Komodo robust clean sound?

[Matt Gerrand]

I’m looking into getting a Komodo, my main hesitation is getting audio into the camera.

Is there an audio hardware box that doesn’t go through the 3.5 mm jack to supply pantom powered XLR’s? Or any recommendations to get high quality camera sound? My main concern is if the cable on the 3.5 mm gets pulled out or damaged then there would be no way of telling whether there is sound. Are there sound bars on the Komodo display?

Thanks

[Phil Holland]

Hi Matt,

Yes, there are audio monitoring levels on screen for Komodo that you can also have on the overlay sent to an external monitor.

You can use any pre-amp or mixer with a 3.5mm out to Komodo. As you mentioned, Komodo doesn't have phantom power via the 3.5mm.

Best non-recorder pre-amp I've used is the Sonosax M2-D2. But there are many more budget minded ones out there. Beyond that you can feed audio from Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Zoom, etc.

[Stu Mannion]

I went with a German made preamp called Kortwich MM2. Phantom power, compressor.

[Reuben Herzl]

Hi Matt,

I've used the Beachtek DXA-RED 2-Channel Preamp with my Komodo.
It's powered over dtap and has some operational quirks, but sounds great!
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...h_phantom.html

Good luck!

Reuben

[Christoffer Glans]

I’m looking into getting a Komodo, my main hesitation is getting audio into the camera.

Is there an audio hardware box that doesn’t go through the 3.5 mm jack to supply pantom powered XLR’s? Or any recommendations to get high quality camera sound? My main concern is if the cable on the 3.5 mm gets pulled out or damaged then there would be no way of telling whether there is sound. Are there sound bars on the Komodo display?

Thanks

Since Komodo is a cinema camera and not a video camera I would recommend external recording. Even if you want to attach the stuff to the camera and do that kind of thing that's more related to video, I think you will get a much better result by recording to a specific recorder attached to the camera instead of using the sound going into the camera. You can just have a small cable for reference audio going from the box into the camera and then with one click in editing like Resolve you sync between the two using waveform.

That will give you the best audio quality, hands down. Maybe check out the zoom 32 bit recorders and you won't have to check the gain while recording.

[David Peterson]

Get yourself a Sound Devices MixPre3mk2 (or Perhaps Zoom F6), record externally, while sending a scratch to the camera. Sync in post. Done. Easy.

[Christoffer Glans]

Get yourself a Sound Devices MixPre3mk2 (or Perhaps Zoom F6), record externally, while sending a scratch to the camera. Sync in post. Done. Easy.

Do you know any good ways to send wireless audio to the camera? Been thinking about it, but the problem is latency. If the sound has latency through wireless, it will be out of sync when later synced in post.
But the MixPre3mk2 has timecode as far as I know, so that would be far superior in my opinion.

[M Harvey]

Do you know any good ways to send wireless audio to the camera?

To be clear, are you asking if the wifi capabilities of Komodo allow wireless audio input? Or are you asking for opinions on the best wireless audio systems out there (e.g. specific Lectrosonics transmitter-->Lectro receiver-->Sound Devices mixer-->Komodo)?

The idea of built-in wireless audio capabilities for Komodo is exciting, though I'm not aware of a protocol for that. Certainly you're right about the challenge of latency.

It's exciting to imagine a powerful unified wireless I/O unit that would allow the capabilities we currently get from a mixture of wireless systems (that require their own physical units, power supplies, incompatible receivers...)-- near-zero latency, delivery-quality video transmission, sound transmission, and device control.