RED-ONE audio section opinion from a location sound recordist

[ericyoung]

Interesting thread but Daren is spot on (as usual).

Hans

PS: Sorry not backing you in this regard but I never considered RED as an ENG compliant camera. The soundmen I know hate beeing tethered and wireless to the camera is not an option when safe recording is important (not to open this discussion again...).

Daren - who he?

Don't understand that second paragraph. Having the option to be a one person crew doesn't stop anyone recording separate sound, but why shouldn't I or others be able to choose to do it all ourselves in certain situations?

Why include sound at all, if we can't control it as effectively as the image?

 

[planet e]

Finner may be right. I may be taking the $30K for #1248 that is sitting in the bank waiting for the proper e-mail blast and putting it towards something else. I really hate that idea. I want to see RED sprinkle more magic fairy dust across the camera and see what happens to the audio. I want to see signs that they are just as committed to audio improvements as they have been to image (gaining a little traction in this regard, so far...)

Two months is an eternity in RED time. We have seen them work miracles in days. Even then, it may not be perfect, but I would certainly settle for vastly improved....

Actually, I'd settle for continuous audio metering throughout the menu (seems firmware-fixable...), improvements in noise issues (more firmware), maybe better pre-amps and some sort of small, light audio pots add-on that is specifically designed to fit RED's modular design and doesn't add a bunch of weight and loose connections, maybe something with a direct mini-XLR to mini-XLR connector even, that is RED-specific. Something that hasn't been invented yet. Like Element Technica's break-out box for BNCs, but with pots, that can punch straight into the mini-XLRs, with a bomb-proof connection. Okay, those are hardware right there, but impossible? I hope not! Something like a MixPre but smaller, lighter, less weight, and ergonomically designed to fit nice n tight with the RED modular structure.

I'm just not convinced that this game is entirely over...c'mon RED magicians, prove me right!

1248 is a lovely, perfect fibonacci sequence. In my other life as a stock trader, I'd be holding on with both hands....

 

[Joel Kaye]

some sort of small, light audio pots add-on that is specifically designed to fit RED's modular design and doesn't add a bunch of weight and loose connections

Face it, if they redesigned the right side of the camera and sold them for $1000 each everyone would buy it. The HDMI and USB ports are the keepers IMHO. Everything else is a do over.

It almost looks like they initially chose the outputs to be small to keep the camera small, but then the camera got much bigger in design but they didn't rethink the connectors at that point. I mean, the camera's pretty damn big now. There are a lot smaller cameras with normal BNC and XLR connectors out there.

The right side shoulda been 2 XLR's, 3 video connections, maybe a power tap and everything else on breakout cable via one connection. That would have been small and standard. The first big RED upgrade will have a right side REDO I bet.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Why include sound at all, if we can't control it as effectively as the image?

That's a good point. I was wondering why... Seriously the soundabilities of the RED are poor at least. I wished it had bee better sorted out. But there is a lot of hardware involved which cannot be implemented anymore, that's why I recon Finner is spot on. Fortunately the RED one has the abilities for TC sync.
That will be sufficient for me.

Hans

 

[number6]

See Jim?

This is what you get when you set the price of a product and then try building it to fit that price. And afterwards you open up the process and let everyone tell you what THEY want individually. No one really cares if you are able to bring the product in close to budget... they only care about what THEY want. Some have even said "Raise the price and put what THEY want on the camera" irrespective of what it does to those of US that will accept it for what it is as long as you deliver what you've promised (plus a whole lot more, in my estimation) for the price you set.

Be firm Jim. Don't cave to these Senators who want to tack on more expenditures to the previously negotiated budget! Be firm.

Or if you can't be firm, at least be FIRMWARE!!!:holloween:

 

[Mark Allen]

Dual system sound. For those who want to see it go by the wayside, keep in mind that having a sound person who is as focused on sound as the cameraman is on visuals is extremely important.

Just a note that my post was about eliminating post synching and not eliminating the location sound mixer.

A definite side benefit is the ability to run and gun without a location sound mixer when necessary.

 

[Scott Brown]

Just adding my thoughts on Red's audio situation....

I'm very concerned about reports the sound quality offered by the Red camera. I simply cannot understand why corners appear to have been cut in an area that should have been a given. I for one will happily pay more for decent high end on board audio and don't see what Red have to gain by scrimping in this area.

