The Documentary Sound Guy

Rode Wireless about to get a big upgrade.

If only it was possible to get that kind of service from Sennheiser on this side of the Atlantic. Their service from Canada has been abysmal since they split the consumer and pro businesses apart. I'm not surprised things are better closer to HQ. Enjoy your new mic!

Just the regular strength noise reduction (I think it's called Preset 1?) The extra strength is way too heavy, and the phasing artifacts get really noticeable.

This looks great. Wish it wasn't Mac only. I'm never going to pay for a subscription (I want to own it). But I'm glad it exists.

My favourite beach trick is to boom from underneath, with the mic very close to the ground. Often, the contour of the beach will block the sound of the waves almost entirely and you can record beautiful, clean dialogue from a couple centimetres off the ground. If you raise the mic 20-30cm up, the sound of the waves will come back full force, but there's a very quiet zone along the surface of the ground where the wave noise is blocked. This doesn't work everywhere: If the beach is busy you'll get other sources of background, and if you are shooting right on the wave line, it's too close. It works best if you are above the tide line, because the quiet zone is created by the convex shape of the beach: below the tide line, the slope of the beach is generally steeper than the slope above it, and that creates a small ridge in the ground that is very effective at blocking direct sound from the waves. If that trick isn't suitable, use the directionality of the mic to your advantage, and pick a mic that is very well isolated. I wouldn't say there's one mic choice that works all the time; it's very situational, and it depends which way the actors are facing. A plain cardioid is potentially useful for reverse shots where the actors are facing the water and the ocean can be positioned in the full null of the mic. Works best if there's no cliffs or buildings that cause reflections to bounce back. But I don't see a cardioid in your kit, and it doesn't work as well with hypercardioids like the MK41. The opposite angle, where the camera is facing the ocean behind the actors is the toughest situation. You need a well-isolated shotgun and keep it as vertical as you can without compromising the vocal tone. I'd probably favour the KMR81 over the 416; I find the phase cancellation of the 416 isn't very smooth and off-axis waves can sound quite weird. If cost is no object, this is one of the few situations where the noise cancellation of the SuperCMIT actually outweighs the weirdness of the artifacts. The SuperCMIT is very effective at reducing off-axis wave noise (sometimes too effective). I've shot a beach-side interview where the SuperCMIT almost eliminated both the wave noise and the sound of a nearby port. It was so uncanny I had to mix an ambience mic back in so the interview didn't sound completely disconnected from the environment. I don't love lavs on the beach, but, as always, they are sometimes necessary. If the ocean is in shot and motivated as part of the ambience, I find the ambience part of the recording is much more natural on a full boom vs. a lav. Lavs make wave noise sound unnaturally muffled and distant, as opposed to a good boom mic, which, when used properly, pushes the level of the waves into the background so the dialogue cuts through but doesn't change the sonic character of the ambience so much. Oh, and bring heavy wind protection!

Another test you can try: Film the timebar and the FX6 screen (with the timecode display active) side by side and see if the display timecodes match. That could narrow down whether the problem is that the FX6 is jamming inaccurately, or if something is causing the metadata to lag after the timecode is jammed. Trouble is, no matter how much you test, all you've really done is establish that the FX6 isn't reliable. Beyond that, it's hard to fix it unless you can somehow push it up the chain at Sony to the point where they can release an engineering fix. You might be able to compensate for that camera specifically if your tentacles can specify a timecode offset, but I don't think they allow that (and having to add a manual offset for specific cameras is extremely error prone, since once the offset is active in a timecode box, it's now wrong for every other camera. Another test: See if the frame offset changes at different frame rates. Higher frame rates tend to have higher processing delays, so if it does change, that makes it more likely that the processing delay theory is correct. Still doesn't help fix the problem though.

Is the scratch track actually in sync with the picture in camera (i.e. is the camera's internal A/V sync accurate)? And are the camera's timecodes in sync with each other? I'd be inclined to suspect the FX6/FX3. Particularly when they were first released, I remember seeing reports that those cameras didn't always compensate properly for the internal processing delay, and would show 1-2 frame sync issues depending on exactly how the timecode was routed into the camera and how much internal processing the cameras were doing. I recall one of the cameras would show a two frame discrepancy from the same timecode source depending on whether the timecode was plugged in to the dedicated timecode input or the audio input (I think it was an FX3, but I'm relying on memory here). If you search, you'll probably dig up a couple threads on this forum about the issue. I haven't seen anyone complain in a while, so my assumption is that the problem was eventually fixed in firmware, but I haven't had to deal with those cameras recently. So, yes, update your firmware. On a more practical note, if waveform sync is working and more accurate, just use that. Timecode is useful, but only when it's working properly. I'm not here to tell you it's perfect or that you need to use the one true timecode workflow.

I have my doubts whether Tascam maintains any Canadian service centres any more (hopefully that will change if the tariffs stay). Many electronic companies have moved service & warehousing out of Canada over the last decade, Tascam isn't the only one. I think there's a Long & McQuade in Kamloops? I'd try going through them, since they appear to be a Tascam dealer. If that doesn't work, you could try talking to Cramped Attic Technology in Vancouver ... they won't be authorized, but they are pretty good at electronics repairs. Good luck!

