PMC

Once the app supports a DAW rather than just computer mic and virtual speakers this could be amazing. It might make a voice too sterile. Right now looks like it is dealing with live computer mic only. I upgraded to a GeForce RTX2080 last year for my main edit suite (ASUS main board). As a result it gave my four-year old self-built computer new life! Much faster renders. No more PremierePro crashes when exporting complex timelines with multiple layers of BCC, green screen and speed changes. Nvidia, PLEASE make this work for eliminating clothing and beard rustle from recorded tracks.

I just got off the phone wirh Jeff, one of the principals for the app. He was very responsive and asked me many questions. He says they will definitely add unions and regions to the list in the near future. It may be geared more towards union members, as i am, but most of my work is non-union. Iowa is a right to work state so unless the prod co. is a union signatory they hire non-union crew. I have worked on a lot of non-union commercials and scripted reality. Also, in Iowa, we would starve if we only did one thing. Worked only one job catagory. I mainly do location sound mixing and some times provide L,G&E for crews from out of town. For all of my own clients and some out of town folks I DP. I own Sony FS7 camera packages, Sound Devices mixers, Lectro, Senn and Schoeps mics, Arri and lightpanels lights and much more. There is currently no talk of adding multiple job catagories to the app and if they did it would probably be an upcharge when this thing goes beyond beta and requires a membership fee. He explained that the purpose on the "product" page is for private individuals, not companies, to list used gear for sale, house or apartment for rent during a production stay. Things of that nature. Also, can now log in without error. I can see a lot of potential for this app for crews in LA, New York, Atlanta, Chicago.

doesn't list my union in setup. The region section in setup is quite limited. After registering and trying to login i get an error message “http 406 not acceptable" It might be a nice app but i didn't experience it.

For years I have been using an Ultra-Lightweight Temple Transducer Headset from Motorola. $71.10 online. Leaves both ears free. I can wear it all day with no fatigue. ITEM #: RMN5114A

I didn't see that you said were you are working. In the Midwest of the US for non-union work I get $550/10hr day. When the producer says it's a 12 hour day. I say it's $55*10 plus two hours of OT, $82.50*2. And hold firm on that. Occasionally I lose a job but most say okay. Producers need to pay for what we produce for them. Yes, i accepted less money when i was learning the craft, actually i continue to learn, but we as sound mixers often deal with greater challenges than the camera department. They almost always have at least two people per camera while we often have only ourselves to lav, plant, boom, mix, freq coordinate, manage TC and figure out the audio interface on thier camera and why the return is sounds like crap. I get $50/lectro wireless (i know people who charge $75). I get $50/Sennheiser or Schoeps boom. $40/Senn G3 hop. $30/Denecke tc box. $125 for 4 Comteks. $100 for SD664.

Jay, I too saw the article. I had noooo interest in listening to the pain painstakingly, scientifically researched, well reasoned, computer modeled voice. I immediately thought of a Terry Gilliam cartoon also depicting painstaking research by thoughtful scientists. [paraphrasing] Archeologists discovered this dinosaur part in an urban dig site. With their collective expertise they were able to reconstruct the ancient beast in its entirety. (credit: Terry Gilliam and PYTHON) Scientists and their computer models make me laugh out loud.

Periodic Log Response and the Rectalinear Propagation Rhythm Sticks.

I have two used SRb receivers in my 664 bag. I picked up the second last month after asking the same question. The dealer was offing SRa and SRb receivers for sale. I was told by an engineer at Lectro that the SR and SRa versions are susceptible to receiving RF splatter from other nearby transmitters. This is due to the circuit board design something like only three layers of traces sandwiched between the multi-layered PCB. He said compromises were made from the 400 series receivers in order to fit the new form factor of a slot receiver. The SRb has more layers and better shielding. Since i use G3 hop transmitters and a Comtek transmitter in the same bag, I spent the little extra for the SRb. Check the firmware version of whatever model you purchase. There are some bugs that the latest firmware resolves like reading transmitter battery levels.

That bucket boss application is brilliant! Thanks for the idea.

I wouldn't exactly call $3,100 for used SRb, two tired um400a's and two COS-11's a song given they are block 20. This month's purchase. But ROI on new wideband gear of this type is many years out.

