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Zaxcom Nomad - Real World Impressions


Jack Norflus

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Yesterday I got around to wiring up a power connector using a Tekkeon MyPowerAll right angle connector (which works great, by the way) and found that I had to wire the + and - opposite of what was listed in the Nomad manual on p. 69

From the solder side, red (+) went to pin 1 and the black and white (-) wires shorted, as instructed by Tekkeon support, went to pin 4:

4 I 1

O O

O O

3 2

According to the Nomad manual on p.69, it should be the other way around. I don't know why, but it works the way I did it. I tested Nomad with my buddy's NP-1 distro and his SD 4-pin hirose cable and everything was fine. Methinks Tekkeon literally has their wires crossed.

After a few burns and a lot of swearing I got things working.

The myPower All batteries are great because they have an additional 5V USB port for my H4n that I wired to fit in the power connector. Now, I'm running my mix out of my Nomad 6 to the H4n (for mp3 transcription/backup) and using the built in H4n mic as a slate mic.

I can power my bag all day with two of these batteries.

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No.Only in Mirror Menu

I will try that.

Rado did you set mirroring to continuous in both the My Nomad menu and the mirror card menu?

It is formated in Nomad and mirroring works.

That feature is purely a software controlled item so I'm not sure why it isn't working for you.

I'm not sure if this affects anything but is the mirror card formatted correctly? Are you able to mirror to the mirror card?

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Hey Guys,

Im new here but have been reading a lot in the last few months... a ton of information, this is an amazing form!

I currently have a Sound Devices 744/302 setup, but am seriously thinking about switching over to Nomad.

I read just about everything I could find about Nomad, (here and elsewhere) but was wondering If anybody had any experience how it stood up sonically to Sound Devices gear for applications like music and FX?

Ive been doing production sound here and there for a year or two, but I also like to record FX and ambience etc.

Thanks, Jebarri

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If you're talking about preamps and sound quality, there is greater dynamic range to the Nomad preamp. Neverclip gives you 135dB of dynamic range IIRC. Sonically they both sound excellent, with very little self noise. It's not a step down, lets put it that way. It's a different kind of excellent.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello. I've been thinking more and more about Nomad, but i have some doubts that need to be cleared. I don't want to lose any functionality i have now with my 442+DR 680 Combo.

Recently i worked on a set when i used to boom with either MK41 or KMR81, used two radio mics, and recorded translation on the set - the director didnt understand the language and the documentary action had to be translated. So i sent the production tracks to the translator wirelessly (with a G3) then, miked him up and recorded his translation on the 6th Channel of the recorder. This way he didn't have to listen to his voice and i don't have to listen to the translation and can focus on the production tracks (as i monitor the mixer's output). Then i did a stereo mix on the recorder for director with production tracks on the left and translation on the right side. I used the stereo headphone jack of the recorder for this. I had to lower the production tracks a bit in the mix on the recorder (without touching the gain of iso tracks, just the headphone mix) for her so the translation would be heard better.

After this lenghty introduction here is my question: How would i do this with Nomad? I know it has two headphone outs, but how do you set the _levels_ of the iso tracks relative to each other with this recorder? What is the process of setting a headphone mix except for panning it L, R , C? I could not find anything about that in the manual. Do you do it with faders? How do you adjust two mixes, if director's mix is different that what you're feeding to the camera? With two boxes mixer and recorder, this is very easy and i can have two different mixes with pans and levels in no time. Thanks for reading this. I hope there is an easy and elegant solution, as i couldn't find a video yet that would illustrate this simple tasks like using faders and headphone mixes.

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Both headphone outs have their own routing matrix. So you can assign the director his/her own feed and you can have your own as well. In the primary HP you have 11 HP matrix to set up so you can toggle through production tracks, translator, and even record tracks and you could set it up how ever you desire and can route which ever you want in which ear you want. Essentially there is unlimited flexibility in the HP routing. The second HP out has one matrix but you can assign independent left ear and right ear audio.

Nomad also give you the option of sending wireless "IFB" right from Nomad - so you can send either the director or the translator wireless audio of what ever you assign to them. So instead of using your G3 you can feed the translator the production track right from Nomad. Or you can route the translated audio right to the director wirelessly.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by:

"how do you set the _levels_ of the iso tracks relative to each other"

The levels of each of the tracks call be adjusted pre or or post fade just like on most recorders. You can iso all you sources including the translators audio - it is totally up to you. Then in terms of record mixes you can create as many mixes as you like. If you are outputting the audio to a camera, or mutiple cameras, Nomad has six independent output buses so essentially you can have six different outputs be it isos or various mixes.

