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Zaxcom Nomad - Real World Impressions


Jack Norflus

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+1 For broken power switch. On a brighter note, I overnighted it to Zaxcom on Monday and they had it back to me (in Seattle) within 24hours.

@ Mark- If you haven't done it already, get it fixed right away. That's just how mine started to malfunction until it gave out altogether. They seem to be on top of the problem.

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Ugh, sending it back to repair a faulty part is the least desirable thing about owning any piece of equipment. I'd rather have it dramatically burst into flames and disintegrate into ash. Then I'd have a really good reason to send it in.

Just kidding. I'm going to contact Zaxcom.

Mark

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Just got a call from a client regarding a missing file from a shoot a week ago. They said the the first take was missing from the mirror card I had given them to transfer. Fortunately I had saved the files from the primary card. I had also noticed some inconsistencies in the mirroring process during other shoots. After speaking with Zaxcom it turns out that this is an inherent problem in the current firmware and they're working on it. Just a heads up though. Might want to roll on a dummy take just to get the mirror process working properly before you really get started.

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My volume knob is kinda... Loose. It sorta jiggles. Was like that out of the box. It's as if the "set washer?" on the inside is loose. Is it just me?

The multi-function headphone volume knob is a bit "wiggly" or "sloppy." That's normal. (Of course, it doesn't jiggle on its own, but it's "loose" to the touch.)

Time will tell how well it holds up.

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My real world experience with the Nomad 6.

I first field tested it on a friend's short film. Very simple, two actors talking to each other in different set ups. Very easy to run 1 Boom, two lavs and operate by myself.

The real test came the next day, when I had a job with Showtime. I was super nervous, because this was probably going to be my biggest job I'd had yet. Plus, I was nervous that i'd freeze up and not know how to do something with the Nomad. I read the manual three or four times, so when asked how to do a certain thing, I was impressed to find that I knew which sequence of buttons to press, ect.

Anyway, I show up at 8am, and find i'm working with another experienced sound guy, which turned out to be awesome. However, they only had a Shure 3-channel, and i was brought on for my Nomad, and just to help as a second sound guy. The producers tell us right away, "We have all top light, and don't want the boom getting in shot, so we need to have all 4 actors laved and we'll just use that." I've learned not to argue with producers and their belief that lav's solve everything, but the actors were wearing polyester dr. scrubs which I knew was going to be a bit of a pain. We had two Sony XDCams shooting, so I came up with a way to make everyone happy.

Please let me know if anyone would have done this differently, this is all a learning experience for me.

I walked over to set, auditioned my boom, and sure enough, the top lighting was all soft..and I did not have a single issue using the Boom. Still, again, I didn't argue, and just went ahead with my setup: Boom was Chanel 1, and Channels 2-5 where lav's. Using two Breakaway cables, I assigned output 1/2 to "A" Camera, and outputs 3/4 to "B" Camera. In the output bus menu, I assigned Lav 1/2 (Left, Left) to Output 1, and Lav 2/3 (Right, Right) to Output 2. Camera A now had Left as Lavs 1/2, and Right as Lavs 3/4. I kept the Boom isolated to the card, as well as each lav track isolated and being recorded to the primary and mirror cards. I mimiced the same output setings to Outputs 3/4. Should I have left them panned center? I wasn't sure, I'm used to working with a SD302 or 442, so maybe I did not perceive the outputs of Nomad properly.

So, that's what we ended up doing. If I had my way, I would have had Channel 1 on both A/B camera be the Boom, and have the 4 lavs mixing down to Channel 2.

So, that was my experience. Turned out to work really well.

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My real world experience with the Nomad 6.

I first field tested it on a friend's short film. Very simple, two actors talking to each other in different set ups. Very easy to run 1 Boom, two lavs and operate by myself.

The real test came the next day, when I had a job with Showtime. I was super nervous, because this was probably going to be my biggest job I'd had yet. Plus, I was nervous that i'd freeze up and not know how to do something with the Nomad. I read the manual three or four times, so when asked how to do a certain thing, I was impressed to find that I knew which sequence of buttons to press, ect.

