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What is the most important piece of equipment?


Jeff Wexler

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when you say system, what exactly was it that he had made?

Having worked with Tom Cruise on many movies now, I want to preface this by saying that I firmly believe that Tom had nothing but good intentions when he proposed this recording system many years ago. Tom is the consumate filmmaker and is very well versed in most all of the technical crafts involved in moviemaking.

Tom wanted to explore the possibilities of building a production sound recording system thatr would use ultra low noise components, state of the art electronics and the best recording medium that could be put together. He enlisted the help of Mark Levinson who had already made a name for himself, producing ultra high quality audio components for the audiophile world (this being back in the days when there were "audiophiles" who were willing to spend their last paycheck on a set of interconnect cables). The system consisted of, if my memory serves me, a custom mixing panel utilizing audiophile mic preamps designed and built by Mark Levinson which fed a highly modified Nagra 4S equipped with the Bryston box for Dolby encoding (probably Dolby type-A but could have been SR, I don't remember). It was all housed in 2 rather large road cases and was not very easy to use. The power requirements were horrendous which made location work really difficult. Althouigh sonically quite superior to most everything that was in use in that day, it did not take into account many of the things that we needed on a daily basis to record location production sound. There were a few sound mixers who were actually required to use this system but I won't tell all thise stories (or name names) unless someone wants to hear them. I will say that when I got the job to do "Jerry Maguire", Tom Cruise had not yet been signed to do the movie. When Tom did get the part (and Cameron Crowe's little movie took on the emerging Tom Cruise empire with all that it entails) I asked the question right away if Clear Sound systerm was going to be required. The word came back that Tom had cooled a little on the idea of pushing the system on sound departments, and I was relieved because I had already had the experience of having to refuse to do a movie where Clear Sound was more than just a request. To make a long story slightly shorter, we did "Jerry Maguire" with Tom and with my equipment, everyone was quite pleased, I went on to do several movies with Tom (both as an actor and as a producer) and I believe the Clear Sound system was retired and died of natural causes somewhere in Palm Springs.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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I never heard the story about Clear Sound, very interesting. I don't know if it's true or not, but I was told Jerry Lewis invented a sound system with a lot of mics on a grid so that wherever he went on a set he was on mic. I don't know, sounds like a lotta work or B.S. or both.

old school

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Great to hear the whole Story of the Tom Cruise / Clear Sound saga. I had heard bits and pieces of it here and there, but it's always good to hear it from somone coseto the source.

I' d like to suggest another very important piece of gear we come to rely on everyday. Our Headphones. It's sort of the last stop for what we hear, and we are making changes to the sound based on how the headphones convey the sound to our ears. I have to say I'm still looking for that magic pair of headphones that sound great to me. I used Beyerdynamics DT-250's for a while. I like them. But I switched to Sony 7506's because so many other mixers seemed to be using them. I gotta say, I'm not sure why they are so popular. To my ears anyways, they seem to over emphasise the highs. But maybe thats just my ears.

I'd be curious to hear what cans everyone else is using.

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I' d like to suggest another very important piece of gear we come to rely on everyday. Our Headphones.

Excellent observation...  I'm surprised I didn't say it myself. I have often spoken of the EARS being one of the most important parts of the chain, and of course the ears in our line of work are almost always being fed by headphones. When I have taught classes in the past, I have always had a big section about the use of headphones and the importance of learning the relationship to what you hear in the "cans" to the final product. Since most all prjects we work on, regardless of size, scope or final venue, will be heard played baxck via SPEAKERS, not headphones, this understanding is very important. I will say right up front, if the goal is to have the headphones sound as much as possible like the loudspeakers that will ultimately play our work, this is absolutely not possible and really misses the point. We need to use high quality sealing headphones so that we have some idea of what we are actually recording, and then we have to be able to interpret what we have achieved by inference and experience. The best experience, the experience that is vitally needed but so often in todays world goes unrealized, is the making of recordings with headphones and then listening back through loudspeakers in a room, AND played back with the IMAGE (assuming that we are talking about recording sound for picture medium). It is really only through this procedure, this exercise, that one can learn the relationship between what we hear in the headphones and the actual quality of the work.

Now, after all that waffle (and do excuse me I have a tendancy to say much more about things than was actually requested) the choice of what sort of headphones to use is a very personal matter involving all sorts of consideratiions (many of these not even being terribly technical, like how uncomfortable do I want to be using these ancient Beyer DT-48 "head clamps" just because they are an industry standard).

I switched over to SONY headphones (coming off the DT-48's I wore for years and years) because I wanted a more comfortable, lower cost headphone. The early SONY MDR-whatevers that I used were not really very good, but boy were they comfortable! I got used to them (learned what they would let me hear and what they would not let me hear --- and I learned the relationship of those headphones to the work I would hear at dailies) and so I never went bacxk. SONY improved the line of headphones up to the present industry standard 7506 which is what I use. I think the only time I have ventured out in recent years was to try out the Ultrasone headphones that everyone seemed to be talking about. I did not like them and I went back to the SONYs. It is a very personal thing this use of headphones, and I agree that it is a primary piece of equipment that demands consideration and attention. I also know that if the quest for the ultimate headphone causes you to change headphones every other month, the work will probably suffer as a result.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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My most important piece of equipment changes with so many variables.  Today, in the rain....it was definately my Pelsue 8x8 tent! 

~Phillip W. Palmer, C.A.S.

www.palmeraudio.net

Only 8 x 8, looks huge in the picture. I love my Pelsue but I think mine is only a 6 foot, is that possible? Maybe mine is an 8 x 8 also. The few times I have used it I almost always have had company...  everyone else that can wants to get out of the rain or the cold (and since my cart is pretty small there is always some room).  Thanks for posting that.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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Only 8 x 8, looks huge in the picture. I love my Pelsue but I think mine is only a 6 foot, is that possible? Maybe mine is an 8 x 8 also. The few times I have used it I almost always have had company...  everyone else that can wants to get out of the rain or the cold (and since my cart is pretty small there is always some room).  Thanks for posting that.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

They make a 6 x 6, which I think is a pretty standard size.  I chose the larger to fit both my cart and follow cart, now fondly called 'the bus'.  The 8 x 8 is still small enough so that 1 person can open and close it efficiantly.  The first couple of times you do it are pretty funny though...lots of flopping around and cursing.  :)  Kind of fun to watch from a distance.

~PWP

www.palmeraudio.net

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They make a 6 x 6, which I think is a pretty standard size.  I chose the larger to fit both my cart and follow cart, now fondly called 'the bus'.  The 8 x 8 is still small enough so that 1 person can open and close it efficiantly.  The first couple of times you do it are pretty funny though...lots of flopping around and cursing.  :)  Kind of fun to watch from a distance.

~PWP

www.palmeraudio.net

I think mine is the 6 x 6 and I have put both the main cart and my (small) follow cart in, but it's a tight fit. Also, I don't use it enough that even when Don and I go to set it up, it is a pretty silly sight with a lot of twisting and slapping and cursing...  you've got that right.

-  JW

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  • 2 months later...

It's to everyone's benefit that the point is made that the Recorder is not the most important.  After all the Recorder's job is not to change anything it records.  So when you press Record you are doing nothing to the sound.  Instead emphasize that the mic and "Capture" techniques are critical.  Next talk up the value of a "Mixed Track." Stop the idea that Mixers are really recordists who just "Track" a scene. 

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