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re: anyone have noise assist?


Richard Ragon

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Just bought a new 888.. awesome!  Duggan mixing, more knobs, more tracts, simply just awesome!

One of the features is NoiseAssist.. I didn't understand this because these say it comes with the mixer...  but there's basically a unusable shareware version on this, until you buy it again.  Looks promising for live gigs!  Might come in handy on those live gigs!

I got over to the webpage  https://store.sounddevices.com/product/noiseassist/

 

GOOD GAWD!!  2K??  Anyone buy this?  It just about doubles the cost of the mixer!!

wow. Didn't see that coming.

-Richard

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I haven't used it yet but I'd imagine like all the other tools in our shed, The Client doesn't get to benefit from any of the tools unless they want to pay up.  The only reason I could see myself getting it was if I was on a larger production and for some reason we needed it to save post's sanity and we were going to be shooting in absolutely terrible locations for weeks on end and they wanted to pony up for it.

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Like @Johnny Karlssonsaid, you would probably never want to add it to the ISOs, but applying it to the mix would make sense in some situations. 
 

As a post engineer, if someone handed me iso tracks that have been altered in any way, I’d be pretty upset, and probably tell production that they’d been tampered with. 

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6 hours ago, Richard Ragon said:

One of the features is NoiseAssist.. I didn't understand this because these say it comes with the mixer...  but there's basically a unusable shareware version on this, until you buy it again.  Looks promising for live gigs!  Might come in handy on those live gigs!

I got over to the webpage  https://store.sounddevices.com/product/noiseassist/

 

GOOD GAWD!!  2K??  Anyone buy this?  It just about doubles the cost of the mixer!!

wow. Didn't see that coming.

If you think that is expensive, wait until you see the price of 8 instances of this:
https://store.sounddevices.com/product/cedar-sdnx/

 

It is a clear change in business strategy by Sound Devices, to keep in extracting more money from existing users without needing to convince them to buy more hardware. That's 110% the entire basis of their "plugins" (i.e. paid firmware updates) for the 8 Series.

 

With the 6 and 7 Series, Sound Devices was focused instead on long term custom satisfaction (and it worked! They got #1 for Market Share, and tonnes of loyal fans), by bringing as much extra value as they could to their existing customers.

 

That was of course a big factor why many of us went on to support them further with the 8 Series too.

 

Only to discover their business philosophy has changed, and now their modus operandi is about trying to squeeze extra nickels and dimes out of their existing users of their latest gear.


Of course it is their prerogative to choose how to run their own business, but it is disappointing to buy into the 8 Series and discover this change in tack has happened. 

 

4 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

You get Dugan (yay!) and SD Mix Assist for free in current SD recorders (6xx, 8xx).

Not so for the MixPre series. MixAssist is an extra cost on top. 

 

5 hours ago, codyman said:

The Client doesn't get to benefit from any of the tools unless they want to pay up. 

Can you imagine saying to a client "to flick this switch on my recorder (which I've already got) it will cost you an extra $100/day", and them then saying yes to it? Unfortunately people don't see bits of software the same as they see hardware, you're going to have a tougher job getting them to cough up money for that vs when they request an extra half dozen headsets which they can physically touch and feel. 

Realistically speaking, this is not at all a cost most of us would have a chance at fully recuperating. 

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I bought NA for 2 channels of my 833  not knowing if I would ever use it on a production. The next job was 100%  1 boom so I also put the mic on a second channel, which other than keeping the levels matched  I never listened to  and printed it as an ISO.  2 days later when reviewing the tracks I checked it out and on a setting of -2 it blew me and the producer away.

I played for another soundmixer who is more adept at audio post production and he was also impressed. He said he could beat it  "if given enough time, but for just putting a check in a dialog box it is incredible". It is now part of my kit and I do not charge extra for it in my tiny marketplace. I do enjoy hearing the spots on TV. I would rather have NA than Dante at this point in my career. Post production mavens tell us they toss our mixes, so this is a good chance to give them something to beat. Thank you Sound Devices.

