Alex Altman

We started using these on my current show. I got the idea from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, and the results have been fantastic! Talent are always on-mic, and the whole rig is practically invisible. Wardrobe loves it, and the cast have been raving about how it feels like they are wearing nothing at all!

Thanks Jeff! I've only been using this setup for 2.5 weeks now, but I'm pretty happy with it all. I would love to get away from the A&H console, but it's suitable for this show and the last minute prep I had to work with. The follow cart is heavy, but pulling it up over curbs and such has been painless so far with the large wheels.

Here's the link to the welding cart: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200395734_200395734

And here is a picture of the cart with the lights on. Please forgive the weird tint on the photo. The camera on my phone is dying or something.

ALSO, forgot to mention that my antennas are remoted pretty much 100% of the time. All I have on my cart are my Comtek and T4 transmitting antennas.

Just wanted to share my new cart I constructed for my current show, and accompanying follow cart. I posted a few weeks back about converting a welding cart into a follow cart. I decided to try it since the price was right and I was pressed for time to get a new follow cart before the show started. It's working pretty well so far! I replaced the stock casters with larger 14" pneumatic tires in the rear and pneumatic casters in the front. I've got the drawers all divided up, two additional Chinhda hooks on the sides, and two boom holders on the back (room for a third when I have time to put it on).

All my wires live in the bag that's on top of the follow cart so we can have a sort of run bag for wiring talent anywhere. The cart itself is based on a Filmtools vertical cart, with two rack cases bolted to it. The "Nagra shelf" is on top, with a heavy duty table-top style open rack bolted to it. I had to cut down the cantilevered sides to fit the shelf width. There are LED lighting strips over my keyboard, mixer, and bottom drawer. I'll post a pic of the lights when it gets just a bit darker. I had to go with the Allen & Heath board on this one to accommodate the extra channels of wireless I need. Speaking of this, I'm running my 664 in 12 channel mode, with an RX Emergency 2 giving me one extra iso track on my mix bus, and my mono mix for a total of 14 tracks. The 744t is there for backup.

Thanks for looking!

PM sent

You know, the more I look at other traditional follow carts, the small one isn't really that much heavier (relatively). Magliners come out around 70 something pounds I believe, and more with drawers and shelves, etc. The tour/road style upright cases with drawers weigh upwards of 100 pounds from what I can find. The Magliner Jr, is of course only about 50 lbs, but that's barren. I might try to make this smaller welding cart work.... 

Yes, very good point Jeff. The weight is a bit much, isn't it?

Has anybody seen these in person? I was looking at another type of tool cart for a home use, and these came up in a search. Got me thinking, as interesting carts usually do. The two models seem like they could be easily adapted to our needs. Adding larger wheels would be my immediate improvement. I know people have discussed tool chests/carts as follow carts before, but the welding carts seem to be just slightly more suitable to what we do. The handles, work surface on top, and flat area between the large wheels (to mount boom pole cups on) seem pretty nice. Could be a wobbly piece of junk though for that price....

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200395734_200395734

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200440963_200440963

Cool news! I'm excited to try this out.

Thanks! I must admit that it's kind of purpose built for this show, Drunk History (all lip-synced dialogue, all the time). But I really feel that it could work in many playback situations with minor gear tweaks on the cart.

I forgot to mention that the top half pops off as well for trailer work, etc.

Hey y'all, just posting my availability as a Pro Tools playback operator in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Also willing to travel the gear anywhere of course. I'm a member of 695 and 492 in Tennessee. I've never advertised myself for work before, but I put together this playback cart (that I'm very happy with) and shipped it out to LA from Nashville for a two month show. I was thinking of leaving the cart and speakers here, since I don't have any playback jobs coming up in the near future.

So, my cart features:

- Custom Hackintosh with regulated 12V power supply and solid state drive

- 10 output distro mixer

- Remote Audio MeOn LiFe & LiFe Extra module for 60 Ah run-time! (A MeOn v2 is in the picture because mine had to go in for service)

- Crown XTI-1000 amplifier

- Remote Audio rackmount Speakeasy

- Comtek BST-75 216

- Lectro T4

For speakers, I have a range available. I also built a battery powered speaker into a Pelican case which is shown in the second picture. My other battery powered speakers are a Demerbox and Remote Audio Speakeasy v2. I have more Crown amps as well, that I could always bring in from Nashville. Slates, TC boxes, and all other standard production sound gear are in my arsenal and available, but live in Nashville as well.

