EPIC FAN NOISE - HEARTBREAKING DURING INTERVIEW

[Patrick Tresch]

Thanks for your input. But this solution is way to big to be shooting with (hand held).

Pat

[Adrian T.]

decibels are logarithmic

I know that. What's your conclusion?
I still stand by the fact that 1.5dB is not much of a noise reduction.

[Eric Haase]

To be a little more scientific, here are a couple of scenarios.

35% fan speed at room temperature. It just can't quite avoid the temps peaking. I often use 38% on long takes - I'll graph this when I get more time




And at 25% (on a scarlet, as our EPIC-M is limited to 35%) things get ugly fast. 25% is for short takes only, without a doubt.




What's worth noting is that reducing fan speed to reduce noise is marginally a game of diminishing returns. There's a smaller noise difference between 35% and 25% than there is between 60% and 50% for example. Compromising to 30% not 25% could double your safe record time for very little harm to the sound dept.




Just as significantly we should all bear in mind that sound dissipates on an inverse square rule.
ie. its possible in an intimate scenario that moving the camera position only a very small amount relative to mics will make a disproportionate improvement to the intrusion. Getting the mic 15 inches away rather than 18 and the camera 7 feet away not 6 could just make all the difference.


On another note, I learned today that 'auto' doesn't ride the fan setting up and down during record. I thought it did, but it appears only to 'thermostat' the camera in standby mode. Is that right? When I've another spare second I need to rtfm on that one.

I figured someone would make a graph! The EPic one looks about right- I usually set fan to 38-40% and have not had anyone complain. Small rooms, quiet interviews, etc. It only takes about a minute to cool down enough for another relatively long take. I make a habit of cutting every half hour or so just to protect the clip anyway. Being able to roll uninterrupted for 45 minutes at 5K resolution shooting RAW and then having to cut for a minute is not really an issue- it's actually quite an achievement. With film we were limited to 11 minutes before a reload. This is WAY better!

[Tobias Buehler]

Here's another sample of a scarlet fan noise gone wrong during an interview.
Posting this just for entertainment, my fan setting during standby was too low - because everybody kept asking about the noise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZ1Dfe-nBE

[Les C.]

I know that. What's your conclusion?
I still stand by the fact that 1.5dB is not much of a noise reduction.

A decrease of 6 dB means 'half as loud'.

-1 dB means about a 12% decrease in SPL
-3 dB means about a 40% decrease in SPL

So, if that's your definition of 'not much', fine.

[John Reynolds]

Mike,
How severely did this hurt the EPIC's rep with the client? Thanks for posting. This has been the biggest reoccurring complaint I have heard about the EPIC.

[Scott Brown]

Would be great to hear RED chime in here and respond to this thread. The guys listen and respect user feedback so I'm sure they're working on these issues!

Still frustrated and feel audio on Epic/Scarlet is a step backwards from our RED One which we used for years to shoot hundreds of interviews without any real issues.

Scott

[Adrian T.]

A decrease of 6 dB means 'half as loud'.

-1 dB means about a 12% decrease in SPL
-3 dB means about a 40% decrease in SPL

So, if that's your definition of 'not much', fine.

Your math is not quite correct.

linearly spoken, -1 dB is -11%, -3 dB is -29%, -6 dB is -50%.
-1.5 dB is -16%. And in my opinion and experience, that's "not much".

[John Marchant]

I only made a small point that the fan guard causes some noise in its own right. Nothing to get worked up about :)

Pay attention to my little graphs if you like though, there's some value there

[Les C.]

Your math is not quite correct.

linearly spoken, -1 dB is -11%, -3 dB is -29%, -6 dB is -50%.
-1.5 dB is -16%. And in my opinion and experience, that's "not much".

This pdf from my library should clarify:

https://www.yousendit.com/download/M...TSs5NVhIRHNUQw

Page 2 gets into how decibels affect how loud we perceive something.