Anyway, I show up at 8am, and find i'm working with another experienced sound guy, which turned out to be awesome. However, they only had a Shure 3-channel, and i was brought on for my Nomad, and just to help as a second sound guy. The producers tell us right away, "We have all top light, and don't want the boom getting in shot, so we need to have all 4 actors laved and we'll just use that." I've learned not to argue with producers and their belief that lav's solve everything, but the actors were wearing polyester dr. scrubs which I knew was going to be a bit of a pain. We had two Sony XDCams shooting, so I came up with a way to make everyone happy.

Please let me know if anyone would have done this differently, this is all a learning experience for me.

I walked over to set, auditioned my boom, and sure enough, the top lighting was all soft..and I did not have a single issue using the Boom. Still, again, I didn't argue, and just went ahead with my setup: Boom was Chanel 1, and Channels 2-5 where lav's. Using two Breakaway cables, I assigned output 1/2 to "A" Camera, and outputs 3/4 to "B" Camera. In the output bus menu, I assigned Lav 1/2 (Left, Left) to Output 1, and Lav 2/3 (Right, Right) to Output 2. Camera A now had Left as Lavs 1/2, and Right as Lavs 3/4. I kept the Boom isolated to the card, as well as each lav track isolated and being recorded to the primary and mirror cards. I mimiced the same output setings to Outputs 3/4. Should I have left them panned center? I wasn't sure, I'm used to working with a SD302 or 442, so maybe I did not perceive the outputs of Nomad properly.

So, that's what we ended up doing. If I had my way, I would have had Channel 1 on both A/B camera be the Boom, and have the 4 lavs mixing down to Channel 2.

So, that was my experience. Turned out to work really well.

If the powers that be asked you to have two of the lavs on each of the camera channels, then that's what you do. Usually I try and appease whatever their convention is with the camera audio, though I would have preferred Channel 1 Boom and Channel 2 Lavs as well. If I know the editor is going to be using my recorder audio and remix from that, then I'll often provide a mono mix down as a guide track. However, most webisodes I've done tend to use the camera audio to save time.

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Camera A now had Left as Lavs 1/2, and Right as Lavs 3/4. I kept the Boom isolated to the card, as well as each lav track isolated and being recorded to the primary and mirror cards. I mimiced the same output setings to Outputs 3/4.

Since you had 4 channels going to 2 cameras you could have given them 4 iso lav tracks to the cameras.

As for what I would have done - on the card I would have given them 5 iso tracks (4 lavs and a boom). And a mix lav only track - since that is what they wanted. Then I would have had a discussion with them on what they wanted on the camera tracks either 4 iso tracks or a mix or a combination - in most cases I would suggest iso on 1 and 2 and run a mix to ch 3 and boom on 4 on one cam and the other iso lavs on 1 and 2 of the second camera. This way all the bases would be covered.

But please don't take this as gospel there is more than one way to skin a cat.

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Lots of terminology throwing around here, so let me try and break it down into wally terms (simpler than laymans) so I make sure I'm getting this right. Again, not gospell, thanks Jack for the input it's greatly valued.

How do you give an "iso" track to the camera? The camera ultimately has 2 inputs. That would mean that:

Channel 2 on the Nomad (lav 1) -> Goes to Output 1 Nomad -> INTO Channel 1 On Camera A.

Channel 3 on the Nomad (lav 2) -> Goes to Output 1 Nomad -> INTO Channel 1 On Camera A.

Channel 3 on the Nomad (lav 3) -> Goes to Output 2 Nomad -> INTO Channel 2 on Camera A

Channel 4 on the Nomad (lav 4) -> Goes to Output 2 Nomad -> INTO Channel 2 on Camera A.

