Derek H

Hi, Regarding AA batteries.. any reason not to store them loose in a bag? I tend to put what I need for a week (maybe 20-30count) in a small zippered pencil bag and call it a day.. never had a leak or combustion or anything like that. I guess I figured due to the axial design of AA battery the odds of the contacts coming together in a way that would be hazardous was slim to none.. 9volts get special attention towards the terminals, I've had them start to heat up in my pocket before.. lesson learned.. Do I need to treat AA's the same way?

Yikes, hang in there friend! At least 1x sound dept. member was not on that list!

P.S. That wire gauge looks a little heavy to fit into the micro-sized Hirose 4-pin solder cups.. let us know how that goes.. or if you have a workaround.

would love to see a line drawing of this.. I was on the war path to making one of these as well (though much simpler.. no regulator or switches aside for a single master) but ran out of time before a gig and ended up buying a battery bud. A nice box but not enough outputs generally (I see they have a new version out with 5 outputs) I understand the desire to keep it small if it's meant to power a bag rig.. not a lot of free real estate usually. I'm curious why you decided to go with a linear regulator over a more efficient switching regulator? Because of noise concerns? Did you put a master switch before the regulator to avoid slowly draining the battery? (not sure how much of a factor that is.. but linear regulators drop the voltage by burning it off in the form of heat? So wouldn't this represent a constant battery drain if connected?)

Looks like you may not have enough pins? I count 8 required to send and return 2 balanced signals, not including the common ground so really you'll need 9? Try a Hirose 10 pin maybe? While we're on it, I always wondered if there is any situation where you do not want to use a common ground in a cable like this? Would it be smart to have separate grounds for the sends and the returns? Good luck!

Chalk another for boom pole touching.. nothing raises blood pressure faster.. Once I was booming a semi-complicated steady cam shot and apparently either the director or camera op stopped the scene because they heard some HVAC noise or something (that was being effectively rejected by the choice of mic and filters..) and before I even knew what was going on the camera op reached up, grabbed the pole, and started twisting it this way and that and said something like "I've seen good boom ops find a noise in like 2 seconds this way!" I almost tore his head off! He sort of apologized later, repeating again he was just trying to find the noise source. I asked him what he would think if I did something like that with his rig.. he seemed to get it then. I guess this story brings up two problems; boom touching, and over-achieving listeners who don't defer to the mixer's ears..

.. been following this epic time code quagmire! I have a question: So are they are finding that things are noticeably slipping out of sync even though they are using the clap sticks to sync with?

is the pg58 just a cheaper version of the SM58?

I hear you Rich, I realize it's a compromise in ethics, but I decided to go for it anyway. The situation was such that we had a lot of little kids (75-100) running around us and I didn't want to clothesline anyone. This info was not given to me in advance, nor could it really have been entirely anticipated. The producer did not demand I bring the hops out for free, they were OK with going with the break away and that's what we did for the rest of the shoot. Just a judgment call I made. In my mind it does not give them permission to hire me and expect gear for free from now on. I do see what you're saying though and will remember it. -d

What award winning sound mixer would not have their own referral? "sorry guys I'm sick, just go on craigslist and find a guy, see ya!" yea right!

I agree, my focus would be on the 744. Good luck!

I've only been working in sound for a handful of years but I've picked up, what I think, are some good strategies for negotiating rates. I'm still not 100% comfortable with it.. but I imagine few are. I owe most of this to the advice of friends and colleagues.. which has been priceless. I try my best to adhere to the following: - Don't undercut the other mixers in town. - Ask for more than what you'd normally be happy with. Seems this is just the game you have to play most of the time. (nothing is worse than giving a number and then hearing the voice on the other end of the line say "oh that'll be perfect!" translation= you lose!) - Insist on rental as a separate fee. - Insist on OT after 12hrs - Often the first party who gives a number loses.. try and get the PM or LP to give a ballpark number first. This can be tricky! Like Robert, I much prefer to not have to worry about parting out my kit for a particular job.. I'd prefer to just use whatever I think we need. Recently I did a shoot where they declined the wireless hops for budget reasons.. I brought them anyway just to have on stand-by and ended up bringing them out because of safety concerns for the shooting situation. While I didn't like doing this I was sure to send an email to the producer explaining what we actually used and why it was necessary for the day's work.. It was also a new client and I usually tend to be more lenient with a first time client. So.. it's an ideal, I try not to break my own rules but it happens inevitably sometimes. I also feel that (at least for ENG and reality type work) big rental houses are not doing us any favors in this department.. Often the producers I negotiate with are quick to inform me that they have good relationships with all the vendors and can get the same kit on a 2-day rental.. etc. Surely, it's part scare-tactic but I think it's a real factor to some degree. That said ..I did just get a good rental on a short term gig where they wanted to use my gear versus rental because they knew the rental gear would likely be a mess and I'd need a prep-day to sort it. A smart move I thought..

