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Sound Devices CS-633 Bag in words and a few pictures


jlempen

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Hi all!

 

I know that the topic on bags for the new SD 633 has been covered here before, but no one has posted pics of the CS-633 bag specifically made by Porta-Brace for Sound Devices, the bag included in the full 633 kit.

 

The exact same design seems to be available for the Zaxcom Maxx, so I guess that most of my observations would apply to that bag as well.

 

To start off, let me say that I'd really want to like this bag. As a long-time user of the old blue Petrol PSDMB-302 for my SD 744T and the almost identical newer black Petrol PS607 for my Sonosax SX-R4, both of which come quite close to what I'm looking for in a small lightweight bag for doc work, I was hoping that the new offering by SD / Porta-Brace would even better fit my needs. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit the bill for several reasons I'll try to explain here. Other opinions are of course more than welcome and/or wanted! ;-)

 

The CS-633 is well crafted and is somewhat different from the typical Porta-Brace mixer bag, in that it isn't a bag made specifically for one mixer, with the addition of a separate RM-Multi accessory outer pocket strapped to it with velcro through the standard black hard plastic hoops sewn onto the mixer bag's side walls.

 

The CS-633 design consists of a main mixer compartment, separated from the accessory pocket by a non-removable cordura wall similar to the outer cordura walls of the bag. This fixed wall has two elastic bands sewn into it to firmly hold in place two larger receivers such as the Lectro 411a's.

 

The main mixer compartment is quite shallow, it has exactly the depth of the SD 633 without any battery mounted on it. There's a bottom flap that would probably fit two small or medium sized Sony NP-F type batteries in its normal position. The flap expands to a larger size when unfolded in order to accomodate larger Sony type batteries. With both setups, the batteries would protrude from the main compartment and thus the bag wouldn't stand up. The flap holds in place with a long strip of velcro. There is no padding whatsoever to protect the 633 and/or the batteries when putting the bag down.

 

The 633 mixer/recorder is suspended in the main mixer compartment by two large, heavy-duty velcro flaps on each upper side of the compartment, which are designed to loop through the typical Sound Devices "golf-tee" thingies (thanks Matt!) on each side of the mixer's front panel. The mixer sits perfectly snug in the compartment, although the velcro strips closing the back panel of the bag stick out by about 3-4 millimeters, no matter how hard you try to pull them down when closing the bag... Maybe it's only my bag, though.

 

The accessory pocket is quite large and can be split in half with the supplied orange separator wall that attaches to the inner side walls with velcro. This separator doesn't feature any kind of elastic band for holding in place receivers or other accessories. However, there are two velcro strips sewn into it on one side. The pocket is large enough to accomodate for instance six Lectro 411a's in three rows of two receivers or four 411a's in two rows of two receivers, which would still leave some space for a BDS, a couple of transmitters and an NP1 and its NP-cup. A slot between the side walls of the accessory pocket and the main mixer compartment allows for looping through a few cables. On the top outside border of each side wall you'll find a flat medium duty nylon strap about two and a half inches long on which you could hang cables and other things using a carabiner. The silly thing with the accessory pocket is that while the Lectro 411a's sit perfectly in the bag for showroom purposes, the designers of the bag somewhat totally forgot that the receivers need to be connected to the mixer with a right-angle XLR plug. So when you connect your equipment in the bag, the Lectros will stick out of the bag behind the mixer by about an inch, which looks kind of silly. Now I know that the depth of the bag depends on the depth of the mixer it has been designed for. Well, read on...

 

The back wall of the mixer compartment opens up completely and is held in place by a velcro strip on each side. As I said earlier, these velcro strips protrude from the main mixer compartment by about 3-4 millimeters when the back wall is closed, which I find extremely irritating because the hard side of the velcro scratches the palm of your hand when operating the mixer... There are two black solid plastic hoops on the bottom of the back wall to secure it to the lower straps of a harness.

 

The side flaps of the mixer compartment are the classic fluffy plastic flaps which are closed with an adjustable elastic strap on the far end. These are quite large and seem to be made of some kind of soft cloth and generally feel nicer and of better quality than the cheap nylon flaps (which slowly rot away from the inside over the years) found on the Petrol bags. There are no zippers on these flaps that would allow you to have a cable exit the bag in an elegant way at the seams of the flaps and the bag or provide convenient access to the mixer's connectors. As they are soft, though, you can fold them back easily.