As has already been suggested this is one area where some form of collaboration with a company specializing in audio would have made complete sense and my big worry is that Red have no real scope to improve what they have now that the camera appears to be finished and shipping.

Perhaps someone from Red can comment on the cameras interior and let us know if they can at this stage replace the mic pre amps and add audio pots to the exterior of the camera.

We will be using our camera in some situations where we will NOT have the luxury of a dedicated sound recordist and this therefore very high quality on board sound is going to be vitally important for us.

Red you have achieved the impossible in terms of the picture quality, PLEASE don't compromise now with the audio!

Best wishes

Scott Brown

 

[LEON]

Limiter, Hiss and DC issue might find a software solution,
for the fan noise i have heavy doubts,
so the RED ONE might be good for car races
and not intimate cinematography with sync sound,
what a pity to have 4 24 bit sound tracks and a noisy fan !

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Mark Allen and I are on the same page. . . I want the ability to AVOID having to SYNCH with a double-system. If RED or someone else can find a way to allow us to send in four tracks of digital audio (AES, USB, whatever), I think we'd all be pretty happy pups. Maybe someone will come up with a RED-hack that does exactly that. I definitely don't want to have to manually synch all that audio.

Stephen

 

[Steve Sherrick]

This could be my personal bias as someone who has worked a tremendous amount in post production - but I absolutely feel that some day film students will look back at the days when sound was recorded to a separate device much as today's students look at a moviola - much the same as imagining a barber as a surgeon. Hard to imagine the logic.

I may have interpreted your point incorrectly, apologies if that's the case.

I of course am advocating that the camera should have solid sound recording. Doesn't have to be award-winning because let's face it, the price clearly goes up. I don't expect them to put a 744 inside the camera.

In the end, we're all asking for the same thing here (pretty much, although some may have higher expectations). The camera needs to at the very least be able to record audio quality that has been implemented on other high end cameras. The choice to go single or double system then becomes a choice you make based on the situation. You aren't forced to go one way or the other.

But before we all get really crazy about some of these audio issues, can we please conduct some scientific tests so that we can start to confirm or deny with actual factual data. Not everyone is having the same experiences with their cameras. Is fan noise truly a problem when settings are correct? Does this hiss exist in specific firmware? What is the actual measured dynamic range?

I hope the forum begins to move in the direction of more information and less speculation, a true information sharing space based on actual shooting experience. Not to say that isn't already happening in some capacity, but I think more time is needed in the field shooting and recording sound by people who have cameras and have gotten to know them well. Otherwise, misinformation starts floating about. And I'm going to be the first one to take my own advice. So I'm shutting up and want a camera to start playing with.

By the way, what I saw today confirmed all of my expectation about what this camera can deliver. It's truly brilliant guys. There may be a lot of issues being worked on but when you see it in all its glory, man, it's gorgeous. Sorry for the tease, but that's all you're getting out of me.

Steve

 

[planet e]

But before we all get really crazy about some of these audio issues, can we please conduct some scientific tests so that we can start to confirm or deny with actual factual data. Not everyone is having the same experiences with their cameras. Is fan noise truly a problem when settings are correct? Does this hiss exist in specific firmware? What is the actual measured dynamic range?

Once these forum threads start to grow longer, they lose their grounding...the thread was started by a location sound tech who *was* reporting the results of his testing. I think Jeff climbed aboard because JFirestone's original audio test postings didn't seem to be garnering any response or attention from the RED team. Not that I want to speak for those guys, but that's what I observed, as an invested bystander....

Having visited 3 REDs in a few weeks, I was able to see a few things for myself about the audio, and I've listed those. It boils down to 2 basic issues-- poor in-menu metering structure and some untreated noise issues. All of which I believe can be re-worked, but it didn't seem that the RED team was actively responding to the audio testing and feedback that was being posted....

I'm with you, though, Steve, it's now been said, RED's response to the audio issues seems to have perked up, the rest is waiting to see what actual modifications result. And to encourage other testers to post findings, as you suggested....given all of the other mind-blowingly amazing things about the camera, the onboard audio doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to be functional and useable--I don't think that's too much to ask for, nor do I think it is out of reach for the RED wizards....

