workflow question/Sound Devices 702

[kevgarlic]

I just bought a Sound Devices 702    ---  delivery should be by or on December 2nd, 2016.  After using Zoom H4N, and Marantz PMD661 (modified by Oade Brothers) I am moving up due to the wanting and needing the very quiet pre-amps of the Sound Devices.   I am a Radio Producer for a Public Radio Station in the U-S , focusing on in the field interviews with scientists.  Everything I produce and air, has to have great sound quality from my guests, PLUS,  my radio features are very rich in natural sounds.

To keep the quality of my future projects as high as possible, I plan on using my SD702 at the highest sample rate   --  192Khz  -- and 24 khz bit depth.  I often use the Beyerdyamic Omni  Dynamic  ME58 microphone for these  ' in the woods ' interviews with great results.  I will spend several hours in heavy woods or fields and the Beyerdynamic simply does  not have any handling noise!

That being said, two questions though from those of you who have already been using the SD702.

 

(1)  To save space on my CF cards on my IN-STUDIO interviews where I am not concerned with recording nature backgrounds, I am considering just recording in MONO on my SD702, BUT, then creating the "stereo" in Post production.  Does anybody else do this ??

 

(2)  Since CF Cards are generally more expensive that SD cards, do you  (2-A) SAVE all of your CF Cards to act as a backup? (*Of course in addition to transferring the audio to a larger external hard drive*)

OR, do you (2-B) due to the price of CF cards, do you simply back up all of your  SD702 to an external hard drive , then RE-FORMAT and RE-USE the CF cards?

 

Many thanks for any input SD702 users can give is greatly appreciated.  Can't wait to get the in the field with my SD 702.

Kevin

Midwest/U.S.A.

[mark kirchner]

Hi Kevin,

Sound devices makes great equipment and has good information on their website. Have you down loaded a copy of the 702 manual?

Since you are not using a stereo microphone or stereo technique you are recording a single channel/track or "mono" recording. Your question #1 needed to be written like this; Does anyone record a single mono file and then make a second copy of the original file and then make a left and right track so it will "play" in both a left/right speakers or headphones? Answer/Yes

#2 Record>Copy CF card to computer and back-up device>Reformat card in your 702 recorder>Record new material

Enjoy your new 702,

Mark

PS to search this site use google > like this > SD702 jwsound or Sound Devices 702 JWSound

[Steve Foy]

I don't use an SD 702 however a couple of points to consider.

Generally speaking, you will get much more detail and clarity using high quality equipment than you will simply by recording at 192K. In fact with what you are doing there would be little advantage recording at 192K compared to say 96K........ unless you were doing significant post production on the files.

1 - You can't make true Stereo from a single Mono Track, you can simulate it in post, but it's not the same.............. are you using a good quality Stereo Mic? If so, what method, A/B, X/Y, ORTF, MS?

2 - The price of a CF Card is almost irrelevant relative to the price of good quality equipment. Having said that, best practice is to record to 2 different Media then backup to 2 different Hard Drives (If you need to archive), then reformat and reuse the recording media.

Sounds like you are taking the right approach though if you are looking at using a high quality Mono Mic for interviews mixed over a high quality Stereo Atmos Track.

Good luck and have fun.

Steve

[Philip Perkins]

I had a 702T for many years and it served me very very well (I still use 744s all the time).   CF cards have worked very well for me over this time, and when I was using the 702T on a daily basis I never had any card trouble with the recorder.  That said you might want to back up your cards as soon as you can, to something else (you'll be doing this anyhow to edit).   I did (do) reformat the cards to reuse them after copying them.   Re high-sample rate recording--sure, if it floats your boat.  By the time your recordings get on the air I don't think it will make any difference at all between 24/48 and 24/196, and you are making a much bigger storage footprint.   For radio compatibilty I would make the voice aspects of your mixes mono, and then create stereo "settings" for the voices from your stereo field recordings.  For some interviews (in a set-up studio situation) we've done gentle panning of the two speakers, but we check mono all the time in this case to make sure the balance will hold in a mono playback. 

[kevgarlic]

Thanks very much for the replies. 

*Mark, yes, I did download the manual, and, so far, it looks like one of the better manuals available.

 

*Steve, My microphone is probably not the highest end  -  I have two  , non-matched, Sennheiser

MK600s that I mount on a stereo bar in an X and Y configuration. (*I'm looking at other microphone

options, like Sennheiser mkh30, or, the Rode  NT4, or a matched pair of Rode NT5s.)

 

*Phillip,  thanks for the more realistic approach to high bit rates...AND I like the idea of that gentle panning when do

a studio interview.

 

 

[Philip Perkins]

The panning thing has worked well for us with just 2 talent, when you get into having 3 or more it doesn't work as well.  Re the card-safety thing--I've always though that the most fraught moment in the use of the machine is when you INSERT the card into the recorder--keeping in mind the health and happiness of all those TINY little teeth that are WAY down inside the card port!   In the field (like in the rain etc etc), I always do a little Zen-breath thing around this, since I know from grim experience that screwing this up means a trip back to SD (and in the case of a card-only recorder like 702, it's a show-stopper!).

[Rick Reineke]

Stereo is ok for ambiance (recorded at a different time) but an interview is normally a single channel mono file. If it's a host/guest situation, two mono channels or files.

