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Big and little


Glen Trew

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Part of being tri-coastal is having equipment scattered all over creation, so my regular rig is often somewhere else. So when I got the call yesterday to do a day on the ABC Nashville show today, I put this rig together, which is always a golden opportunity to evaluate new equipment in the trenches. This time it was the PSC Solice Mini mixer, the PSC Euro cart, and the Sound Devices 633 mixers/ecorder.

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Hi Michael. It was very enlightening about all three new(ish) products: the 633, the Euro Cart, and Solice Mini. I'm writing an in depth blog posting, but in a nutshell here's the highs and lows:

 

Solice Mini:

Good: High freq EQ, input limiters, layout, and size.

Needs improvement: MUCH lower setting needed for meters. Even with the DIM setting, the meters were painfully blinding in the low light we often work in at sound stages. The meter brightness DIM setting should be comfortable in total darkness. More gain needed on mic preamps (full up trim, full up fader, with MKH-40/MKH-60 and STILL needed more). Slate mic muting the program might seem like a good idea, but isn't.

 

Euro Cart:

Good: Idea size. Very nice finish. adjustable shelves.

Needs improvement: MUST have front casters! The simplicity of rubber bumpers on the front might seem like a good idea and might seem adequate, but if Ron Meyer had roll the cart from one end of a 600' stage to the another like I did last night (as sound crews very often have to do) I'm sure he would agree.

Discovery: The shelves work much better for me when installed upside down. The PSC cart shelves have always had the edges pointing upward, can be nice to keep pencils and stuff from rolling off. However, as you can see from the photo above, installing them upside allows positioning equipment over the edge and putting equipment on the cart that is actually larger than the shelves. The design of the shelves makes inverting them very easy, and, in my opinion, better for what we do. How did I keep the gear on the shelves? A small blob of Joe's Sticky Stuff on the corners worked beautifully. 

 

SD-633:

Good: Last night proved it can be a useful and adequate mixer/recorder for high-pressure, demanding network episodic dramas.

Needs Improvement: MUST have a more obvious recording indicator. It's too difficult to know it's in record, and too easy to not know it isn't recording. Hopefully Sound Devices will make the red record indication a pulsing or flashing red zone.

 

More soon.

 

gt

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What was your routing between the solice and 2 633s? Did you use one as a backup or 12 tracks? How did you record your mix track from the solice mini?

I used two 633s, basically because I had them, and wanted to experience recording on two simultaneously. I recorded just the mono mix on 633 #2, which can be thought of as a "backup". The thinking was that if the cards on recorder #1 filled up, recorder #2 would still have space because there were fewer tracks being recorded on #2. My philosophy about a backup recorder is that it should be kept on the truck for when there is a recorder failure. I think it's a fact that, on average, adding a second machine causes more problems than it solves: 1) If you have a second machine you are twice as likely to have a machine failure. 2) Having a failure increases the chances of a mistake from distraction. 3) Keeping up with two machines divides attention that contributes to operator errors.

Yes, recorders will have eventually have a problem, and the operator will eventually make mistakes. But whether it's recorder failure or operator error that causes a take or a track to be lost, in the long run I think you'll have fewer losses if using just one recorder.

Notice that I did not use the L&R tracks on the 633. This is because there was no reason to have two postfader mix tracks, and there is no way to arm just one of these mix tracks, so using them was just going to be a waste of card space. So, I unarmed them both and put the postfader mix from the Solice Mini onto iso track 1, and recorded all mics prefacer on subsequent tracks.

SOLICE MINI Out SD-633 #1 In SD-633 #1 TRACKS

L - not used

R - not used

Mix Bus L__________ Input 1________1 - Mono Mix

Prefade 1___________Input 2________2 - Boom-1

Prefade 2___________Input 3________3 - Boom-2

Prefade 3___________Input 4________4 - Lav-1

Prefade 4___________Input 5________5 - Lav-2

Prefade 5___________Input 6________6 - Lav-3

SD-633 #2 In SD-633 #2 TRACKS

L - not used

R - not used

Mix Bus R___________Input 1_______1-Mono Mix backup

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Very nice!

I had same note regarding slate mic muting program audio on the Solice, IIRC. Mine was modified to not mute, but I removed slate mic from outputs 5-8 so they could be used for camera audio (if required), EPK, and feedback-free speaker outputs.

And I agree with all the other stuff too. SD still sets things up as L/R. Drives me crazy. Why not just 1-6 or A-F? Even in the ENG world of L/R splits, couldn't they just be assigned to the first two tracks and labeled accordingly? It's like they're stuck in the days of 2-track recording.

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It is possible to disarm the LR tracks independently. highlight the track with the select knob then use meter+select to disarm/arm it. It took me a couple of uses to realize you can do this. firmware revision? I have software version 1.02 build 27

Thanks Chris. In fairness to Sound Devices, the 633 was designed with ENG in mind, and having the pan pot route automatically to the two tracks it feeds post fader keeps things simple and prevents some mistakes. An understandable design choice for the intended market. While this could be a valid feature when recording a stereo image, my fear is that's it's mostly for the antiquated "boom-1, wires-2" habit.

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Hi Glen,

I thought I would respond to your feedback on my products:

 

Solice Mini:

1.  The meter brightness in the DIM setting is (was) way too bright.  All mixers built from the 1st of this month have had that dimmed down to something more reasonable.   It is an easy (one resistor) update to make.