 

The rain cover of the bag is attached with a zipper to the upper front of the bag and is wide enough to protect the equipment on either side and some more. The transparent vinyl window is kind of small, but you'll still see every knob of the mixer, so that's fine at least for me. The cover is also long enough to close it over the whole upper side of the bag and still stick your hands in to operate the equipment, but any receiver antennas will be bent slightly when the rain cover is on, even on the higher blocks such as block 26.

 

The odd thing with this rain cover is that they have sewn in a second, larger transparent vinyl cover to the inside of the cover, with a velcro opening on the bottom. So theoretically, you could slide a cue sheet or something of that sort in between both vinyl windows, but you wouldn't see your equipment any more. Kind of an interesting idea, the downside being that the two vinyl flaps on top of each other make the tiny infos on the 633's screen almost impossible to read or at least very blurry...

 

By the way, the bag comes with a very nice heavy duty leather handle featuring the large steel carabiners usually found on Porta-Brace's bigger Audio Organizers and camera bags. Nice!

 

The bag *DOES NOT* come with a strap. All right, most sound people around the globe probably have gathered a large collection of padded straps over the years, from the heavy duty early Porta-Brace leather straps to the newer medium duty nylon and cordura straps found on Petrol gear and everything in between.

 

But the strap they optionally sell for this bag (for 80 Swiss Francs over here, that's 70 American Dollars, excluding VAT) is of just barely better quality than your standard strap found in a no-name Wal-Mart sports bag made in China for 9 Dollars and 99 Cents. The strap features kind of flimsy black metal carabiners I just wouldn't want to trust for carrying my expensive equipment around the world on a daily basis. The new strap is still better though than the medium-duty leather straps with the ridiculously cheap plastic carabiners Porta-Brace used to ship with their mixer bags a few years ago. I've had these break within a couple of months on *every* bag that came with it. And of course the bag full of expensive equipment drop onto the ground in front of a client. Oops! Let's hope this new strap is going to fare better. As for me, I'll send the strap back for a refund, but YMMV.

 

So on the one hand they give you an excellent heavy duty leather carrying handle you'll harldy use with the bag and on the other hand they sell you a flimsy strap for big $$ which is supposed to carry your expensive gear 10 hours a day for several years. Well, I don't get it, but maybe it's just me.

 

Now let's have a look at the one detail I cannot for the life of me understand and which, in my opinion, makes this bag strictly unusable for everyday use with only a strap.

 

Well, the only suspension point of this bag is the same heavy-duty steel O-ring i've seen on every Porta-Brace bag I've ever encountered in the past 20 years. Great! And that O-ring is sewn to the bag with a heavy-duty, two inches wide nylon strap on each side wall of the bag's accessory pocket. That's right. The accessory pocket, and *not* the center of gravity of the bag, which is somewhere near the back panel of the bag and close to your body, where the heaviest piece of equipment, i.e. the mixer, will sit.

 

This means that if you are planning on carrying the bag around your neck while working with it, the bag will heavily tilt towards your body, and the antennas will tickle your belly, unless you keep your main NP-1 (li-ion) battery, as well as a spare (li-ion) NP-1 battery in the frontmost position of the frontmost pocket of the bag at all times as a counterweight.

 

And of course you won't be able to operate the mixer easily, as the strap will get in your way, and you will need to slide your arms in between the strap and your body towards the mixer, or spread your arms around the straps and back towards the mixer in order to operate it in a normal working position.

 

I know it's silly, and it is beyond my comprehension.

 

The only rational explanation I could come up with so far is connected to the fact that the bag doesn't come with a strap. Maybe this bag was designed for use with a harness only. If you are planning on using this bag with a Porta-Brace, Petrol or Versa-Flex harness, you're good to go. The lower straps of the harness will attach to the plastic hoops on the bottom of the bag's back panel and keep the bag from tilting towards your body. But even with a harness, the straps will get in the way once attached to the bag's steel O-ring.