Two Sennhieser 600 shotgun mics do not make an ideal stereo pair, but a single 600 on a boom pole would work for a single person interview, though an interference tube shotgun is usually not ideal indoors either. Most radio (and TV) reporters in the field, use a hand-held omni dynamic like the EV RE50 (gets more air-time than Seinfeld reruns). The Sennheiser MD42 and 46 are highly regarded for this type of work as well.

48k or 44.1kHz, 24 bit, is more than adequate spoken word recording.

[rutabaaaaga]

With the 702, get a reliable external hard drive and record simultaneously to CF and HD! (Breathe easier   )

Regarding the omni interview approach: having produced a bunch of radio field pieces myself, I find it the most useful to have a directional mic clearly focused on the talent and then take time after the interview to go record good ambience. (It gives you a ton more flexibility one you start shaping the piece. If however, it's a sort of "walking tour through the woods," interview and you're determined to catch an interesting (sonic) live moment or two, I'd still keep a narrower patterned mic on the host and then have an omni or a wide cardioid on a boom. 

Re: NT4 it's actually quite a fine low-budget x/y mic (and remarkably quiet for its price point). It's brittle up top, but can be tempered alright in the studio. Understand however, the patterning is fixed. But, it's a good way to get stereo ambience in which you can situate the voices in post. 

And yeah, as others have adequately addressed, above 48k and 24bits you're just running through card space for radio..

Enjoy. It's a lovely, lovely machine.

(Learn those hot-keys, too!)

Pauline

[Jim Feeley]

23 hours ago, Rick Reineke said:

Most radio (and TV) reporters in the field, use a hand-held omni dynamic like the EV RE50 (gets more air-time than Seinfeld reruns). The Sennheiser MD42 and 46 are highly regarded for this type of work as well.

That seems true for TV news and many commercial radio news reporters, but in the US lots of public radio reporters use short shotguns, either as their only field mic or along with an RE50. A few I'm acquainted with use Audio-Technica mics like the AT8035, and AT897. Ya, cheapish electrets...Ira Glass famously/notoriously uses an old AT835b for both interviews and ambience (or at least did up to a couple years ago).  I remember because when I bump into those folks, I'm kinda surprised by their choices...But hey, those people know what they're doing and know the characteristics of their mics. But Kevin knows more about this than I do...The cool thing is all these mics cost less than $300, IIRC.

Mics > kilohertz 

Kevin, have you checked in at places like AIR and Transom what to see what your cohorts do in terms of files, backup, etc?

http://transom.org

http://airmedia.org

Have fun with your 702!

[Philip Perkins]

There was a suggestion made above re: double -recording on the 702 with an external drive.  I have to say that doing this was the only time I had trouble with my 702T.  The FW400 connection is not stable, and the line doesn't supply enough or reliable enough DC to power an external drive that doesn't have it's own PSU.  This makes a rig configured this way kind of a non-starter for bag use: I tried to make this work several ways and it was not reliable.  If you can find an old FW400 CF card reader, that can work ok as an external drive, but you still have to deal with the wimpyness of the FW400 connector on the recorder.  Back in the day many of us double-recorded (mirrored) to DVD-RAM drives using Sound Devices XL-DVDRAM.  On a cart it worked ok, but just ok: there was a whole voodoo around the boot sequence and failures happened often.  I did try this in a bag too, and it was really not combat-ready.  Keep it simple--good CF cards are very reliable.

[Tom E]

I've had a 702T for many years now, and I love it as much now as when I first got it. It's probably the one piece of equipment I will never get rid of. I still use it when I go very light (like I am climbing a mountain with one mic plugged directly into it). I wish I could work like that all the time. You can route a single mic to both tracks, so no messing with left/right in post. In all the years I've used it, I have not had a single issue. The same cannot be said for nagras, DAT machines, computer based recorders, 664, etc.

[Philip Perkins]

Yep. 

[kevgarlic]

Excellent feedback....I have not touched base with Transom----Rutabaaaga,,,,thanks for the feedback especially on the NT4; with the lower end price I was wondering if it would be worth getting---looks like the NT4 will be in my mike locker at some point.

Tom  E....your 702T endorsement was fantastic, and, it hit home.  In fact, later in January I am scheduled to climb some fairly rough terrain deep in the forest with an archaeologist looking for artifacts, and I am planning on using ONE mic on the 702 BUT routing it to both tracks.....Glad I asked this great group.

Keeep  'em Coming.

 

Kev

[Rob Stalder]

Another mic setup you could consider is a good quality MS stereo mic. I used a Sony ECM-MS5 for stereo ambiences for doccos  way back when 2 track recording first came in. I experimented with a few scenarios, some similar to what you intend and had some good results.

The centre capsule style was about a hyper cardioid, so gave good independent quality at a reasonable range. You would not have to worry too much about orientation without picture. You would (should) get a finished product on site.

I think a good MS encoded signal can be unencoded if need be later. I may be wrong about that, its been a while.

Maybe others could help you explore this scenario.

[jhharvest]

MS is a very nice stereo option, yes. 702 (and all 7 series recorders, afaik) have MS monitoring, so you can record MS as discrete channels. That'll give you the option of /just/ using the mid channel. The mono compatibility with MS is better than XY or AB anyway. Want stereo? Bam, you got stereo. Want mono? Bam, you got mono. Want slightly narrower stereo image? Bam, got it. All in post, with the push of a button.

Edited November 30, 2016 by jhharvest

[Rob Stalder]

The narrow/wider pattern - I forgot about that. On the MS5 you could dial up the width of the pattern on the exterior of the mic. Did some nice pieces to camera that way.