RFsound

Hey, studiomprd, please elaborate on "added length, or added radius (inside a blimp)." I guess it's not that obvious to me, IMCS ("in my confused state")

I recently purchased an internal coiled cable for my vdb 13' pole (old-style collars). Fully extended, there is quite a potential for nasty cable slapping noise, if the pole is not very carefully handled. Hopefully, this won't be a problem during practical booming. But overall, I am enjoying the convenience of the internal cable, so I feel pretty good about my purchase. Now, having said that, there is another issue regarding that cable that I'd like to add to the mix (so to speak). Upon receiving it, I was surprised to learn that vdb doesn't provide a 90-degree XLR connector at the mic end of their coiled cables. Somehow, I was just expecting it to have one. The straight XLR connector seems to be nice when using a blimp, but not necessarily when plugged directly into the back of a mic as it increases the height profile considerably. Pro Sound, where I purchased it from, has offered to switch out the connector if I'd like. I'm still considering the whole thing. Anyone have any comments regarding the relative merrits of straight vs 90-degree connectors at the mic-end of a boompole?

Happy Birthday, Mr. T…and so begins yet another year of wondrous techno geekdom.

So eloquently put.

A thing of beauty!

Unless things have changed, I believe the audio input of a D5 is mic level only. Pumping a Comtek output into it could easily overdrive the input unless you're super conservative with your levels. I picked up one of these for this purpose from (the dreaded) Radio Shack and it worked well. Unfortunately, RS doesn't put any markings on this cable identifying it as an attenuating cable, so be sure to mark it yourself so as not to confuse it with a regular mini-to-mini cable. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103841

These are all great comments and suggestions all. I'm not surprised to hear there is no real standard here. As John Blankenship noted, sometimes they just pass the audio right through the post process and it ends up on air the way you gave it to them. It's shocking to hear a nasty-sounding boom/lav split on air. The other issue I worry about in post is acoustic phase-cancelation between the boom mic and the lav. Even with cables all wired properly in phase, there can be quite a bit of cancellation resulting from where the mics are actually placed. I always tell my clients, if they intend to combine the two channels, to find the better sounding one (presumably, the boom mic and not mix the two channels in equal levels due to potential phase cancelation.

In situations where a lav is used along with a boom mic hung overhead (e.g. interviews), I invariably find the boom mic's sound to be cleaner and more natural. So when sending to camera or recording in the bag, I tend to put the boom mic on channel 1 ("A", "left") and the lav on channel 2. My thinking is that the post editor might just grab channel 1 and not even use channel 2 (doesn't that happen?). But in poling some of my sound buddies, many say the lav should be assigned to channel 1 and the boom mic on channel 2. What is "standard" (if there is such a thing) for assigning boom mic and lav channels?

It was a nice shot, Larry, but that didn't do it either. Pins 1 & 3 were tied at the XLR end so I snipped the jumper. Weird, indeed…any other ideas? But now that I hear what Andre wrote, I'm beginning to lose hope that this system will ever work. The Sennheiser is a rather expensive power supply and I hate to discard it, but I may just switch to a Denecke, PSC, or some other power supply. Andre, this gear predates Obama…might have been Bush's fault.

Thanks dfisk, Larry, and Christian for your thoughts and suggestions so far. Larry, the XLR adapter cable is custom. I have two of them, both wired the same. The pin out is as follows: XLR pin 1 to TA-5 pin 1, XLR pin 2 to TA-5 pin 3, XLR pin 3 to TA-5 pin 1. How does that sound to you? Christian, I was hopeful with your suggestion about phase reverse, but, alas, it sounds the same with or without it. I remember having to rewire the XLR connector on my Oktava MK012 in order to get it to work with the Sennheiser power supply.

I've been trying to set up a wireless boom system using the following: Senn 416-P48 (or Senn 8050), Senn MZA14 48v power supply, XLR to TA-5 cable, Lectro 200 transmitter, Lectro 211 receiver. Here's the issue: all the component parts work perfectly by themselves–the power supply does a fine job of powering the mic when plugged directly into my mixer and the cable works with a dynamic mic –but when hooked up together, I can barely hear the mic through a very loud hiss. Could the Senn power supply have some funky wiring that is not compatible with the transmitter input? I tried this same thing with a Denecke PS-1A 48V power supply and it worked beautifully. What's up with the Senn power supply? Any thoughts or suggestions from this esteemed group?

Oops, if I misused the term "overmodulation," Tim. I was really referring to any possible distortion throughout the entire signal chain including at the mic, the transmitter, the receiver, or the mixer input. My background "other life" was in the music biz, producing and engineering records, and we commonly referred to over-modulating the analog tape when making loud rock n' roll records!

There've been lots of discussions about the Oscar Sound Tech lavs…how do they sound, how do they compare, etc., etc. Well, I just put my recently purchased TL-40s through a great test and (spoiler alert), they passed gloriously! I had the opportunity to mic and record two singers doing operatic-style vocalizations. As they went from loud to louder across the full range of their voices, I held my breath expecting to hear over-modulation or at least some peakiness during the exercises. They got so loud at one point that I had to stop them to turn down the inputs on my transmitters. But no matter what level or frequency hit those OST lavs, all I heard was smooth, clean response from them. Overall, I'm quite impressed with their performance in that situation.

There have been a lot of discussions about the Oscar Sound Tech lavs…how do they sound, how do they compare, etc., etc. Well, I just put my recently purchased TL-40s through a great test and (spoiler alert), they passed gloriously! I had the opportunity to mic and record two singers–one man and one woman–doing operatic vocalizations. As they went from loud to louder across the full range of their voices, I held my breath expecting to hear over-modulation or at least some peakiness during the exercises. They got so loud at one point that I had to stop them and turn down the inputs on my transmitters. But no matter what level or frequency hit those mics, all I heard was smooth, clean response from them. Overall, I'm quite impressed with their performance in that situation.

Alfred, if you decide to get the parts from Lectro and DIY, PLEASE mind the little spacer that somehow keeps the switch raised above the face of the receiver. I had someone put that switch in for me and now I can't turn it on or off easily without a tweaker.