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In an ENG workflow like I've been doing quite often, it's absolutely useful. When there is no time and no location manager around to turn off the noise, it's as good as gold. Recently a camera person said that she wondered how I managed to boom so clear voices near a street with a lot of traffic ... just a little mystery but I admitted.

 

So, for those SQN style productions where you mix directly it makes a lot of sense. I often had wished for something like this for years and knew it would be available some day.

 

For fictional and properly recorded iso tracks it rather makes no sense, as stated by JonG.

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18 hours ago, JonG said:

Like @Johnny Karlssonsaid, you would probably never want to add it to the ISOs, but applying it to the mix would make sense in some situations. 
 

As a post engineer, if someone handed me iso tracks that have been altered in any way, I’d be pretty upset, and probably tell production that they’d been tampered with. 

 

 

I thought of this Joh..  But, sometimes you have these "run and gun" reality TV shows, that 'your' mix is going straight to the TV.  Might be saved.

 

-Richard

 

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Not being part of the Entitlement Generation I consider it entirely appropriate for companies to charge for their products, whether hardware or software, and to profit from the results of their research and development. 

 

Such incentive means more innovative products are developed that we can benefit from. 

 

 

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On 2/17/2021 at 6:50 AM, IronFilm said:

Unfortunately people don't see bits of software the same as they see hardware,


yourself very obviously included. 
What if SD had built a NoiseAssist hardware add on? Similar to the AES extension. Would it be ok for you to pay for it then?

 

3 hours ago, filmsalang said:

What does SoundDevices  do for field sound workers for this horrible time?? 


you mean other than including Dante in their recorders which allows us to work miles away from set? And other than building face shields? Whatelse do you expect them to do?

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35 minutes ago, Constantin said:


yourself very obviously included. 
What if SD had built a NoiseAssist hardware add on? Similar to the AES extension. Would it be ok for you to pay for it then?

 


you mean other than including Dante in their recorders which allows us to work miles away from set? And other than building face shields? Whatelse do you expect them to do?

Without soundmixers like us, their business doesn't work at all. That says everything. Instead of promoting their products with pricy tag, why not some discount sales or special events for us in this hard time.
I never heard they discounted their products If I am right.

Thank you SD, I bought kina many machines from you from the beginning of my career.

Thank you for the good machines.

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8 hours ago, filmsalang said:

Without soundmixers like us, their business doesn't work at all. That says everything.


That is what they are doing. They are offering a permanent discount for their excellent products, even when there is no pandemic. 
Feel free to compare prices with their direct competitors from Zaxcom and Aaton, then tell me again about SD‘s pricing. 

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Think about it. SD is really doing this right IMO. Long term planning, that allows you to add new features to the hardware that you already own, rather than having to buy a whole new machine to get these features when they become available. And it’s also completely optional - nobody is forcing you to buy the plug-ins, you still get firmware updates and your 8-series will continue to be an excellent mixer/recorder for years. If you’re doing business professionally and charge appropriate rates, and need these features, it’s a good investment. And tax write-off.

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6 hours ago, Constantin said:


That is what they are doing. They are offering a permanent discount for their excellent products, even when there is no pandemic. 
Feel free to compare prices with their direct competitors from Zaxcom and Aaton, then tell me again about SD‘s pricing. 

A permanent discount before a new product launch or too old machines, that is every company does as ritual. I am not saying the hardware price but software and their business model since additional plugin launch.

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16 hours ago, Constantin said:

That is what they are doing. They are offering a permanent discount for their excellent products, even when there is no pandemic. 

What discount? All we've seen from them lately are price increases, and charging for what are essentially firmware updates (which they never did before. We can agree or disagree about if this a good business practice, but the fact is this is a complete change in how they do their business when compared to the 6 or 7 Series days). 