My email is altman000@gmail.com if anyone would like to chat. Thanks!

Sending you a message.

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. Sorry I didn't include more information in the beginning!

First, for Pro Tools on location: I have a solid state, 12V powered "Hackintosh" that I built for location use. Pro Tools runs fine on it and it's rugged enough. 

Crew, the "recording" of playback I mentioned was referring to recording each playback take as has been discussed in previous playback discussions. Recording each take as if it were a scene that contained playback and live dialogue. In this instance though, all the lines for lip-sync have been recorded in a long (drunken) interview style session. The audio from that interview is chopped up and turned into a 9 minute story that is then reenacted at a later time with actors lip-syncing to several lines of the story for comedic effect. All the interview shoots were done last month and I wasn't a part of the production then. I am just getting hired for the reenactment portion that starts in March. No recording of any lines will be required on set, as all of the "dialogue" comes from the drunken interview. The playback tracks will be handed to me in advance, and then the editing will take place throughout the shoot to adjust timing, etc.

Keeping all the edits in the same Pro Tools session makes a lot of sense.

It will be a digital shoot (probably Epic), but they haven't settled on the camera yet. Having the scratch track on camera will definitely be essential! Keeping all the edits in the same session makes a lot of sense. I guess I am thinking more about problems that could arise in the workflow from having so many possible edits on set per setup, per scene, per story, and how to keep that all organized and communicated to post. Of course, there could be minimal editing as well if all the prepared tracks just happen to "work" on the day. I'm preparing for the most complicated situation I suppose. 

Josh, that's a good idea with recording scratch vocals from the actors, but I've already been told there will be absolutely no dialogue recording on the reenactment set. Doing nothing destructive in Pro Tools is a great point!

Thanks again guys!

Hi all, Happy Holidays.

I am working on the next season of Drunk History coming up in March. It's a reenactment show where actors are lip-syncing to a history lesson as told by a very drunk person who was filmed previously interview style. It's going to be two months of playback. I wasn't part of filming the drunken "interviews" unfortunately. In the first season, they were dong simple playback with no editing. Now, they want Pro Tools for the ability to alter the story and timing on set.

I have worked on many many music videos, dialogue scenes with playback, pre-records, and other types of playback. I consider myself to be fairly competent with playback (Pro Tools or otherwise) in general. However, I have never worked on anything that will involve so much potential editing on set, and two months of it at that. I am trying to imagine if there is a workflow for this show that doesn't involve recording each take? It seems to me that recording would be the most straight forward with possible nudging/deleting/rearranging from take to take. Cue Senator....

Since the job is far away and I haven't had any discussions with post yet, I thought I would pose the scenario to the group and see if anyone else has experience with a show like this. Ideas or advice?

Thanks in advance!

I'll make the story short because it goes back for months, involving many phone calls, a loaner machine, and new Delkin 700X CF cards. Basically, I was consistently getting a range of errors such as:

- Random 0kb files peppered throughout a daily folder.

- Inability to create sound reports from within the 664 to the CF card, but able to create on the SD card.

- Half of the day missing when I mount the CF card on my laptop.

- Upon mounting the CF card on my laptop, all the daily files show up as corrupt files with names that are just strings of characters.

- Only twice, but all the files appear and can be played back from the 664, but when I mount the card on my laptop, the entire day will be gone. Even after putting the CF card back in the 664, the entire day has mysteriously disappeared.

- The occasional I/O errors from within the 664 that other users have mentioned.

Fortunately, the SD card has always been flawless. The thing that always made me scratch my head was that I could read and write with zero errors to and from the Delkin cards in question from my laptop and hard drives, etc. This makes so much sense now. 

And I do want to thank Sound Devices for the great support along the way of course! Matt Mayer and I were both scratching our heads a lot on this...

Ohhhh man this explains so much. Thanks for posting!

Hey, sorry for the slow reply. Rich, I don't think I'm smarter than the folks that have come before me... Technology does change though, and our methods change as well. I think it's fun to imagine new workflows and new ways to implement current technology with what we do.

Michael, I am using a Lectro dipole with my T4, which is hoisted up on a mast with the rest of my antennas. Maybe I should give a sharkfin a shot on the next one. For the boom op's talkback, what are you using as a receiver on your cart?