 

So, in a nutshell:

 

PROS

- Nice build quality

- Small and lightweight, simple and effective design

- Excellent, removable leather carrying handle included

- Tailored to precisely fit the mixer

- Nice Sound Devices logo on the front ;-) (if you don't like it, tape it down with gaffer tape...)

 

CONS

- Costs twice as much as competing products (if you also buy the strap sold separately)

- No strap included (maybe on purpose)

- The bag's only suspension point is not near its center of gravity

- The typical receivers most people on this forum use will stick out of the bag by an inch

- No specific space/pouch/pocket provided for an industry-standard NP1 battery

- No real padding to protect the gear (could be a PRO point if you like to travel as lightweight as possible)

- The bag won't stand up when using Sony NP-F type batteries mounted on the back of the 633

 

I'd be very glad if regular users of this bag would chime in! As well as our very own Porta-Brace and Sound Devices gurus, of course!

 

Cheers and have a great day!

 

Jürg

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thanks.  When I saw this bag before I though that  absolutely the first thing that I'd have to do, even before I put the machine in it, was move the metal O rings to the part of the bag that contains the recorder.   Favorite is having the bag level, 2nd best is having the bag tilt away from you slightly, not favorite, not acceptable in fact--is having the bag tilt TOWARDS you.   I don't understand why they did this.   Also, no padding on the bottom and issues with standing up on its own when loaded are deal breakers for me.

 

philp

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Very nice review Jurg,I have the portabracebag for my 664 and like it. I have been using Porta's for 25 years now...(I like Kangaroo better,but they no longer exist..)Why did Portabrace not make a copy of the 664 bag,only smaller??

A bag without a strap? Why,why?

When the 633 is your first buy,Portabrace needs to provide a strap,and with METAL hooks!!!Portabrace please chime in.( I know you are watching this...)

David Carmiggelt 

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LOL

 

<g> I'm going to wait until the movie comes out.

 

Initially, my review was quite a bit longer than it already is, but in the end I decided to cut out all the remarks made out of frustration in order to keep it more or less objective...

 

I guess I could make a HOWTO movie on how to mod the darn thing, but there's so much to mod to get something interesting out of it that it's simply not reasonable to mod it.

 

And I won't take the bag out if its nice SD-branded cardboard box again before sending it back for a refund. BTW, the strap also comes in a nice SD-branded cardboard box.

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BTW, I for one think the optimal location for the main support ring varies with how the bag is loaded...

thus, perhaps it should be selectable!  so there...

 

Yes Senator, I totally agree!

 

That's how every other manufacturer of audio bags does it. Even on the cheapest bags such as the PS-607 you have the choice.

 

 

SOON

 

Hehe! Your Stingray's looking great so far, Dave! Even if it appears to be a tad on the bigger side for my taste. Why make it so deep/tall?

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Hehe! Your Stingray's looking great so far, Dave! Even if it appears to be a tad on the bigger side for my taste. Why make it so deep/tall?

Because it works with the 633 and the MAXX. With the 633 we wanted to make sure there was enough room inside the bag if you use the big sony camera batteries, and we wanted to make sure there is enough room for straight XLR connectors that go in the back of the MAXX. 

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Dave,

 

Yes, that was kind of a silly question, I agree ::)

 

The thing is, I have the impression that only very few sound mixers will be using the 633 with the Sony batteries, or at least the bigger models, as we all rely on an external battery system anyway. I'm planning on sticking six rechargeable AA's into the 633's internal battery tube as an emergency backup, even if i've never ever ran out of an NP1 during a shoot. And even if the NP1 would run out, there wouldn't be anything coming in from the receivers anymore, leaving you only with the hardwired boom mic to rely on anyway. But there's no way I'm gonna stick big Sony batteries on the 633 as a backup...

 

I kind of liked the fact that the PortaBrace bag doesn't provide a protected space for large bottom batteries on the 633, and thus making the bag less deep.

 

OK, let's keep the questions concerning the Stingray bag in the appropriate thread.

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And yes, Senator, you can't please everybody. And even the new K-Tek bag won't please everybody... I personally would prefer it to be shallower... ;-)

 

jlempen: " Even if it appears to be a tad on the bigger side for my taste. "

... but you can please all of the people on jwsoundgroup.net... NEVER!