 

16 hours ago, Constantin said:

Feel free to compare prices with their direct competitors from Zaxcom and Aaton, then tell me again about SD‘s pricing. 

Sure, let's play that game:
How much is their 16 channel field recorder? That would be the Sound Devices for US$7.9K
What is the price of Zaxcom's 16 channel field recorder? The Zaxcom Nova is $5,495
The Aaton Cantar Mini is a 16 track recorder, and is US$7,790

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1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Sure, let's play that game:
How much is their 16 channel field recorder? That would be the Sound Devices for US$7.9K
What is the price of Zaxcom's 16 channel field recorder? The Zaxcom Nova is $5,495
The Aaton Cantar Mini is a 16 track recorder, and is US$7,790


Nova: 6 analog inputs, 4 digital. (Btw strange that Zaxcom mention 12 tracks under „specs“), let’s say 16 recording tracks. 
 

888: 12 inputs total, all available as analog. 20 recording tracks (not 16). 
 

Cantar Mini has a total of 10 inputs, 16 recording tracks. 
 

that mitigates the price difference somewhat. 
 

But let’s not stop the game there. What are the top of the range recorders? 
 

Scorpio: 36 recording tracks, 16 analog inputs. 
$9900

 

Zaxcom Deva 24: 24 recording tracks, 16 analog inputs. 
$12970 (incl. Dante, $11975 without)

 

Aaton X3: 24 recording tracks, 12 analog inputs. $13690 without Dante, $14265 with). 
 

So a Scorpio with Dante AND a full set of Cedar NR plugins is only a bit more than the Deva with Dante but without Cedar, and still cheaper than the X3 even without Dante. 
And if you don’t need the full Cedar, and decide you only need two instances of Cedar you can get a Scorpio for only less than any of the competitors. 
 

If you consider a fully kitted-out Scorpio you‘ll have to pay $13500, so with Cedar, but without NA. A price on par with the competition. Or you can get it for a discounted price of $9900 if you don’t need Cedar. A steal compared to the competition. 
 

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

this is a complete change in how they do their business when compared to the 6 or 7 Series days). 


Yes it is. Paul Isaacs said so himself (in response to you). So? Are they not allowed to change their business model once in more than 20 years? 
I still find it difficult to compare to the 6/7-series as they never brought anything on such a scale to those recorders as they are doing now. 
and so I don’t really agree even with Paul Isaacs as they never did plug-ins as such before. So it is not really a new business model, it’s an expansion. But the actual firmware update is still free. 

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3 hours ago, Constantin said:


Nova: 6 analog inputs, 4 digital. (Btw strange that Zaxcom mention 12 tracks under „specs“), let’s say 16 recording tracks. 
 

888: 12 inputs total, all available as analog. 20 recording tracks (not 16). 
 

Cantar Mini has a total of 10 inputs, 16 recording tracks. 
 

that mitigates the price difference somewhat. 
 

But let’s not stop the game there. What are the top of the range recorders? 
 

Scorpio: 36 recording tracks, 16 analog inputs. 
$9900

 

Zaxcom Deva 24: 24 recording tracks, 16 analog inputs. 
$12970 (incl. Dante, $11975 without)

 

Aaton X3: 24 recording tracks, 12 analog inputs. $13690 without Dante, $14265 with). 
 

So a Scorpio with Dante AND a full set of Cedar NR plugins is only a bit more than the Deva with Dante but without Cedar, and still cheaper than the X3 even without Dante. 
And if you don’t need the full Cedar, and decide you only need two instances of Cedar you can get a Scorpio for only less than any of the competitors. 
 

If you consider a fully kitted-out Scorpio you‘ll have to pay $13500, so with Cedar, but without NA. A price on par with the competition. Or you can get it for a discounted price of $9900 if you don’t need Cedar. A steal compared to the competition. 
 