Being one of only a handful of sound mixers with over 20 years of field mixing experience in Iowa and with Iowa being very hot with presidential candidates because we have the first in the nation caucus, I can tell you I have to go with the flow. I have lav'ed up and IFB'ed up most of the candidates multiple times. To the point security just waves me on to do my job after the bomb dog sniffs my butt. I'm not going to name names here but here is a brief run-down. But first, doing run and gun, yes i wear my SD664, six lectro rcvrs (3 SRb) two G3 hop xmtrs, comtek xmtr, multbox XLR and beta snake and a boom. Plus I wear a shoulder bag containing four xmtrs, one b-plug, four COS-11d kits, spare batts, top stick, nexcare clear tape, nexcare padded tape, scissors (yes i get into the green room with scissors), two camera hop rcvrs (if not on the cameras already), and some other bits and bobs. I do not wear shark fins or dipoles. Yet. Candidates - most of them are very cooperative. I have had good experiences with all of them. Some are more demanding then others. One wanted the smallest xmtr possible. The LM was too large. We purchased an SSM. They loved it. I told the producer we will have less range with it because it is only 50mw and people are big sacks of water that attinuate the signal. Sometimes when i am 200 feet away and the cadidate is at the rope line (floor level) i lose their transmission with only 50mw. Another candidate insists on having their assistant put the mic on in private. I say okay but i need to see the wardrobe first so i can pre rig the lav with the right mount for the clothing. And instruct them on how to turn the unit on. I had to change one candidate's xmtr TWICE. It was driving me crazy i kept apologising and said every time you step behind that solid two foot thick brick interior wall i loose your signal. I can't fix that so please don't say anything important before you step out from behind it. It was a 3-cam town hall shoot that we made comercials from. They are airing now. I have even been inside "the bubble" with several Presidents for multiple days during their re-election tours through the mid west where our entire hotel floors were on lock-down. I'll stop after one more, i have a lot of candidate stories. Every time this certain candidate was lav'ed, they would finish thier rally or house party and immediately get driven to a town 50 miles away or to the airport without giving me time to retrieve my gear. I was always expected to drive to the next destination to pick up my gear. Extremely inconvenient for me but this is not about me. It is about the candidate and the OT was fine with me. When I am asked to compromise what I think is best practices I tell the producer/ handler the potential pitfalls of proceeding with THEIR request in a friendly manner and say but I will due what you request. The client pays me top dollar to have the gear needed, the skills required and the graciousness to comply with their wishes. Sometimes i have thirty minutes to lav. Other times i have one to two minutes. I have been doing this since Jimmy Carter's re-election campaign. I have seen a lot of… stuff. Just my experience. I certainly don't know everything but enough to get a lot of repeat business. I hope you find some of my practices helpful.

" As was mentioned, post has been able to do 32-bit in a long time, but the deliverable has not changed. " By Odin's sodden codpiece, I hope movie mastering mixers never use 32-bit for greater dynamic range in finishing! I am already constantly adjusting the volume of my modest home theater system to compensate for scenes with whispering dialog right next to scenes of 50 cal. M2 machine guns blaring away louder than the real thing and SAM ordinances going splody on a terrorist's bunker. I'm going to need an ear trumpet if this keeps up. Besides, the cat makes poos every time I've left the volume up and Netflix plays their too loud "Bum Bum" opening stinger. And you kids there! Get the hell off my grass. I'm done now. Back to my warm milk.

Yes Absolutely. You can send LTC to any XLR input actually (or 3.5mm too). On any camera. Hard wired or wireless (about 1v peak to peak). I own an FS7 without the $2,000 timecode back and can do this but I prefer to use my Denecke TC slate and visually slate the scenes. The thing you have to know is what NLE the editor will be using. My PremiereProCC doesn't read/link LTC on the timeline but my old MC Avid software does. Don't know about Final Cut, if anyone is still using that. I have heard it said that some people will send LTC to one channel on the FS7 AND to one channel to their recorder. Then they sync the sources visually by looking at the waveform. It probably works but seems like it might be a bit hunt and peck. For a looong time I have been looking for a pin out of the multi connector for the expansion pack to see if TC in/out exists on a couple of those pins. Or if it is an encoded stream that requires an LSI to decode. If it's on the pins then we can build our own TC I/O panel.

