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Any ideas for using LectroRM 6 feet away?


Trey LaCroix

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It seems like the problem is getting the volume of the chirps to be loud enough vs the environment for the TX to react?  But not so loud that another talent TX hears and reacts to those chirps (has been a problem for me in the past)?  There was the Lectro "RM Remote" which worked pretty well if you could find one, sanitize it and ask the talent to trigger it over their lav themselves.  Most of us were using our phones for this, which is a pretty unattractive thing to hand off for a quick adjustment now.  Could a small blutooth speaker (with a phone) work for this, that could be sanitary and handed to an actor to chirp their TX?

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32 minutes ago, Philip Perkins said:

It seems like the problem is getting the volume of the chirps to be loud enough vs the environment for the TX to react?  But not so loud that another talent TX hears and reacts to those chirps (has been a problem for me in the past)?  There was the Lectro "RM Remote" which worked pretty well if you could find one, sanitize it and ask the talent to trigger it over their lav themselves.  Most of us were using our phones for this, which is a pretty unattractive thing to hand off for a quick adjustment now.  Could a small blutooth speaker (with a phone) work for this, that cold be sanitary and handed to an actor to chirp their TX?

Yes. This is the problem I anticipate. In the past I would turn it very low and play the dweedle tone right up on the mic. The small sanitized speaker could work if handed to them.

22 minutes ago, Shastapete said:

https://www.soundlazer.com/product/sl-01-open-source-parametric-speaker/

 

Never tried it, but this thing has been sitting in my "Cool Sound Stuff" bookmarks folder for years

 

 

That is fascinating! Maybe I could put a red dot sight on it to improve accuracy.

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Intriguing solutions above to say the least.

 

Just to prevent some false starts, volume is rarely the problem if the surroundings aren't very noisy. To see what kind of range was possible, we tried a speaker system that put out about 20 Watts into a re-entrant horn (LongRanger) and even at deafening levels, the maximum range is about 6 feet or less. The limitation is due to reflections from surfaces delaying the individual dweedle tone bursts so that the tones overlap and confuse the detector. For instance, the ground you are standing on is one major reflecting surface. The valuable upside of this is you won't change the settings on an innocent transmitter that is 15 feet away. Changing the settings on innocent transmitters was an original concern and we were tickled to find that Father Physics helped us out for a change.

Best Regards,

Larry F

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4 hours ago, LarryF said:

Changing the settings on innocent transmitters was an original concern and we were tickled to find that Father Physics helped us out for a change.


I once accidentally changed the frequencies of four transmitters in a car to the same one seconds before a take. Very embarrassing moment. On set it doesn’t happen much, but I‘m always a bit worried now. 
 

That speaker Philip posted above is a pretty cool idea. The talent could just wear it all day somewhere hidden near the mic set to a quiet level and I could trigger it from my phone. Of course I would need a bunch of them and keep track of who wears which. 
 

Maybe a selfie stick could work. But I wouldn’t know how to trigger the app. The sticks usually come with small remotes, but that probably wouldn’t work with the app. Maybe New Endian could adapt it?

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I have had the same problem, and so really only use the RM remote feature in certain situations: it's too easy to blow it with other nearby TX, and I like seeing the TX to see that the change was made, at which point I could have done it manually.   But now...!   I ordered one of those little JBLs, we'll see if it works.  I was figuring on keeping it in a sanitized state, like in a container, then offering the container to the talent to chirp themselves.   I like the selfie stick idea though, as weird as it will look to everyone.  

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If an actor insists on staying 6 feet away from you, I'm sure they'd gladly pay $20 for the app itself. Then just tell them what to input.

 

Speaking of this, it would be nice if NewEndian added the functionality to be able to send the command from one phone to another, via bluetooth, text or otherwise. Set all the settings you want, then "Share". Maybe it shows up as a link or the app on the receiving end automatically reads the new settings. Then the receiving phone can do the dweedling.

 

We talked about this on a show I 3rded on. When the mixer tells you to go zap someone, this might come in handy instead of playing telephone.

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7 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

There was the Lectro "RM Remote" which worked pretty well if you could find one, sanitize it and ask the talent to trigger it over their lav themselves. 

I think stepping within 6ft to trigger the Lectro TX changes yourself (while never making contact with, or handing anything to, the talent), is a smarter/saner/safer/faster approach than handing over a physical object to the talent for them to then handle (sanitised or not) which is then once again handed back. 

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1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

I think stepping within 6ft to trigger the Lectro TX changes yourself (while never making contact with, or handing anything to, the talent), is a smarter/saner/safer/faster approach than handing over a physical object to the talent for them to then handle (sanitised or not) which is then once again handed back. 

Yeah but the RM Remote hasn't been made for some time, and it can't be remote triggered.  So far a BT speaker on a stick receiving from a phone with the Lectro app looks the best.

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2 hours ago, Constantin said:

 

Maybe a selfie stick could work. But I wouldn’t know how to trigger the app. The sticks usually come with small remotes, but that probably wouldn’t work with the app. Maybe New Endian could adapt it

I thought about this actually. It seems like it could work. Give my boom op a selfie stick and blast away! And we wouldn’t need to sanitize or as regularly because it never touches the actor. Am I right on that?

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4 minutes ago, Trey LaCroix said:

I thought about this actually. It seems like it could work. Give my boom op a selfie stick and blast away! And we wouldn’t need to sanitize or as regularly because it never touches the actor. Am I right on that?

If it is loud enough and non-distorted enough that the TX can understand it, this does seem like a way to do it.  I have one of the little JBLs coming, I'll see if my Lectros understand its chirps.  There may be better or longer battery life small speakers that would work better.

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