs). Several times while browsing at Down Home, I'd like the record/CD the clerks were spinning and I'd end up buying that. Such a great place. Whenever any of you are in the San Francisco East Bay (e.g., Oakland, Berkeley, etc), it's worth swinging by Down Home for a visit. https://www.downhomemusic.com

The SFO Museum does fantastic work. I have friends who are curators at two of the big-deal museums out here (SFMOMA and De Young) and they consider the SFOM people true colleagues who do good work. Because they do! 18ish months ago, SFOM had a great exhibition on Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. I just stumbled upon it and was SO glad that I was early for my flight and got to absorb the exhibit. They had his Magnecord tape recorder and explained how that recorder was crucial to his work. Also had lots of other cool artifacts: https://www.sfomuseum.org/exhibitions/down-ho

Oh; that book. Yes, it's a real book. But um, as you've probably already seen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Messages_in_Water

I remember liking Allen & Heath's 1604-sized mixers. And I regularly work on their digital Qu-16 and Qu-24 mixers and like them. So perhaps there current small analog Zed line is worth checking out. Looks like a couple of 16 and 18-channel versions are rack-mountable. https://www.allen-heath.com/key-series/zed-series/

Thanks everyone! I'll keep an eye (and an ear or two) on the Cat6 stuff. But for now, I'm heading over to Audiopile! Jim

I'm looking for a new XLR analog snake. Maybe up to an 8x4, but a basic four-channel snake would see more everyday use. I think I want a small junction box at the input/XLRF/stage end rather than a fan. Leaning towards 30 meters / 100 feet, maybe just half that distance (still thinking). Not thinking of DIYing; my soldering skills are still OK (and improving because of some hobbies), but I don't know if I'd get everything right on a snake. Not really a fan of Whirlwind (are they better these days?), definitely not a fan of Hosa. Considering a Cat-5/6 system. Is that a good idea? Wh

Here are some of Glen Trew's thoughts from several years ago; don't know if he still feels the same way (but he does and can of course chime in if needed). From an article on Trew Audio: "Part of what made the Schoeps MK41 so desirable for film and video dialog recording was the “soft edge” when transitioning from on-axis to off-axis. The Sennheiser MKH50 goes from the on-axis sound to the off-axis sound more abruptly, resulting in a surprising off axis sound if it’s being worked by someone accustomed to the Schoeps MK41. Anyway, the long and short of it is that, if you

I, like probably a lot of us, got an email from Tentacle saying the first batch of Track E recorders are just about ready: https://tentaclesync.com/track-e?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TRACK+E+-+Release But unless you're using 3.5mm connectors, you'll need an adapter (they say they'll have some available, IIRC). And I wonder about the quality of their A/D. And looks like you'll be leaning on their setup software to control the thing. Probably none of those will be an issue for the intended users, though. Congrats to them for getting th

IIRC, Glen Trew (and probably others) has said that the 8040 is closer to the MK41. I'm on Team Schoeps and they're what I own. But when wearing my producer hat, I've hired mixers who are on Team Sennheiser and the resulting tracks have been great. Though I think most commonly, those guys are rolling MKH50s for sit-downs.

If the kit shows up, how much time do you have to set it up (if they rented the audio kit from a camera house or place like VER, there's a good chance that it won't be ready to go)? Have you worked with that exact equipment, particularly the mic and mixer/recorder, before? What does straight to camera mean for them? You holding some sort of mic in your hand and a cable going to the camera? Who's responsible for making sure the camera's audio levels and everything else are set correctly? Probably you. Also, do the producers really have their act together? Based on the info you provi

Sounds like a fun project, but good isolation would be a really really big benefit. The Countryman A3 does a good job isolating/reducing podium noise (IIRC, they have a couple/few podium mics with the same feature). There's a bit of info here... Also includes the frequency responses for the various polar-pattern options (ie- omni vs cardioid): https://countryman.com/product/a3-podium-microphone/ As for EQ, maybe take a peek at what Countryman, DPA, Shure, etc publish for their podium mics and borrow?

You could try one of the automated "AI" speech-to-text services. You can get transcripts back in minutes. Like, upload an hour of video, have the transcript back in 15 minutes (I haven't really timed it carefully, but let's say 4X faster than realtime). I do this a fair amount when wearing my producer/journalist hat. The service right for you depends on your workflow, budget, and need for accuracy. Lots of the services are pretty decent right now, but proper names can be a challenge, though it's not like 10 years ago when I was working on a film about Sophie Tucker and the automate

As Rado mentions, check out the Piece-A-Fur from Bubblebees and cut to the size you want: https://www.bubblebeeindustries.com/collections/lav-covers-tape-and-fur/products/the-piece-a-fur-1 Or maybe you'd like one of the slip-on lav windscreens from various companies... There's been a big increase in the number of good lav tools in the last few years. Dozens here, and inexpensive enough to try a bunch of options https://www.trewaudio.com/product-category/expendables/expendables-lavalier-accessories/

The Stickies Advanced stick better than the original stickies. Scroll about half-way down here for more: https://rycote.com/microphone-windshield-shock-mount/lavalier-solutions/ But there's also Bubblebee's, URSA's, Super Stick It... I haven't used those. Any thoughts there?

And the generic and other alternative Moleskin-like products I've tried don't adhere as well; the adhesive is inferior. At least IME.

Undercovers can be OK and useful, but I agree that they're not as impressive as Overcovers. I don't use them much at all, but a couple things I've noticed: The material can get compressed and have less volume if it's stored too tightly. It doesn't need it's own case or special handling, but don't store it between two heavy books...OK, duh, but you get the idea. If the ones you got were stored in a compressed fashion, maybe they're too flat. I kind of do a little tent with Undercovers so there's a bit more material over the lav element. Mainly, I don't press everything t