Search the Community

Hi, I'm in the market for a new or used field recorder and I'm counting my options. I usually record sfx and ambiences and some docs with no high channel count. Having a ULN 2 as a secondary interface plus a great set of preamps I was thinking to get a secondhand 744 and feed the line ins with those pres. Are they going to match for lets say a DMS or IRT-cross recording or I should trade the uln for a mixpre-d? Anyone used the uln in the field with a 4 pin xlr battery? Is it power consuming? The other option is an sd633 (and I have some thoughts on the zoom F8 also).

So I've been living in a 2 track world for the last several years and I've finally upgraded to a 552/744 combo. I'm definitely new to multitracking and wanted to get an idea of some of the conventions we use. Here's some thing I'd like to know, in relation to narrative filmmaking: 1) How hot should your pre-fade isos generally be relative to the mix? 2) If you don't have enough tracks for isos and a mix, do you lose the mix and set your isos to post-fade, or do you put multiple mics on one "iso"? 3) In the mix, it makes sense that you don't cover one person with multiple mics at the same time because of phasing, perspective, etc, so does this mean that in a 2 person exterior, with one boom, and a lav for each actor, that if the boom is sounding good, the lavs are out of the mix and are only going pre-fade to isos? This just seems a little strange to me because then you're not really leaving room to adjust your lavs except with trims. 4) As a mixer, I've done 2 booms a couple times (to separate tracks in a 2 track setup), but I'm always weary because each mic is picking up what they are intended to cover, and to a lesser extent, they are picking up what the other mic is intended for, off-axis. Does keeping both booms up in the mix cause any phasing or perspective issues? In this situation, does one ride the faders up and all the way down with/after each line? Can more directional mics somehow work worse in this situation, say because of acoustics? I imagine it's rare to have two open cardioids in a mix. As a utility, I've seen situations with 2 booms where the reason we were doing 2 was because of overlap with an off-screen line, but I don't know how they were routed into the 788. 5) Outside of any "problems" #4 may/may not cause, out of curiosity, is some small (negligible?) amount of phasing inevitable? Thanks, Ben