Love the iPod idea.. Keeps it very simple, even the director can operate it! Ha! Helps avoid the inevitable "no, back two more bars.. yea, right there.. wait, no, a little more lead in.." ad nauseum. I can imagine camera dept. grumbling about trying to slate off of a tiny reflective screen though.. any issues there. Defeats the purpose a bit if many of the slates are unreadable. Was it a black background with white numbers or the opposite?

That's great, but the wardrobe folks will still inevitably put a silk tie over it!

I can tell a story of a reality show I worked on that did multi-track and it ended up being terrible for post.. despite the best efforts and intentions by all involved.. I was hired on as the 2nd mixer for a 5-cast reality show. I was not invloved or consulted for any pre-production.. The problem was that the crew was split into to two teams covering different events each day, rarely working together. This scenario would pit 2 camera ops and a singleton soundie in any given scene with many cast.. 5+ usually. We started the first week with 5channel wendt x5 mixers, 5 radios, and a boom (which would have to be patched in and out as needed) all mixed to two camera tracks via wireless hops. Clearly 5+ people of unscripted/overlapping chaos is too many for a single mixer to handle.. after week one the production finally agreed with us that this was a problem (only after post said some sound was unusable due to overlaps). A production meeting ensues.. They (production) say "what's going on with the sound? Why is post saying it's not good?" We explained the situation as best we could and basically gave them two options; Hire additional mixers and gear to provide a mixer for each camera --or-- rent Devas or 788s (it had just come on the market) and track the piss out of it! Perceiving that it would be cheaper to just rent some more gear they went with the multi-track route. The results: - Post was overwhelmed by many GB's of audio data per day (it was common for the cameras to roll out full 60minunte tapes one after the other) - Sound and Picture sync was a constant struggle for post (footage across 4+ HVX200's) despite our best efforts to TC slate every roll in addition to each camera getting an identical monomix track.. I figure this was due to the HVX200's drifting ways and lack of professional timecode functionality.. but who knows - It made for an extremely heavy, exhausting, over-the-shoulder rig. At one point we had 7 radios in a bag with a Deva 5.8+ 2 NP's and lectro transmitters. Granted this was an extremely poorly planned, low-budget (at least for us grunts) shoot but it's a good example of multi-track gone wrong. I'm also positive it would have been cheaper for the production to just hire extra staff and use standard ENG-reality kits. AND in hindsight I regret that we ever suggested multi-track.. but it was more the situation.. I know when executed properly multi-track will work fine for reality, it just can't be an afterthought or a band-aid for shoddy pre-pro. But.. the show aired eventually and sounded OK.. though there were a few subtitled scenes.. which is a little embarrassing but It's all water under the bridge!

Now that's using your head, bernie! -sorry couldn't resist. I agree, when possible head rigs usually work wonders. Often not practical though.

If the problem doesn't go away with the solutions suggested then maybe a large-ish capacitor across the power leads (on either VTX or 411 or both) could clean up the dirty power problem. (3000-4000 uF) This is from Zaxcom's suggestion for cleaning up the DC noise created by the original stereoline, worked for me. I always make my XLR's with the shield soldered to the XLR shell in addition to pin 1.. even camera hops jumpers. Haven't had a problem yet. I make them snip-able though just in case.

Everyone is just looking for that magic block!

Any reports from Chicago? I've used blocks 19 & 20 mostly in suburban Chicago and had good results, but never downtown

Glenn, I'd be curious to know what is different about the Remote Audio TA3's from the original switchcraft part? How can they be identified are they the all black ones? thanks, -d

You can keep your soldering iron at bay for now they don't currently offer a 5-pin version. 3 and 4 pins only.

I'll be ordering some from markertek this week to make some direct out cables for the 552.. I'll post my results. If you look at the assembly instructions from the rean website you can see that they use the same chuck-pincher strain relief that their full size xlr's employ. Hopefully it takes the margin for error out of the clamp system I hate on the Switchcraft TA's

I've emailed neutrik about them once and this was part of the response. The last sentence is regarding the lack of a 5-pin version which I was clamoring for: " Hi Derek: The reason that we made this in our China facility is that we made this for some large microphone manufacturers who were not happy with what is available now. They gave us the parameters that they were looking for and a cost. Even though this is coming out of our China facility it is being manufactured to our tooling and inspected by our people in Liechtenstein. Every customer who has seen this has indicated that it is the best product in the market. We will be coming out with other versions however we had to start somewhere and what we have now is what over 75% of our customers had asked for. Best Regards,Fred Fred Besnoff Product Applications Manager Neutrik USA"

Just speculating here.. haven't used one myself You may get faster read and write times.. might make for a faster transfer at the end of the day.. Also in theory would be immune to environmental factors like humidity, shock, dust, and vibration. SSD is fairly new tech.. I would want to know what make and model SSD sound devices is using before taking the plunge. In the past years SSD's have been somehwat unstable from brand to brand depending on your application. They are becoming reliable finally.

Rob, I have heard some bleed but only in extreme situations. Like when one of my RF channels breaks through the squelch with a wall of noise. Even then you need to be really listening for it. In the field you may not notice it. That's been my experience. best, -derek