Chan 2-> Output 3 -> Chan 1 Camera B

Chan 3->Output 3 ->Chan 1 Camera B

Chan 4->Output 4 ->Chan 2 Camera B

Chan 5 ->Output 4 ->Chan 2 Camera B

That's what I did. How would you do it otherwise. When you say ISO, you mean that you're sending a "Center" track not a left or a right? Am i thinking of this like a L/R out of an analog mixer? That might be where my train of thought get's skewered.

I was recoridng all 5 tracks, isolated by themselves, to the Primary and Mirror cards.

Thank you Jack!

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Wally

My error I assumed that you were working with a full size XD cam which you can send 4 channels in - on a two channel camera I would ask production what is more valuable for them iso's, or a mix or a combination and then route accordingly.

As far as the routing you have to stop thinking of limitations of a 2 channel mixer that you would essentially pan to left or right or center. With Nomad you can do that if you like. But you should also think of output buses - which Nomad has 6 of. Each bus should be considered another output channel vs a conventional mixer which has 2.

So I would assign each lav to an output bus. So lav 1 goes to bus 1, lav 2 to bus 2, 3 to 3 and, 4 to 4.

Now each of your 4 XLR's represent an output bus - XLR 1 is Bus 1, 2 is 2, etc.

So now if you plug:

XLR 1 > Ch 1 of A cam

XLR 2 > Ch 2 of A cam

XLR 3 > CH 1 of B cam

XLR 4 > Ch 2 of B cam

you will have all 4 lav's isoed on the camera tracks.

Now if you did have a full size cam you can use bus 5 to output your boom and bus 6 to output your lav mix. Just keep in mind bus 5/6 is on a TA5 so you will need some sort or adaptor to get it into a camera.

Hope this makes sense.

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Wally

My error I assumed that you were working with a full size XD cam which you can send 4 channels in - on a two channel camera I would ask production what is more valuable for them iso's, or a mix or a combination and then route accordingly.

As far as the routing you have to stop thinking of limitations of a 2 channel mixer that you would essentially pan to left or right or center. With Nomad you can do that if you like. But you should also think of output buses - which Nomad has 6 of. Each bus should be considered another output channel vs a conventional mixer which has 2.

So I would assign each lav to an output bus. So lav 1 goes to bus 1, lav 2 to bus 2, 3 to 3 and, 4 to 4.

Now each of your 4 XLR's represent an output bus - XLR 1 is Bus 1, 2 is 2, etc.

So now if you plug:

XLR 1 > Ch 1 of A cam

XLR 2 > Ch 2 of A cam

XLR 3 > CH 1 of B cam

XLR 4 > Ch 2 of B cam

you will have all 4 lav's isoed on the camera tracks.

Now if you did have a full size cam you can use bus 5 to output your boom and bus 6 to output your lav mix. Just keep in mind bus 5/6 is on a TA5 so you will need some sort or adaptor to get it into a camera.

Hope this makes sense.

Yes, it does make sense. I see what you mean. My issue then was that A Camera would then only have Lav's 1/2. and B Camera would only have 3/4. The goal, I think was to have all 4 lavs on Camera A, and Camera B. That's where I think I'm running into the brain fart.

thanks again, that does make a lot of sense. I'm going to pick up some ta5 adapters from Pro Sound on monday.

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Where are we at with regards to timecode drift while powered off? Has this been addressed in the upcoming software update?

Yes.

Its funny that you ask this now because I just did a test yesterday where I jamed my slate powered down Nomad for around an hour and when I powered up again Nomad was frame accurate. I did this test with 6 different frame rates.

This software should be available this week.

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Where are we at with regards to timecode drift while powered off? Has this been addressed in the upcoming software update?

I would love to hear about this from people who had experienced timecode drift when powered off.

Much as I appreciate Jack's response (above), I can't recall if Jack was one of the people who had this issue in the first place.

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I would love to hear about this from people who had experienced timecode drift when powered off.

Much as I appreciate Jack's response (above), I can't recall if Jack was one of the people who had this issue in the first place.

The thing is, Jack is testing the new (soon to be released) software that most people wouldn't have yet.

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