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Thank you very much Jack. The thing is, i cannot find in the manual - how do you level the headphone mixes? With hardware faders? I know it sounds like a dumb question but how about when you want to have two HP mixes with different levels (so for ex. directors mix has a lower level production tracks and translation quite loud) and my mix is different , doesn't have the translation track, and the production tracks are louder than in the director's mix, i send it to the camera - how would i switch between them if i wanted to adjust director's mix for example? Please point me to the manual if it's there, Thanks again. B

p.s. the IFB receiver has to be Zaxcom to receive the IFB signal from Nomad, right?

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The way I understand it is you would like to create different mixes just for HP monitoring - not as deliverable tracks - is this correct?

What you can do is assign the translators audio to multiple faders and do a different mix to different card tracks and or output buses. Then output that bus or card track to the director. And you will easily be able to toggle through those different mixes from the primary HP matrix.

And yes you will need a Zaxcom ERX receiver to monitor the wireless audio from Nomad.

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Jack,

I'd like the Nomad to mimic the situation i have now : I mix and monitor the SD442, direct outs get recorded on to 680. Into the 680 there is a mic plugged that records the translator, and inside that 680 i make another mix just for director to listen to. The iso files are intact. What i really like in this combo that i can easily and fast change both my mix and the director mix (with pans, levels different than mine). How would you do that with nomad? I kinda understand assigning tracks or buses to faders but i need two 'layers' of faders to control two 6 channel mixes. Hope it's clearer now. You're great answering all these question, have a good day!

Bartosz

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Very easily-

You take all your mics into Nomad all tracks get recorded in Nomad.

You set up in the HP matrix to monitor the tracks you want to monitor.

You route the tracks that you want the translator to monitor to an output bus and either plug your G3 into that bus or route it to the Nomad IFB send.

You take the all your mics and route them back to another set of faders and those faders are fed to another bus and that bus is routed to HP 2 which you give to the director. You are adjusting the levels with the fader not with a variable pan.

You can now also record that separate mix and monitor it your self if you like.

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Jack, could you elaborate more on how to do this? I understand i can have for example 2 sets of faders each controlling 6 microphones? how would i 'flip' between these 2 sets of faders and how would for ex. the 1st st maintain their levels if changed the

2nd set faders?

I would love to see it on the video, i guess the simple tutorial of making various hp mixes would be welcomed by a lot of folks.

B

You take the all your mics and route them back to another set of faders and those faders are fed to another bus and that bus is routed to HP 2 which you give to the director. You are adjusting the levels with the fader not with a variable pan.

You can now also record that separate mix and monitor it your self if you like.

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Yeah, I would think that Nomad has better routing, and i read the manual , but still - I'd like to have control over level of each microphone in each of two separate mixes with the faders or otherwise. Right now, it sounds like i have to group the channels to some bus and then use one fader to control that whole bus volume, and the other channel (narration) would sit on other fader. I'm just wondering how that works in practice when you want to adjust level of just one track from 3 bussed to one fader, and then switch pretty quick to normal hardware faders operation like a hardware mixer with all of the channels spread on faders 1-6. It's pretty easy when you have two boxes because the mixes are separate.

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As Christian points out your needs are very specific - while it is totally possible to achieve what you want to do with Nomad, keep in mind it will take some thought to properly route and accomplish. But if you are comfortable with your current set up there is the old adage "if it ain't broke ..."

To give you specific step by step directions on how to do this I would have to do a run through and set it up myself which I'm not able to do right now - but off the top of my head the only other thing I think you would need is a cable to route one of the output buses back to an input - so possibly a TA5 to TA5 jumper.

As far as I know Nomads routing is the most flexible bag mixer/recorder currently available so chances are most requests can be done using Nomad - it just may take some time to figure out. But once again if you are comfortable with your current set up and it works for you then just do that.

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I don't remember who was having the issue of the power switch getting stuck (Rado ?), but it happened to me too. I ran my Nomad for about 12 hours during a shoot and only power-cycled it once or twice in the morning. At the end of the day I went to switch it off and the switch didn't work and didn't have the detented feel. I tried again just a few moments later it started working again and I was able to switch it off.

So I guess that's two users with faulty power switches.

Mark

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