Make sure mic power is enabled. Also, if PMC is right and it only supplies 3V, you may need a mic that works better with a low voltage. Some lavs simply won't work without more voltage. PMC's suggestion of testing with a dynamic mic (if you can find one) is a good one. Also, there are multiple possible wirings for that connector, and Sony's isn't all the common. You did mention the COS-11 was wired for Sony, but you want to be 100% sure. Also, if it worked before and just started acting up, but now all you get is static, it may simply be broken and need to go for service. Other than voltage starvation, there's no obvious settings that I can think of that are likely to cause static. Granted, I'm not familiar with the Sony, but what you describe sounds more like a hardware issue than misconfiguration.

Nice voice. Reminds me of:

A lot depends on what you mean by "true work". AI can replace sounds where any sound will do. Where a producer or director just wants a sound to fill a space. AI can't "capture a thought" (at least, not beyond the prompt it is given). Arguably, perhaps what it does is capture a "prompt" — but the thinking that's important has to be done by the person doing the prompting. So, AI can replace all the generic "work" that we do where the people hiring us don't really care about the result. Where it doesn't matter what we record, just so long as we record *something*. That will certainly cut out a certain percentage of our business. But if "true work" is, as you say 'capturing a thought or visualizing an idea', that kind of work will become much more valuable, because we will be swimming in AI content that doesn't do that — or doesn't do it beyond the prompt it was given. AI can't actually create meaning; it can only regurgitate what it is asked for. Specifically, this particular tech seems to turn text (easy to create) into audio and video (harder). And, that is sometimes useful as a tool. It is much easier and more natural to communicate via speech and text than to produce sound and video. Producing audio for film is *expensive* ... and we are part of that expense. So, if the person doing the prompting is skilled, perhaps AI will be able to bring making a video closer to the experience of writing, where ideas can flow naturally. That's the promise of AI. But, 'capturing a thought' goes much deeper than turning a thought into a text prompt. Creating something meaningful requires metaphor and context. It requires an intelligence that wants things, that dreams, that envisions, that complains and wishes for a better world. And the reasons for expressing ourselves in audio and visual media is to go beyond words, to go beyond what a prompt can capture. AI can't do that, and I've seen no evidence that its going to be able to do that. We are about to be inundated with "content" that is attention-getting, attractively made, and utterly meaningless. Scratch that, we are already inundated with it, and AI is about to make it worse. Maybe I'm naive, but I have to think we will get bored of it. I know I am. Most of us, when we give our attention to a video or a film, or when we listen to music, are looking for meaning. And, while a wise author with an AI prompt can get some of the way there, meaningful creation is still going to require insight and imagination. It is going to require a lot of thought, preparation, hard work, and time spent in the real world. Ultimately, meaning comes from someone who has something to say. AI doesn't have anything to say. It can only mirror back what what we give it. Having something to say is, as you put it, "true work". So, I'm convinced that the demand for "true work" isn't going away. There will always be a need to experience intelligent and profound perspectives about the world in which we find themselves, and those perspectives cannot originate from AI. They are meaningless if they are not human perspectives. My bigger worry is that our human voices will be drowned out by AI, and that too many people will confuse 'experiencing something' for 'experiencing something profound'. But that's another rant.

Only thing I can think of is maybe the NT1 is more sensitive to P48 voltage than others (or requires more current). First thing I'd do is use a multimeter to check what voltage your phantom power is out of the 664 and see if it's in spec. If it's possible to measure while under load, that would be ideal, but will probably take building a special pass-through that will let you tap the appropriate wires. Other than that ... could be that something has failed (most likely a capacitor) in the NT1 that is making it sensitive to impedance differences, and the 664 is the odd machine out. Either way, fixing something like that is probably going to take some knowledge of electronics ... I'd send one or both in for factory maintenance and request that things are checked to make sure they are in spec. Also, I'd listen closely to noise floor with other mics on the 664, or other recorders with the NT1. If you find noise floor isn't what you expect in one of those combinations, that might give a hint as to which piece of hardware is out of spec. Go looking for subtle problems ... don't just assume things are working 100% just because your gear is passing signal and there's no obvious issues.

That's a very good point.

It's not so much an issue of being able to create the mix (I would expect pretty much all mixers can create boom-L lavs-R). It's the ability to record a 2ch (polywave) mix track in addition to mono isos that would be unusual (though PMC's suggestion of poly on one card and mono on the other is a good workaround). Most recorders (that I'm aware of) can either output one polywave, or a mono file for each track, but not a combination of the two. You mentioned you were using WaveAgent to process the files after the fact, which made me think your recorder can't output the exact combination that post asked for. I know it's not a *lot* of effort to post-process files, but it's still 10-20 minutes at the end of a long day to transfer, process, and re-export files from WaveAgent. And it's effort that isn't strictly part of your job description as a production sound mixer. That kind of processing is post's job. I won't say that I don't sometimes do the same on occasion, but in general, it's not good practice to be providing that additional service without charging for it. Usually, that means production will prefer to shift that charge to post (where there should already be a workflow established to handle it). I think for a short film, I'd have done the same thing as you ... fix the files and give them what they want. My attitude would be very different on a show call that runs 14 hour days and forced calls. That 15 minutes at the end of the day is 15 minutes out of my turnaround, and conserving that energy matters.

I generally defer to whatever post asks for, but they are asking you to post-process files for no reason. If it was just a mono mix I'd have no problem with it, but most recorders won't do stereo + isos (Zoom is the exception that I'm aware of) I make a stereo backup of my mix on a separate recorder for this reason. Something you could consider next time.