I'm not really trying to re-invent the wheel here guys... Rich, that is a very good point about the quality of the headphones that are produced by the intercom companies, but I am looking at systems (like the Telex TR-24 and TR-240) that have 4 pin XLR jacks on the units. The plan would be to build a y-cable for the beltpack with the the "out" going to the monitor input on the Sound Devices MM-1, and the "in" coming from the mic on a pair of modified Sony 7506's. A similar y-cable would be used on my cart to interface with the coms circuit in my CL-9.

I tend to work in a way where my boom op only listens to his own mic and not a mix, so he would still be able to judge background sounds on set with high fidelity from the MM-1. I can't imagine how the intercom beltpack would disrupt that, unless it was outputting some constant hiss/noise/piss when not keyed. 

So yes, I suppose I am looking at one of these wireless intercom systems for communication rather than critical listening. It just seems like I'm running into range issues a lot with my current IFB setup, and it also requires many pieces to work. One beltpack for communication combined with an MM-1 and SMQV seems pretty simple to me, but maybe I'm leaving something out....

Thanks guys!

Does anyone have some 2.4 GHz Telex experience they could share?

Thanks for the info Geoff. I don't own any 2.4 GHz gear. What is your experience with typical range vs. a Lectro T4 and R1a for instance?

I really like your idea of keeping a base station in a portable case and placing it wherever it works best. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like I could potentially double my range with a system like this by having a beltpack on my cart, a base station right on set, and then another beltpack on my boom op. The base station would effectively act like a repeater in a long distance situation, no?

Ok, so more boom op monitoring talk. I wanted to start a new thread instead of adding to the current "boom op monitoring" one since this is a bit of a different approach. I can't find any mention of wireless intercom systems for wireless boom op setups in older threads, and it is something I have been pondering for a few months now.

My current setup is a heavy-duty padded utility belt with a Sound Devices MM-1, Lectro SMQV (for boom transmission), Lectro R1a feeding into the monitor input of the MM-1, and Lectro T1 IFB tx (with mic from Remote Audio modified 7506's plugged into it) for boom op talkback to me. All the Lectro gear is on battery eliminators and powered, with the MM-1 of course, from a NP-L7S. It's a lot of gear to have on a belt, but I have individual Nite-Ize pouches for everything and the weight is distributed quite well. It works well, but I have had range issues with the R1a (I use a T4 on my cart to transmit to my boom op) and T1 back to me. Other folks have cited the really loud pops that the R1a suffers from when dropouts occur, and I always feel bad when my boomer has to endure them.

So, I have been thinking about a simpler two-way system with perhaps better range. I was looking at lots of different wireless intercom systems, and am most intrigued by the Telex TR-24 beltpack. It is a 2.4 GHz device, and most interesting to me, doesn't require a base station to operate like many other systems do. However, the base station (BTR-24) is much smaller than many other professional systems, which is nice for cart real-estate. If I want to work out of a bag, the fact that two beltpacks will talk to each other independent of a base station is potentially very cool.

The frequency range of the TR-24 isn't stellar unfortunately. The manual states 400 Hz to 5.5 kHz, versus an R1a which has a range of 100 Hz to 10 kHz. Quite a difference, but I'm not sure if it's a deal breaker yet. If my boom op is simply listening to his own mic from the MM-1 instead of a mix, etc. from me, then this frequency range is perfectly suitable for communication between us.

Has anyone used wireless intercoms with their boom ops? Any thoughts on pros/cons of the system I described? 

Thanks!

Hey everyone, I am posting this on behalf of a producer friend of mine. He is producing a shoot for Vice Magazine's music site NOISEY in Chicago on August 1st to the 6th. It is a four segment shoot on the underground rap scene there. He is looking for a local mixer with a basic docu package. It could be even as simple as two wires and a boom. The rate he told me is $400 per day and they are still working out what they have in the budget for gear.

If you are interested contact Scott Pierce at scott.pierce@vice.com

Thanks!

I thought this was an interesting read...

http://www.scienceda...21012112424.htm

Hahah, thanks Jim. I will ask producers that from now on.

"I'm sorry, do you mean per diem or per hebdomadem?"

Cool azw!

I've found someone already, but thanks for everyone's interest who replied.