RScott

You could offer 1 channel wireless with 1 channel to camera based on a 2 wireless package.

Out "near" my neck of the woods! Looks like fun.

Add balloons. This is my professional advice. Plus, you can put your wireless on them for better reception.

If you're within range of a rental house, why not invest in a few good quality talent mics and rent the hops when needed/paid for? I'd be happy to go with some 201/211 systems if budget is a concern. They are at a fantastic price point used and offer the flexibility and range you need with sound quality that your average bear will not notice from the 400 series. Soundies prefer the 400s in general, but 200s will get and keep just as many jobs/clients while saving you a good chunk of change. May even give you some pennies toward some COS11s. Grab a 302 or 442/552. 442/552 has abiliy to ISO out to recorder since it seems that you may like to go that path eventually. Skip Nomad until you can afford and just rent a 744/788/Nomad when needed for gigs. The entry market seems to have some fantastic products in that price range. They may not be the sparkly new toys that the big boys play with but keep in mind, not too long ago, these were doing top of the line work, and mostly, the work requirements haven't surpassed what these tools can do for you. My 0.02

Using MD46. As mentioned, good if your talent knows what to do with a mic. Lots of sports on camera work here, so usually the talent handles a mic well. Having the option to hard wire is a must! For live shots, networks request we hard wire only. I am totally loving the HM400 handheld plug that can phantom power. I keep it in my bag to wireless my boom on ENG stuff. It's very nice to be able to set the boom down and grab it up at will, or eliminate an extra wire in cramped interview rooms.

Acoustically, low freqs will flank over obstacles, but you can knock out a lot of the mids and highs with a board or obstacle. Generally, the more massive the better. If your grip dept. can handle the extra load and time, building a fort with cinder blocks would probably provide a great acoustic blockade. Rather than go for surrounding it, I'd just build out wider and higher making one face toward the set. Position the genny as close to the blockade as possible to increase the angle of coverage. Putting a vehicle in front of the blockade can raise the height of your wall as mentioned. Consider your blockade a low pass filter on your genny. Getting a "bigger shield" and making it more massive will drop the frequency. Blankets won't do anything. I wouldn't spend the time. The sound being sent away from set will end up somewhere, so if there are surrounding buildings, they very well may reflect back to set. Pool makes a good way to think of all the ways sound can get back to you. Good luck!

I started in post-production, fix-n-mix, "sweetening" (man, I hate that term), sound design, what have you. Now, I'm working 95% production audio for ENG, reality, sports, corporate, etc. Still the occasional sound post work to get done. I feel that both arenas have greatly helped each other. Knowing what post needs educates my decisions and tolerance for what the producer will say is acceptable on set. I'll know what they can *actually* fix in post and what is total BS. Well, actually it's mostly all BS because they have no idea, but some of what they say can be fixed in post actually can be. I also do some on the side live mixing and a very small amount of music recording for fun, and I feel that those two avenues also reinforce my overall skillset as an audio professional. I work in a small market for a small company. We only have one "audio guy" and that's me, so I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that I can deliver anything that comes up in the big, wide world that is "audio". I've been working for the past four years and have yet to have a day of work that I haven't learned something new on.

Tweaked my Portabrace 442 and 302 bags. Elastic bands are now sewn into the front of the receiver area. The 442 bag holds three 401 or 411 sized receivers (or a HM or whatever you want to put there.) The front pouch of the 442 bag has elastic to hold four UM or SM transmitters, battery packs, tools, etc. The 302 bag has elastic to hold two wireless sets to the forward wall of the front compartment. Added in a Velcro strap to the left of the 302 bag to hold headphones.

In general it is a staple of software that if it ain't broke, don't update it! Beta testers are beta testers for a reason! If you don't want your next shoot to be a "test" then you should probably stick with the latest stable patch.

+1 for iPower.

IMO this is overcomplicating the issue. I'd go with the stereo/mono/mono monitoring path if you wanted to have confidence on all three cams. Or, easier still, unplug and replug a return jack to check on C camera when needed. Use a short jumper cable to bring the return plug-in point to an accessible place if it's buried in your bag. Same as flipping a switch, just takes a second extra. IMO the best thing is to keep it simple and spend your time focusing on the shoot, not whether your intricate return routing is going to work as you planned! No need to use hundreds or thousands of extra bucks worth of gear to get the job done. If the gear is going to make the shoot simpler and is in the budget, go for it! But, if it's just extra complication and *liability* on your part, go with the simple, sure way to get it done right.

Thanks for the battery tip, Ben. I've been loading fresh NiMH's in after each day's shoot to be ready for the next day. I'll give the batt thing a try if I notice the clicking under typical settings.

I had this same issue with my 401 Receiver. Situation was ESPN football drills with high school quarterbacks. Miced the two coaches running the drills. COS-11D's handling anything from quiet talking to loud drill screaming. SMD TX were set very low gain, around 5 or 10 to prevent limiting. The RX output to my mixer was maybe -15dbu in the menu, Mic level into a 442. During quiet speech, I was adding quite a lot of gain at the mixer to provide adequate modulation on my 200 series hops to camera (no hard disk audio recorder). The way I had set up my system, I too was at times cranking up the noise floor quite on the lectro TX quite a lot. I didn't realize that the antenna switching would be audible by design (probably due to phasing at one antenna.) The clicking was certainly audible on headphones and undesirable, though I think in the final program material, it will be quite unnoticed. I called Lectro to send in for repair and the very knowledgeable rep enlightened me to the issue. The solution he recommended was the same one the Larry recommends. Operate the mics hotter in the workable range of the system, even if this means hitting the limiter on the loudest parts in order to avoid cranking up the noise floor (and antenna switching noise) to an undesirable level. While I'd like to have my cake and eat it too, this solution seems good enough for now. I'd love to have 120db of dynamic range with a constant noise floor (rather than clicking). But for now, I suppose this will work as well. A feature similar to Neverclip on TX (such as Zax's new HH transmitter), or dual micing the subject (one set for normal voice levels, one for screaming) would also be workable solutions to avoid a limiter but also keep the noise floor low relative to your signal. Or just enjoy the occasional use of your limiters. Having Hatted, it seems gain staging is the best way to use the current technology while I dream of the future.

O.o Larry I was about to enjoy a nice relaxed ho hum day. You tease!

Previous post was regarding the first edit. Second sounded great! I didn't realize there was music until it had been going a while. Either have it in or out. Check the mix at low volumes to see if the music disappears too much. Overall, it sounds fantastic and the edit looks great! Nice job.