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jlempen: " I kind of liked the fact that the PortaBrace bag doesn't provide a protected space for large bottom batteries on the 633, and thus making the bag less deep. "

further evidence...

 

" I have the impression that only very few sound mixers will be using the 633 with the Sony batteries "

while I do not.

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Thanks for the very detailed review. I'm starting to get depressed about Porta-Brace... I worked with them this summer on a new bag that was supposed to be released in August or September. Obviously nothing has happened with that.

 

However - I take issue with your thought about people using (or not) the Sony batteries. I use them exclusively! I have a Hawk Woods adapter shoe that uses 2 of them to offer almost 1500 mAh of power for my bag - I can run almost a full day without changing them. If the 633 had a power tap on it to allow me to feed power OUT to my wireless, that would be about perfect. Maybe SD can do something like that in firmware, I don't know.

 

But to each his own, right? Sadly, this review has shown exactly why I want nothing to do with this new bag from PB. Too bad.

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I also bought the full kit and while I haven't taken it out on a gig yet I am pretty disappointed with the design of the bag. I put on my Kortwich strap and found the bag leaning way too far toward me to be able to operate it. I also am using 2x SRb's in the bag and find that the elastic straps are obviously too big so they like to lean to the sides. NP1 battery sticks awkwardly out of the top if put vertically which I had to do in order to fit the BDS. Obviously everyone's situation is different and for me there are ways to fix some of these issues (velcro, hawk woods half size battery) but I can't see any excuse for the rings for the shoulder strap being so far away.

 

I will most likely trade this in for a Kortwich bag. While I don't like the one they have up on their site currently I plan to have one custom made that is pretty similar to the Portabrace except a little bit taller, pockets on the sides for NP1s/BDS and a waist strap like the Nomad bag if anyone else is interested. Waiting on the K-tek specs though since for me it's all about the weight/healthiest option for my back. While the Portabrace is super super light, the fact that it can't be used with a shoulder strap makes it not an option for me.

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Jared, I've been going back and forth with Kortwich for the last few weeks trying to get them to design a better "base model" bag for 633 than their current.  Replacing the front with a dual zippered poutch and side NP pockets (like the Nomad bag), ends up costing some $600, which boggles me since the Nomad bag (which would be larger) costs $350'ish.

 

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However - I take issue with your thought about people using (or not) the Sony batteries. I use them exclusively! I

 

Hey Geordi!

 

Well, if there was a way to use the Sony batteries to power the receivers as well, I would most certainly consider using them instead of the NP1's.

 

Modding the 633 with a power output would probably be easy, I've seen a few people mod their Sony EX3's with a Hirose power output. But I wouldn't want to void my warranty on a brand new 633 yet ;-)

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Geordie: " I'm starting to get depressed about Porta-Brace... "

Paxil

" I worked with them this summer on a new bag that was supposed to be released in August or September. Obviously nothing has happened with that. "

possibly not cost effective, or as applicable as you personally consider it..?

you should talk to Kortwich...just like Zack!

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  • 4 months later...

 

So, in a nutshell:

 

PROS

- Nice build quality

- Small and lightweight, simple and effective design

- Excellent, removable leather carrying handle included

- Tailored to precisely fit the mixer

- Nice Sound Devices logo on the front ;-) (if you don't like it, tape it down with gaffer tape...)

 

CONS

- Costs twice as much as competing products (if you also buy the strap sold separately)

- No strap included (maybe on purpose)

- The bag's only suspension point is not near its center of gravity

- The typical receivers most people on this forum use will stick out of the bag by an inch

- No specific space/pouch/pocket provided for an industry-standard NP1 battery

- No real padding to protect the gear (could be a PRO point if you like to travel as lightweight as possible)

- The bag won't stand up when using Sony NP-F type batteries mounted on the back of the 633

 

I'd be very glad if regular users of this bag would chime in! As well as our very own Porta-Brace and Sound Devices gurus, of course!

 

Cheers and have a great day!

 

Jürg

 

Jürg, Firstly, thats a great detailed review of the bag.

 

Whilst I stumbled upon this thread comically late, it seems there's a lot to be learned reading through the details. 

 

I'm taking notes....

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