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Sonosax SX62R Mixer/Recorder


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I have a Sonosax SX-ST8D with an internal 8-track recorder and the latest external remote.  I must say it is not a flawless recorder.  I have had about 5-8 total lockups on the unit in about two years.  While the A/D converter continues to perform and my 788T master continues to record, it hasn't been a total loss issue, but it is rather frustrating especially considering the price point.  If it was a flawless recorder, I would consider getting the SX62R to run a total Sonosax system both off the cart and over the shoulder, but because I cannot completely depend on the Sonosax internal recorder, I use it as a backup and use Sound Devices as both my master over the shoulder and off the cart.

 

The mixer and A/D converters have been 100% flawless.  Really an amazing unit unfortunately aside from the recorder.

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Definitely not a pioneer. Simply integrating the ideal compact bag solution. I spoke with Pierre at Sonosax and found a temporary solution with the touchscreen by swabbing alcohol around the edges and pressured air to clear the grit and restore functionality. The metadata/Digital Out bug is seemingly a firmware issue that Pierre will assuredly work on with the developer to find a solution by year's end. Then I'll see if it's worth keeping or progress to the future Cantar X3. Time will tell.

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Hey Danivan ,

I have to a Sonosax ST-SX8DR with a incorporate recorder ( and new remote ) and a MiniR82 .. I never loss a sound .. This is my master recorder and never any problems with both recorder .. I now that he need time for update .. But Sonosax is a solid mixer and recorders .. I work now more that 15 years with Sonosax ..

:-)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey Roderick, and hi all!

 

Sorry for chiming in late, I didn't notice this thread got updated until today.

 

I'm probably one of the very first guys who got the 62R a few years back and have been working with it regularly as my main cart recorder ever since. After the initial beta stage and the subsequent firmware updates back in 2011 my machine, serial number 0006, has been running almost flawlessly in every possible situation.

 

I've encountered a few software lockups over the years, and usually these were related to the UI. The machine was still recording, but the screen was not responsive anymore. In most cases, I haven't been able to reproduce the issue. But I reckon that the touchscreen UI has its quirks sometimes. The two quick access buttons sometimes won't work unless you press on them several times in a row. Or you press on a software button on the touchscreen and the UI will register the action but won't go into the selected submenu until you press on the button again. This kind of thing happens maybe once every 1000 takes.

 

Roderick, I suspect there's something very wrong with your machine and I'm confident that Pierre and everyone at SX is trying hard to fix the issue. I know it's a PITA to ship things back and forth between North America and Europe. I'm still trying to understand why the new machine they sent you in the meantime developed the same issue within a month or two. Did they change model/make/supplier of the touchscreen after the first production run of the 62R? Or maybe you have special meteorological conditions in Vancouver? Or static electricity flowing through your fingers and frying the touchscreen? ;-)

 

I do have had problems with my new green SX-R4 screen upgrade which was kind of "pumping" and they did everything to find and fix the issue on very short notice. But they never completely got rid of the issue. This is only happening on the smaller SX-R4 though...

 

As I don't use the digital out, I haven't had the digital out/metadata problem you guys describe. But I reported another problem related to the Aux out. It seems that the 1kHz tone won't go out the Aux outpout, which is total nonesense as this is the output I would use to send a stereo track to the camera, thus the need to output tone on this output to align the camera. Pierre agreed that this is illogical and is working on the issue.

 

On my side, the SX62R has been a solid machine over the past two years and there are only a few small things I would still like to see implemented to make it my perfect cart recorder for drama work:

 

- Having a "Notes" option in the "Tag Last Take" screen to easily enter notes for the last take

- USB keyboard support (the USB port is there, so why not use it?!!!)

- Having some kind of shortcut to lock the touchscreen

 

Best,

 

Jürg

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Hey Richard!

 

My R4 is quite old and had the original blue LCD screen which wasn't all that readable. But it looked really cool.

 

So if your screen is bright green, you already have the new screen. It's still tiny, but much easier to read than the original LCD. The guys at SX swapped mine out for the new green screen for something like 60 bucks for the screen and 120 bucks for the labor. They have done the mod on many R4s over the last year and mine seems to be the only one with this slight "pumping" effect.

 

The R4 has been solid for most of us in the last few years, but mine is kind of slowly falling apart these days. Still recording great though. I've had the green/yellow/red gain LEDs on channel 2 die last year and now the red REC LED misbehaves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Oh well, I've tortured my R4 so many times in extreme cold, extreme heat and sand, and it just keeps on chugging along, I'm really fond of mine. But eagerly looking forward to seeing the upcoming R4 replacement by SX. They've been very secretive about it, even with their beta testers such as myself. But we're planning on having supper together with the SX team and a few fellow mixers to discuss the things we really need in such a machine. Maybe I'm just gonna bring along the new SD 633 ^_^ This kind of design with SX preamps would be my doc dream machine.

 

May I remind all SX users out there that you really need to upgrade to V4.4 as soon as possible if you're still running v4.3. If you're still on V4.3, DO NOT work with timecode, especially if you use the pre-record buffer. These issues have been fixed as of v4.4 for all SX recorders.

 

Cheers,

 

Jürg

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Well I've built a small add-on box for the R4 with two ON/OFF switches to simply turn off inputs 3 and 4 and two volume pots to control the line inputs 5 & 6. The box works great now but has been a pain to design due to an impedance matching issue with the R4's line inputs and my volume control, which is basically a very simple adjustable passive L-pad.

 

I'm thinking of modifying the box with bulky transformers to unbalance the signals going into inputs 5 & 6 and better match the impedance of the R4 line input. And adding another ON/ON switch to flip the phase of input 2.

 

I'm by far not an electronics wizard, but rather a "learning by doing" DIY kind of guy. This simple passive box greatly enhances the R4 in my everyday work.

 

I never ever completely turn off my MS boom rig living on channels 1 & 2, and if a talent walks off with his radio mike during a shot, I simply turn him down as much as possible on the R4 before turning off his channel using the switch. My inputs 5 & 6 are fully adjustable and offer just about enough gain for Lectro receivers.

 

Please let me know if anyone's interested in a few pics and schematics for the box.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I've built a small add-on box for the R4 with two ON/OFF switches to simply turn off inputs 3 and 4 and two volume pots to control the line inputs 5 & 6. The box works great now but has been a pain to design due to an impedance matching issue with the R4's line inputs and my volume control, which is basically a very simple adjustable passive L-pad.

 

I'm thinking of modifying the box with bulky transformers to unbalance the signals going into inputs 5 & 6 and better match the impedance of the R4 line input. And adding another ON/ON switch to flip the phase of input 2.

 

I'm by far not an electronics wizard, but rather a "learning by doing" DIY kind of guy. This simple passive box greatly enhances the R4 in my everyday work.

 

I never ever completely turn off my MS boom rig living on channels 1 & 2, and if a talent walks off with his radio mike during a shot, I simply turn him down as much as possible on the R4 before turning off his channel using the switch. My inputs 5 & 6 are fully adjustable and offer just about enough gain for Lectro receivers.

 

Please let me know if anyone's interested in a few pics and schematics for the box.

That's a great add-on for the RX4, I wish I'd thought of that when I was first looking into getting one.  Back then, not being able to take the 1-4 inputs down to zero bugged me.  Good fix.

 

philp

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  • 3 months later...

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