Audio Controls

[Steve Gibby]

Gibby, will there be enough bandwith (people, cameras, etc) to put the audio through some tests at your event? It will be good to get some real world feedback on how the audio is handled, actual real world sound quality, etc. I'd volunteer to help bringing my Sound Devices gear, mics, etc. but you probably already have your hands full with everything else.

To my knowledge there has been no word yet on whether audio will be fully enabled on the first shipping cameras. If audio is sufficiently enabled on them, we'll definitely do some audio tests - but not extensive tests, due to time constraints.

Audio is a key element in every production, no matter what the genre. We all acknowledge the critical importance of good audio tools.

 

[Stokestack]

Nice idea, but still not as good as individual pots IMHO.

Hey, no disagreement here. But, as we all know, the physical design must be locked down at this point. So if they're going to use the joystick for audio, they might as well use it efficiently. The use of the corner positions of the joystick would also eliminate toggling the joystick between channels.

The talk of external devices does bring up the old digital-audio input again, though. If we're going to shell out for an external sound processor, it's too bad we can't make it a good flash-based recorder and run digital out of it into the Red. That'd provide sync sound from the get-go, along with a backup.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

The digital connection is an interesting one, hadn't even thought about that as a possibility. But, that means a dedicated clock for the camera, no? As in word clock, or some such clock that can keep things locked. If it could be implemented, then if it's stable that would certainly mean the process of sending the audio to the camera can be better controlled by the sound person. But, as was mentioned, not all mixers (actually very few have a digital out. Usually, it's the hard disk recorders that have them, which you do find now on many sets. Interesting idea.

Steve

 

[JohnF]

When I hear talk of external devices I can here my good friend, who has scored and played on an Oscar nominated movie plus many other big jobs, laughing at the cost of film related audio equipment.

Take microphone pre-amps for instance, check out the prices that musicians pay for decent pre-amps compared to that for the film world. It'll make your jaw drop! And don't get me wrong some of the musicians gear is actually better than what we have!

As for digital input I am surpised that we don't even have a simple SPDIF (or other digital audio in) connector onboard RED. (any latency can be corrected easily in post) Having this would have enabled the use of far cleaner signal path from mic to recording with minimal hassle.
That said having 4 audio in's is great and with a sound-op I'll probably be running them at line in levels using an external pre-amp to do this but when filming on my lonesome, as happens, I'll need the internal pre-amps with limiters 'cos I'll be running stereo mic and cam mounted shotgun setup. So I'll need decent controls plus limiters to handle this.


JohnF

 

[Steve Sherrick]

When you get into studio preamps it gets very subjective. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for, but price is not always the determining factor. How they match with certain microphones, what voices/instruments sound better on which combinations, etc.

In film/video field recording, it's all about getting nice, clean dialogue. It's almost tough to go wrong with a Schoeps hyper running through a SD 442, a Cooper, SQN, etc. for interior work. Not sure we can expect to see the quality preamps these devices have in a camera mic pre, but even if they were a notch below in quality, that will still be a good option for the run and gun market. What would be disappointing will be if the mic pres in the Red turn out to be very noisy. Somehow I don't see them settling for that, but I'm sure they have had to make some tough decisions along the way.

We will have to wait and see what they have come up with. Perhaps we'll all be pleasantly surprised.

Steve

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

The 24/48 spec is a good indication of Red´s intention when most other cameras have 16/48 max.

BTW, that external mike, that came with my "Professional Audio Signal Path" Sony HVR -A1E: I havent had a microphone like this since I bought my first Blaupunkt Kassetten Rekorder in the 70ies. I didn´t know they still make those. Recording dialog you can almost understand what somebody said. ;-)

Jochen

 

[Bruce Allen]

The 24/48 spec is a good indication of Red´s intention when most other cameras have 16/48 max.

True. If they implement 24/48 well with good pre-amps, DAC, etc, they will be okay.

For example. the Sony F900 is something like 20 bits, 48 khz, but is well regarded (except for the fact that the thing used to make quite a bit of noise on set if I'm not mistaken...)

http://www.sounddevices.com/tech/sony_tests.htm
http://www.sounddevices.com/tech/sony_f900-ap.htm

Here is it relative to some other cams (including a DVCAM and Beta SP unit)
http://www.sounddevices.com/tech/sony_chart.htm

Compare this to a full test of the PD150, which is nowhere near as good (it gets nowhere close to the theoretical limits of 16/48):
http://www.sounddevices.com/tech/pd150.htm

Sorry about all of the Sound Devices linkage. No affiliation with the company. I think they just did thorough tests because people were plugging external mixers into various cams and were asking questions about how much the cameras were limiting things...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[chuck colburn]

In this months (July) issue of Electronic Products I saw a little blub about a three in one control device. On a single shaft it has a joy stick, push button and a rotary control. So one could navigate functions with the joy stick and then push on it to choose an item and then turn the stick to adjust that function. Prety niffty.

http://www.electronicproducts.com/S...&StartNum=1&stype=&year=10&MonthYear=Jul+2007

 

[explosive]

Hi this was brought up quite few months ago, maybe even dvx user days but what ended up being decided for audio control pots. I have not seen any pot controls on the camera and if audio control is all menu based I could see it being an issue for EFP and doc shooters. I mainly do production work 95% of the time so it will not effect me as much.

Just interested on how the audio control system will work?

Forget add ons, a regular mixer will do.

I know i do not speak for everybody, but personally I would get a long cable which i would attach to a mixer w/ phantom power (right in between the shotgun and the camera input). It'd be prime to have it away from the camera so that whoever monitors/ does levels is not in the way of the focus puller, cameraman and grip.

It would be terribly awkward to be doing levels attached to the camera.
Anyhow, for doco's etc where sets are minimal you usually set the levels beforehand then adjust the boom mic direction to compensate for peaks.

my 2 cents...

 

[GlennChan]

If you wanted really high quality audio, a simple + high quality approach would be to record sound separately and sync it in post. You get essentially "unlimited" tracks (limited by how much equipment you have; and how the rest of the workflow works, whether it can handle so many tracks). And the best preamps and A->Ds in the world. But Redcine would have to implement something like sync to BWF timecode (and/or LTC recorded onto one of the channels) for that to happen.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3113

2- In practice, you can be limited in the quality of audio you can get.

If the location is very noisy, you have to resort to wireless lavs or do ADR. Both of which have quality shortcomings compared to what's ideal. Recording with ultra-low S/N, 24-bit 192khz doesn't really help that.

 

[explosive]

If you wanted really high quality audio, a simple + high quality approach would be to record sound separately and sync it in post. You get essentially "unlimited" tracks (limited by how much equipment you have; and how the rest of the workflow works, whether it can handle so many tracks). And the best preamps and A->Ds in the world. But Redcine would have to implement something like sync to BWF timecode (and/or LTC recorded onto one of the channels) for that to happen.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3113

2- In practice, you can be limited in the quality of audio you can get.

If the location is very noisy, you have to resort to wireless lavs or do ADR. Both of which have quality shortcomings compared to what's ideal. Recording with ultra-low S/N, 24-bit 192khz doesn't really help that.

ADR ... *shudder*... my least favourite thing, apart from radio mics...