Yes it is. Paul Isaacs said so himself (in response to you). So? Are they not allowed to change their business model once in more than 20 years? 
I still find it difficult to compare to the 6/7-series as they never brought anything on such a scale to those recorders as they are doing now. 
and so I don’t really agree even with Paul Isaacs as they never did plug-ins as such before. So it is not really a new business model, it’s an expansion. But the actual firmware update is still free. 

SD can not properly creat metadata on Mixpre Series since the launch. And people asked a lot about wrong metadata(TC End) but, they introduced other plugins. Because that doesn’t make money? 

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MixPre is a different (lesser, in my opinion) group of machines.  They can produce great recordings, but were designed as somewhat featured-down machines for newbs and more casual users.  The machines mentioned above, SD 6xx/7xx/8xx/Scorpio; Zax and Cantar were designed as all-out best-we-can-do rigs for professionals working on jobs with other professionals and money up.  It's not an accurate comparison at all.  If you need what those full-boat machines can do (esp. the current ones) then you should not be looking at machines like MixPres.

 

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7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

What discount? All we've seen from them lately are price increases, and charging for what are essentially firmware updates (which they never did before. We can agree or disagree about if this a good business practice, but the fact is this is a complete change in how they do their business when compared to the 6 or 7 Series days).

They took a look at how stupendously Adobe is doing with their subscription service and wanted a piece of the pie. Adobe's move from selling releases of software to having a subscription service has provided them with an embarrassment of riches. Their financial report is startlingly good; the best I've seen regarding profitability.  Even in the pandemic, they had their best quarter last quarter. It's hard to resist that kind of temptation.

 

Many vendors are moving in this direction.

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I really don’t get the hate SD is receiving for offering noise reduction as a paid upgrade. A Cedar DNS costs between 2k and 3k$, how could they offer it for free? Would it be better to include it with every sold machine and pricing it not at 10k but 13k? So everyone pays for it instead of only those who actually need it?

Noise reduction on set has its value, be it to reduce time in post or just verifying that an annoying noise will be easy to fix. Whoever does not need this functionality can still work without the plugin and still receive firmware updates etc.

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1 hour ago, Paul F said:

They took a look at how stupendously Adobe is doing with their subscription service and wanted a piece of the pie. 


I‘m sorry, but that is an absolutely ridiculous statement. If SD had taken a look at Adobe, they obviously came to a totally different conclusion. 
Sound Devices are NOT offering a subscription model. The offer an upgrade path. If you want it you can upgrade, if not, don’t. There’s nothing else to it. 
The hardware and the plug-ins are a buy once cry once kind of situation. They are not even selling software as such. Think of it as an add-on to their recorder. The only real software SD make (Wave Agent) they’re giving aways for free!

If anything, they took a look at what car manufacturers or computer hardware makers have been doing for decades. You can buy a simple computer with 8 gigs of RAM or you can buy a more expensive one with 16 gigs of RAM. And if you find that Word isn’t enough for you, you pay for the full office suite.

For me, I’m fine with Word (well, I‘m on a Mac, but same applies), and I‘m glad I didn’t have to pay for the full office suite just to write a letter.  
 

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1 hour ago, Constantin said:


I‘m sorry, but that is an absolutely ridiculous statement. If SD had taken a look at Adobe, they obviously came to a totally different conclusion. 
Sound Devices are NOT offering a subscription model. The offer an upgrade path. If you want it you can upgrade, if not, don’t. There’s nothing else to it.

The point of the Adobe example is not that it is a subscription service, but that Adobe found a brilliant way to monetize themselves and get more money out of customers without coming up with a new product. Their revenue shot up like a rocket on the simple switch to subscriptions. 

 

Likewise, SD is learning how to better monetize itself.  We all know the margins on hardware are nothing compared to software/firmware margins. The more a company can move to upgrades, firmware, and software, the better off they are. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's foolish not to take advantage of good marketing and find new and more profitable avenues of revenue.

 

 

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