 

2.  The gain is also very easily changed.  I have not heard back from any other users regarding a request for a change in the gain of the pre-amps.  We will consider this if we hear it from enough folks.  In any case, it is a very easy change to make.

 

3.  Can you educate me as to why muting the input channel audio is a bad idea when slating?   I must be missing something.   In any case, this function can be disabled rather easily if anyone wants it disabled.

 

Eurocart:

1.  The cart was originally designed to be as small and light weight as possible.  The casters we use on our older cart weigh about 4.5Lbs per pair.   Adding them to the cart will add about 16.66% to the weight of the cart.  There are some lighter weight casters on the market, but most of them are pretty poor quality.  The casters we use on older carts are made in America and will typically last 12-15 years before anything goes wrong with them.   We will of course come up with a caster option for the EuroCart if enough people ask for it.  In hind sight I really thought that this cart would be used by ENG style mixers who wanted a place to put their bags down while doing interview type work.  As it turns out, these carts are being used as full production carts.  Live and learn I guess.

 

2.  Yes the shelves were designed to be flipped over and used as a flat surface rather than a tray.   It works very well when you need to place a piece of equipment on the shelf that is wider than the shelf itself.

 

Thank you for the feedback as it always leads to improvements for our customers.

Ron Meyer

PSC

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Hey Ron, my Solice maxi's slate mic doesn't mute the other mics. Was that by design or did you do that for me? Not sure why Glen wants this but I'm not a fan of the slate mic muting the board. My reasoning is when Jim Webb built his this way I couldn't talk to him until he let go of the button. It was a frustrating way to communicate IMO.

CrewC

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Hi Crew,

As the full size Solice mixer is built standard, the slate microphone mutes the input channels.   We may have disabled that function for you Crew.   I honestly can't remember.

 

On our full size Solice mixer, if your boom operator activates the COM system (talk back) while the sound mixer has the SLATE switch pressed, the boom operators talk back audio will be mixed into the sound mixers headphone feed along with whatever he is also monitoring.  The Mini Solice does not have the same talk back function built into it so it would not have the same issues.

 

Ron

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RonM: " The cart was originally designed to be as small and light weight as possible.  The casters we use on our older cart weigh about 4.5Lbs per pair. "

You specifically mentioned that when you introduced it.

" really thought that this cart would be used by ENG style mixers who wanted a place to put their bags down while doing interview type work. "

that, too...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Ron,

 

I figured that further dimming of the LED meters would be easy, and I'm glad to see you were already on it.

 

i've always felt that the amount of gain on some mixers (like the Cooper and Sonosax) was unneccessary and excessive, because low-level dynamic mics are never used at a distance anymore. However, when I used the Solice Mini mic pres with Sennheiser MKH microphones (about as hot a mic as you'll ever find on a set), with the trim full up and the fader full up, and the actors talking in normal conversation loudness, I still found that more was sometimes needed. This was the case in four days of two different productions. I think 6dB more would do the trick.

 

Something I forgot to mention is that the main meters on the Solice Mini I used changes from green to yellow at around -28dBfs, which is significantly lower than what seems to be the standard of turning yellow at -20dBfs. This is a signficnat problem because, since we typically can't see the printed scale on the meters and aren't staring at them, the early color change will often cause levels to be run lower that we otherwise would.

 

Muting the mix automatically when pressing the slate mic button takes the option away from the sound mixer. When feeding wirless monitoring (Comteks) to the production entourage at video village with the Solice Minii, the most probably way to talk to the director or scripty is through the slate mic. Muting the mix means that the audio that video village is listening to will go away, which will be very annoying to them. It will usually be better for the sound mixer to control the slate mic level/mix level to suit the situation.

 

I agree that the rubber bumpers on the Euro Cart are often a good compromise when considering the balance of weight, expense, and top-heaviness. But since the primary reason to have a cart is to move equipment around, the absent front casters will be missed much more often than the weight savings will be appreciated, at least on smooth surfaces like what we encounter on a sound stage.

 

gt

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My vote: slate mic should never mute the program audio. I discussed this in great detail with Andy Cooper over 30 years ago but I don't remember the outcome (whether he made it an option to either mute or not mute). I do know that when I took delivery on the first mixer (maybe it was No. 2) the slate mic did not mute the audio.

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I feel it should lower the program level somewhat.

As i recall the original Cooper106 that JW, Roger, and I owned had a low freq rumble when the slate mic was open. The slate mic switch was also a temp switch one way and always on the other direction. That was changed to temp switch only for the main run of the Cooper Mixers. Also all the knobs were white on the original and color coded on the majority of the Coopers made and sold. That's my history lession of the Cooper today. Now back to our original topic.

CrewC

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"My vote: slate mic should never mute the program audio." Jeff when you want to use the slatemike to speak to the director the 'programaudio' is in between takes,right?It will be a one way conversation ( you telling the director,through the slatemike,that 'there were some problems,sounddwise,in the last take" (something like that..) But everybody on the Comtek channel he is on will hear in.Why would you want the program audio to be 'on' since this an offtake use (not during recording)Better to have a privateline with the director in this case.I use the slatemike for calling,and 'emergency' contact to videovillage only.The director can have a privateline with me through the board.(one way...:-)

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