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Coolest Piece of Equipment You Own?


sciproductions

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Sanken CS-M1 and Cosi. What a combo..

 

Have some issues with mild winds though, but I did a lot of televised stuff with this kit and all my boomen loved it. Great compromise for fast inside - outside stuff, and we had a lot this year.

 

I was a little bit dissapointed that I had to go to a shotgun and zeppelin solution too often outside, because I couldn't trust it completely.

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On 4/2/2020 at 4:52 AM, henrimic said:

My trusted and still perfectly working Nagra IV-S from 1978.

I own it since 1992 and have recorded several films, docos and ads until the appearance of the 744T.

 

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Those machines are so beautiful. I one day hope to get my hands on a true reel to reel Nagra. Just out of curiosity what's the sound quality like compared to current 24-bit recorders? Does it still hold up, or is something you would use for the nostalgic color tape adds?

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Just now, JonG said:

My Neve mixer that was used by a veteran Sound Mixer on a bunch of great shows! I also have his Dan Dugan hot rodded Nagras 4.2 and STC!

 

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Is tjat a BCM2 type mixer? They look so sweet, always wanted one because of the awesome routing abilities. Reminds me so much of working with the Angela desk. Really hard to service and work on though haha

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1 minute ago, ivanovich said:

Is tjat a BCM2 type mixer? They look so sweet, always wanted one because of the awesome routing abilities. Reminds me so much of working with the Angela desk. Really hard to service and work on though haha

It’s a 5422 eight channel mixer, modded with direct outs, phantom power switches on every channel, cleaner S/N ratio, higher dynamic range, and a boom op comms section, among other additions. Dugan, Denecke, and other greats all had a pass on supping this up from stock. 

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My coolest piece of gear is my cart. I am so happy everyday for making the effort and taking the (long) time to build it. It’s so flexible and easy to add or remove gear, it’s light and I can sit or stand as I please. 
 

2nd coolest would be my DPA 4017. I can’t help admiring its small size and weight while producing such a great sound and off-axis reduction, so sleek and elegant, too. 

 

3rd is my 788, still so capable.
Incidentally, least coolest piece: my CL-9

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Constantin said:

 

3rd is my 788, still so capable.
Incidentally, least coolest piece: my CL-9

 

 

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You really think the CL-9 is your least coolest piece of gear? As far as control surfaces go, it’s pretty great. I like it a lot better than the CL-12, and even the new one doesn’t have some of the features of the 9. 

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9 minutes ago, JonG said:

You really think the CL-9 is your least coolest piece of gear? As far as control surfaces go, it’s pretty great. I like it a lot better than the CL-12, and even the new one doesn’t have some of the features of the 9. 

 

Yes, I do. I don’t have a CL-12, so I can’t find that the uncoolest, but I heard that indeed it is pretty uncool. 
I dislike it, because the faders are noisy (with or without magnets and despite several trips to SD), the rec and stop buttons can be pushed easily by mistake and the encoder push is too noisy (by design, too). And to be cooler it would need more buttons and more pots. I don’t hate it, but as I have so much gear that find really cool, even the one on the last place is still a tiny little bit cool

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10 hours ago, sciproductions said:

 

Those machines are so beautiful. I one day hope to get my hands on a true reel to reel Nagra. Just out of curiosity what's the sound quality like compared to current 24-bit recorders? Does it still hold up, or is something you would use for the nostalgic color tape adds?

 

It-s a long time since I have listened to it and I havn't made any direct comparison, but I assume that the hiss is too high regarding nowadays standards. What I loved at that time were the filters, especially the LFA and the kind of tape soft compression.

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This new to me Sonosax SXST! Was fortunate enough to buy it from a veteran mixer who used it on shows that I grew up watching. 
Unfortunately the day I received it and built it into the cart was the day they cancelled the season due to covid19.. didn’t even get to put up a boom. 
 

Recorded some lovely guitar tracks with it while at home :) 

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26 minutes ago, soundchris said:

My new video link: two 2.4ghz wifi transmitters attached to the "video combo". Sdi to hdmi converter on the backside, all four devices powered by usb from either "anton bauer" on the combo or from a powerbank.

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yeah, I‘got one of this, too. What’s so cool about it? Except for the price

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Well, I have two "favorites". Here is the first; I'll share the second one latter.

 

I love this little guy.  I purchased this Etek MA400 powered mixer used off of ebay well after the product had been discontinued.  they still show up every now and then.  It was intended to resemble the "laptop" computers" from the late 1980's.  Frankly some of the laptops back then really were this big (and almost as heavy).  It has 6 XLR mic inputs as well as stereo RCA inputs and outputs.  I actually played a very small gig with this unit, and it did okay.  It has a 2 channel x 190 watt amplifier (although I question that rating) a selection of 100 different effects, 3 aux sends, and is switchable 120/240 volts.  While it survived the 2 time I used it, from reports I've read elsewhere, it appears it had a father high failure rate (note the speaker outputs are labeled "minimum 8 ohm").

 

While admittedly it's been nearly 20 years since I've used it, I think the design is so unique and almost "symbolic" of the future and of marketing, I doubt I'll ever part with it!

 

Tom 

 

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8 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

That board does have a lot of great history!  How is it holding up for you?

Very well. It truly does sound great. On the last film I did, our DIT actually wanted his photo taken with it, he was really geeking out!

 

13 hours ago, henrimic said:

 

It-s a long time since I have listened to it and I havn't made any direct comparison, but I assume that the hiss is too high regarding nowadays standards. What I loved at that time were the filters, especially the LFA and the kind of tape soft compression.

I think they sound great. A well maintained Nagra will have a very low noise floor, and if it were a problem, it could be easily batch cleaned. Being in the same room as a RED camera is a lot noisier than working with a Nagra. I actually did a film a couple of years ago that wanted me to roll on a Nagra and I couldn’t hear any perceptible noise floor. I recorded the ISO’s and mix track to my 788T like I normally would, and ran the mix track out of the Nagra and into the 788T so I could do a side by side comparison of the mix track from my board directly to the 788T and the same board mix to the Nagra then to the 788T. Aside from the delay from the playback head, the main difference was that certain mojo you get from tape. 

 

Someone mentioned warmth earlier. Warmth is usually associated with harmonic distortion. Given that tools in our trade are designed to be as clean as possible, I’d say you’d be experiencing very little harmonic distortion on a Nagra unless it was poorly calibrated and over modulating tremendously.  

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On 4/4/2020 at 1:01 AM, SYsounds said:

This new to me Sonosax SXST! Was fortunate enough to buy it from a veteran mixer who used it on shows that I grew up watching. 
Unfortunately the day I received it and built it into the cart was the day they cancelled the season due to covid19.. didn’t even get to put up a boom. 
 

Recorded some lovely guitar tracks with it while at home :) 

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Bide your time. Most holographic pres’ I’ve ever heard

 

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i consider this a part of my kit since i do charge all my sound mixing batteries off of this 24/7 unconventional solar power rig. currently it powers a few home devices around the clock off grid. constantly tweaking/adding/modifying. it does feel good to have worked all day 100% from the sun (ok not 100% still working on the transportation part of this equation). after a visit with my brother in Germany last year i was inspired by his setup to say the least.

 

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