i have worked on a couple "My 600lb. Life" TV shows for TLC. These unfortunate people are very large, very damp and their voice boxes/diaphragms are very gravelly with thick-tongued speech. Have I painted the picture for you? The first time I lav'ed one of these individuals I was amazed to hear virtually no high frequencies. I mostly use COS-11d lavs and tried half a dozen locations (didn't try scalp). I told the producer I had to figure out a way to minimize the over emphasized low end at the mic head and enhance the top end. I asked her what other mixers have done. She didn't know. I settled on placing two thicknesses of index card (about 2"x3") taped to their upper chests and taping the lav to the outside of the card. Wow, it sort of collected and reflected the high freqs into the mic while getting it a bit further away from the skin and the damp. It seemed to reduce the low end too (or I simply had more gain on the top end). It sounded much better. Since then, I have 3x5 index cards in my kit.

Alas, no love for the 664 with firmware 4.60. Daniel at Sound Devices confirms the 664 does not gain the Auto-Mute function across x1,x2 with this firmware.

Two months ago I was asked buy a surgeon and his internal A/V people at a large teaching hospital to record the skin graft procedure for a burn victim. Removing skin from the leg and grafting it onto the back of his wrist and hand. It was to be used for an upcoming symposium. We're not talking open heart surgery here. I had to go through a two-week prior-to-surgery screening for health and possible contagions. I passed. The surgeon and I settled on him wearing a wireless lav (I do a lot of work for this hospital on non-surgical procedures so I was able to gain access to the OR ahead of time and test the RF splatter). I would shoot with my Sony FS7, one wireless lav and one camera mounted hyper-cardioid (the room had reverb). The surgeon signed off on my scheme and the patient had to sign a consent form. I was good to go. Even though I would remain outside the sterile field, I would be about 8 ft. away from the patient, I arrived two hours before the procedure to scrub down all my gear and setup. While setting up in the OR I was told the head surgical nurse needed to see me. She told me I hadn't completed an immunization form. So I filled one out. Upon seeing that I hadn't had the Hepatitis-B vaccination she called a halt to the project and booted my out. While I was removing my gear I saw the surgeon and explained the FUBAR. He was disappointed but said the head surgical nurse runs the floor and we have to abide by what she says. I of course didn't want to pose a health risk to the patient. Project cancelled because I didn't have the one immunization. My take-away... despite what you and your surgical team agree upon get the head surgical nurse to sign off on you and your plans before the day of surgery. Good luck.

I blame this trend all on a show back in the mid-90's called Hill Street Blues. I was a commercial production director at the time at a NBC affiliate. The writing was very good. The acting was good. The cinematography was decent. The camera work made me dizzy. "Put the damn camera on a damn tripod, " I would yell at the TV. I now mainly perform location sound and DP duties for commercials, industrials and an occasional reality show. Ever since the 80's I refer to shaky cam as, "you really want me to go Hill Street Blues on this shot or just drift a little from sticks? " The director, who is usually younger than me has no idea what I am taking about.

Using firmware v1.04 on my SD664 I notice no brightness level change on the LCD when I toggle the track names off and on. Unless i'm doing something wrong it is ineffectual. Kent

I just did a 2-day gig, run & gun bag based kit, for a NASCAR sponsor in garage & pits. SD664 - 2-lavs, 1-pit crew wireless radio feed & 1-boom. Recorded ISOs & fed 2-trk mix to RED EPIC via 2-senn G2 (thank you very little, RED, for using wonky pin assignments on your sound inputs, but at least they aren't expensive Lemo connectors). I mixed in grey overcast, bright overcast and bright sunlight. I absolutely hold the 664 in very high regard. I have had it since January 2013. It is the best blend of convenience, versatility, reliability and performance I have ever experienced with a piece of production gear. It really is better, in my opinion and for multi-cam feeding, than their 788t. That being said, here it comes, the LCD screen brightness sucks (and not in a good way) when it comes to mixing in most body mounted configurations in daylight or bright overcast. I never have a problem when I’m cart based. Please help us, SD (without shortening the life of the display by simply applying higher voltage to the backlight). Otherwise I'm going to have to adapt the hood off of my tektronix oscilloscope. That may get me laughed off the set. I didn't know about the potential brightness gain if I turn off track names. I will give it a try when I get back in town. Kent