DIT and sound insulation

[Marcus Vasques Osorio]

Hi,

I am a DIT about to rack mount my MAC-PRO that includes a RED ROCKET, the problem is that the sound guy on location gets annoyed by the high sound when rendering from the fans in the MAC-PRO when all the PCI-e are full, how have people solved this problem.

Can the fans noise be reduced or other solutions used?

cheers

Marcus

 

[Charles Angus]

Sit in the hall?

 

[Dustin Cross]

There is software to control the fans in your system, but you have to be careful not to overheat it.

Not sitting so close to set is best option. Unless you must.


Dusty

 

[Michael Romano]

There are some sound proofing solutions for ProTools systems on the market but again, you have to be careful about heat.

http://www.vintageking.com/Isolation-Cabinets

http://www.quietpcusa.com/XRackPro2-25U-Quiet-Rackmount-Server-Cabinet-Platinum-P453C29.aspx

I ended up building without SP in mind. I just go further away or, as Charles so eloquently put it, "Into the hall". The power supply on my system is anything but quiet and once I throw in the RAID and MacPro, Sound gets livid. I find it kind of nice to be just outside the set though, its often cooler anyways although running HD-SDI gets a little old for the assistants!

 

[Chris Ratledge]

Yes, as others have said, move further away. Don't know if a furni-blanket canopy would make any measurable difference or not, but I doubt it, and would take time and effort you may not have. That time could just be spent moving into an adjacent room or around a corner or whatever.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Not use a MacPro and render using a water based PC? Totally silent.
Sorry, but I really think that it's cheaper building a powerfull PC rendering machine that is portable and Silent, instead of trying to make a system work that is bound to a specific way of working.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I am a DIT about to rack mount my MAC-PRO that includes a RED ROCKET, the problem is that the sound guy on location gets annoyed by the high sound when rendering from the fans in the MAC-PRO when all the PCI-e are full, how have people solved this problem.

Why does the Red Rocket have to be on the set close to the camera?

It's not so much that the sound mixer is "annoyed" by the sound of hard drives, fans, and computers -- it's that the noise will interfere with your actors' dialog. It's the same reason why they don't bring the generator trucks close to the actors.

My advice would be to use a very fast laptop, and keep the entire system as far away from the microphones as possible. Do the heavy-duty rendering overnight, after the shoot is wrapped. Or put the whole system in a small van or truck, where you can make all the noise you want and not bother anybody.