 

[Bryan Golder]

Re the option of digital audio input via USB, there is an additional complication in that you are going to have to distribute a video clock reference to both the camera and digital mixer device, or send video referenced word clock to the audio device. If the video camera and audio source are digital, they have to be locked to the same master clock.

Would anyone want to reference the Red camera to the clock on a digital audio mixer via USB, if that was even possible?

 

[puntociego]

Does ane body know how to interpretate the 3 lines of the audio leds of the redone where is the 0 db?

 

[Mike Burke]

Like everyone else, I think Red should have excellent audio, and to the extent it doesn't, it should be remedied. Sounds like the issues are missing limiter feature, the mic preamp sound quality, and hiss/noise level in some but not all cameras. I haven't heard any complaints yet about quality using line-level inputs (?)

Take a look at this thread. There have been some valid observations made here.
While these may be isolated instances, my advice would be test
your configurations & processes.
I would not wait until production begins to be hit with any problems.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26140

 

[dAVID aRNOLD]

Thanks for this guys.
I am doing my first location sound job on a Red next week and had heard these concerns from people locally. I will post my findings here.

 

[Justin McAleece]

XLR attenuation.

XLR attenuation.

I have 4 different mini XLR to XLR converters and for some reason 3 of them are 10 dB louder than the other one I got from RED. I was having a helluva time getting repeatable levels before I figured that one out.

 

[Dominic Jones]

One of your audio cables is the older version, with pre-upgraded audio board 10dB pad. Assuming you're working on a current audio board camera, you should get Red to swap it out for you.

You could also make up your own mini-XLR -> XLR cables, straight pass through, that will match the higher-level cables.

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[Stuart English]

New Build Notes

New Build Notes

If you have not done so already, check out the new beta Build 18 v3.6.4.

Some questions about Reference Level marks and the mysterious +10dB gain offset are addressed in this firmware release.

I would also recommend downloading the Build 18 v3.4.6 Operations Guide.

 

[Andrew M.]

Jeff, did you have a chance to test/work with the new audio board?
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Andrew

 

[Peter Savage]

Does ane body know how to interpretate the 3 lines of the audio leds of the redone where is the 0 db?

Well? Does anyone?

There have been several posts about audio levels not being what was expected. Its now about a month later and I still cannot find any answers. My test of audio produced the same kind of results as many other posts. We were using two different SQN mixers for channel one and a direct Sennheiser 416 mic for the second channel. We spent an unbelievably long time trying match the level from the mixer(s) with what I assume the 3 lines of Red's audio meters are meant to mean (I agree with several other posts - the documentation is fairly pointless - as do a couple of sound recordists who were involved with the tests)

The tone from both mixers at line level resulted the Red's meter showing completely red (ironic but not desirable )

When we tried to record a simple interview, we could not get a cleanly monitored signal back from the Red and actually have anything registering on the mixers meter, although the Red's meter was peaking between the outer lines (I am assuming that's what's supposed to happen).

Eventually we tried sending mic level from the mixer. Since we had some control over the input level we could get a reading more or less across the mixer's scale and apparently a similar range on the Red meter.

The mic seemed to be ok peaking somewhere between the outer two lines (again I am assuming that's what's supposed to happen) and the Red meter went from green to yellow with the changes in level.

At last! THEN I took the resulting recordings into FCP. Again as with other posts I discovered another problem. The level was about 8 - 10db low on the LINE LEVEL and the MIXERS MIC LEVEL recordings. The SAME was true for the DIRECT MIC recordings on channel 2.

We were using build 17. The line input level was set to 0db. The mic input level was set to about 36db (close to the default as it happens).

All the equipment being used is broadcast standard. This should not be so complicated but so far I cannot find anything from Red to even point us in a useful direction.

Right now I am lost. Surely as has been requested several times in various threads SOMEONE from RED can provide useful answers or at least tell us you don't know what's happening, whatever but SILENCE is not good.

Just so this doesn't seem like one long gripe - again like many other posts (and people at Red know this from me) the camera is fantastic, the company approach is remarkable, the response to customers is brilliant - so please keep up all this good approach and help us all solve the audio issue so that recording directly to the camera is not hit and miss but actually what it should be and what I think RED wants it to be.