Constantin

Did you ever send your 788 to SD? I think they swap out the TC as a matter of course as it is a regular AA rechargeable will die eventually. Don‘t know about the MixPre, but on the 633 this isn’t that easy at all. It‘s the buffer battery that holds TC for two hours and also facilitates the safe shutdown feature. What‘s easy to change is the RTC battery, but that isn’t a rechargeable battery, so it needs to be changed regularly.

Yes, it seems like they changed that. Bottom line, it can’t hurt to have a mono adapter nearby, just in case

And to that end it makes a lot more sense to use an M/S rig and just not use the S, rather than use an XY rig where you may end up with two bad signals. Maybe what they meant when they chose XY was that they prefer matrixed MS?

Yeah, that’s true. The standard answer I get when I ask for a second boom-op: „Just Lav them all“. I‘m seriously worried they‘ll eliminate the boom altogether. So I‘m happy for any development that’ll help the boom.

My experience with a Helium with sound is rather limited, same with all Reds, actually. But it used to be that the Red had a balanced audio input and the Sennheiser output is unbalanced. That resulted in no audio. This may have changed, or maybe the menu choice „balanced or unbalanced“ audio actually makes a difference now

This will need to be a collaborative effort with the camera department to try this out the day before if possible or find time on the day. Also make sure DoP is fine with the receiver on the camera. For cable: the Red has a mini ts input and if you use the regular Sennheiser cable you‘ll need a mono adapter. Levels you need to find out on the day. Bring some small speakers to amp the signal from the monitor.

I would not overthink MS. It’s great to have, if only to quickly record stereo ambiances. I‘d always record the S channel, but monitor only the M. Make sure as much as possible sounds good in the M, the S then is a bonus when it works. Aside from MS, you can also simply treat your S mic as a second mic. So in your situation where you 4-5 protagonists you can boom one person and get other on the S mic, which looks sideways after all. Just make sure that the two mics will not be matrixed to stereo

On House of Cards they did have two cameras. The booms were allowed to break into the frame, after a few seconds of plate. They painted the boom out later. As the show progressed, though, I could hear more and more use of lavs, so something must have changed

I think the main point here is that Zoom seem to imply that they have implemented something like StageTec‘s TrueMatch converter. While this also doesn’t work without analog circuitry, it does work without a preamp. And it claims to convert the entire mic‘s dynamic range, and it boasts a 153dB dynamic range - packed into 28-bits. And its own noise is lower than the thermal noise of the microphone. That is StageTec‘s claim anyway. If Zoom has come up with something like that, and at such a price point, it would be amazing. If done well... There are converter chips around that are capable of 145+ sampling rate, so it’s getting there. Just not sure about the whole implementation

Are we talking about the DPA MicroDot adapter? Because I find that to be very robust. It’s not much lengthier - if at all - then the soldered version. As long as it’s screwed on tight enough. I asked the German DPA distributor which type of connector they see more of on service, and they said both.

The PSC MultiSMA doesn’t have an RF amp, only to make up for its own loss. So it shouldn’t boos any signal more than if you didn’t have a distro. Nonetheless, the output from my MultiSMA is passed through a Lectro UFM50 amd then onto the receivers

Why? What do you perceive as the advantage of 2.4GHz wireless? Other than, perhaps that no licence is needed. I think some features are quite cool about this system, but the 2.4GHz range of it is what I consider the biggest drawback of this system. I don’t know. There is some validity to your argument, but looking back over the years, we were again and again at this juncture. New cheaper gear entered the market and everyone decried the end of the world as we knew it. And yet, somehow, the world has been able to sustain us and the new kids (and I was once one of those new kids myself). It’s true that rental rates could come down as a result of this, but in a way that could be fair as the cost for gear would also be lower, unless you can justify the more expensive gear to the production company, which should be possible easily enough. Labor rates should not come down because of cheaper gear at all. In fact, many of us only survive because of the rental income, but that is an error if the system. We should be able to get by on labor income alone. But that might just be a discussion for another thread

Then you need to learn how to import things, it needn’t be difficult. First, write to the customs office in Dresden (address on website) and get an EORI number. It’s free and you don’t need a company or whatever. Then, get an account with the major parcel services, UPS, FedEx, etc. Once they know you and have your EORI they‘ll do the customs stuff for you. Provided that the shipper has also included all info needed with the shipping docs, but a manufacturer or a shop (like Trew or Gotham, et al) know how to do this. Then it‘s really easy.

What are your other chargers made of? I‘m not worried, they feel solid enough

It‘s always possible that I‘m confusing things, but I don’t think this. It‘s what I had read that some new 32-bit A/D converters offer higher oversampling rates. Because of/despite their higher bitrate Not directly, no. Anyway, maybe it’s just that 32-bit converters come with more powerful chips that are capable of higher oversampling rates, I don’t know

I was strictly commenting on your worries regarding the width of the controller. And I wouldn’t mind a stacked mixer, certainly better than switching banks

But a camera like the Alexa Mini can derive its genlock from a TC stream and Tentacles are well accurate enough for that

I am not the greatest expert on this, but from what I‘ve read, the higher bitrate allows a higher factor of oversampling and this eases the burden on the anti-aliasing filter, which is analog and doesn’t need to have such steep cut-off curves to bandpass filter the desired audio (because Nyquist would be much higher). Many a/d converters augment this with an additional digital filter. Oversampling also improves the SNR. Also a higher order of modulation as well in combination with a higher bitrate reduces the quantization noise of the converter.

Yes! Like that

How about one behind the other? Slightly stacked?

Pretty all the radio stations I‘ve been at or seen on TV had a Neumann U87. Except for those that had an RE-20. The latter mostly in the US. That’s not a counter-argument, just additional info

While I don’t know this with 100% certainty, I don’t think that Zaxcom have a patent on dual a-d converters per se. Neumann, Stagetec and others have used dual converters for a long time before Zaxcom came along. There‘s more to A-D conversion than just bit-rate. Most (or none) 24-bit converters don’t achieve the theoretical maximum dynamic range of 144dB and with 32-bit converters I also only know of one that achieves 148dB, although it’s not a dual converter... 32-bit converters also have lower self-noise, better anti-aliasing filters, etc., which all justify the use of 32-bit converters even if the actual dynamic range cannot be significantly increased. How do you know it was the pres and not the mic?

There must be a misunderstanding somewhere, because I never intended to recommend a dynamic microphone, although there are some dynamic mics that might be suitable, like the one Werner mentioned, and I‘ve heard good things about the Electrovoice RE-20 (I think is the name). I was talking about cardioid and super-cardioid polar patterns and the corresponding mics which I think are good for both voice-overs and ADR, where you may attempt to emulate the sound recorded on set. And they are more forgiving in a less-than-ideal sounding room, where your 8060 might highlight issues rather than hide them. Also, don’t think that if you have noise sources in your room that a shotgun mic is going to be of much help.

I personally believe that a shotgun microphone is not the best choice for voice-over, especially if you don’t have a nice sounding room. If it‘s really only for voice over, a TLM103 will do you very well. Also consider the digital version of it. If you intend to record ADR as well then a shotgun would be more suitable, but something like a Schoeps supercardioid or even cardioid, or the Sennheiser 8050/8040 would work better.

12 hours is very cool, but I wonder on which power setting? When they say „up to 12 hours“? Also, the dual MicroDot input is very nice. Already liked that on the Flex, but that was too large, now it’s getting more interesting. The whole shape that transmitter has now might enable better hiding compared to the regular ZMT