Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Basic Audio Problems

R

RMTOP

Active member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
Points
0
We have our Red #941 for two weeks now and have had great results with our picture tests. We’ve had audio problems from the beginning and Red took back the camera to swap out the audio board once already. Some problems still remain. We are using Sony Professional MDR-7504 earphones plugged directly into the camera. Even at minus 10 dB without the microphone plugged in we are getting a distinct medium pitched tone in the earpiece. We recorded some footage without a microphone plugged in and that tone is being recorded as well we think. We can hear it on playback. Could be the tone is in the earpiece and not recorded. We are using a Sennheiser ME 66 Shotgun mic (K6 module) plugged directly into the mini XLR jacks on the camera and have to crank up any of the four channels up to the max of 54dB to have audio signal at all and that's with the mic about two inches away from the sound source. We’ve double-checked to make sure the inputs are set to microphone and not line. We've checked and changed the battery a few times to avoid the use of phantom power from the Red. Do you think we need some type of pre-amp between the audio inputs on the camera and the microphone itself? We're planning an extensive first shoot with the camera and are doing a lot of testing before we attempt to start production. I know most of the posting for audio are hot on the idea of double system sound and video but on occasion it is very convenient to have audio and picture recorded together. Any ideas and help will be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm not sure I can help, but I can tell you that I plugged in an ME66 with the K6 module directly to a RED and did not experience the low levels problem you mention. We also used phantom power from the mic and not the camera.
 
Not to derail this thread too far, but having used the ME66 what are your opinions on it?
 
I've always found the Sennheiser ME66 to be a reasonably priced very useful workhorse . Using the K6 powering module with battery power we purchased the various microphones used with it (ME62-omni-directional, ME64-cardoid, ME65-super-cardiod,ME66-short shotgun, ME67-long shotgun). That’s a nice little arsenal of possibilities to have in your audio tool kit. In it’s price range I found the sound quality excellent .
 
Double system has always worked very well and modern recorders (Aaton Cantar, Zaxcom Deva, Sound Devices...) can offer you 8 or more tracks of high quality audio with routing, monitoring, filters, precision measurments, phantom power and timecode. Audio is a matter for specialists!
 
Hello RMTOP

I mentioned before, the 66 is not a really great sounding mic. Sennheiser made it to sell to a specific market segment. You see it a lot in schools with film/video studies courses because it's relatively inexpensive. People learning from those schools use the mic and think it's a standard.

The Sennheiser 416 is a noticeable improvement. The Sennheiser MKH 60 is as well; newer than the 416, quieter too, with not as aggressive a presence peak so it has a more natural sound.

The Schoeps CMIT shotgun and Sanken CS-3e also deserve mention. The CS-3e isn't really an interference tube mic like the others because the tube is packed with additional capsules to create the pattern. The main capsule is at the tip of the mic, not at the base of the interference tube as with other conventional shotguns.

Anyway. Do some recording with the camera and mic. Play the files back in a GOOD post suite with GOOD monitors and a low ambient noise level to see if the noise is just leaking from the camera electronics into the headphone circuit or actually getting to the tracks.

Crappy headphone audio from cameras is not that unusual, but it sure makes it difficult for the audio person to do his/her job.

As high falutin' as the Red camera purports to be, they really screwed the pooch on the audio. -10 consumer level inputs? Incorrect pin outs on the jacks? It's not like the standards are a secret. They just didn't do some very basic homework. It's like buying an Acura and finding out they left out the brakes.

I've offered to help on more than one occasion, but those offers have fallen on deaf ears.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
I hope that, now that the image is so vastly improved with Build 16, RED will focus their efforts on improving audio. Build 16 already improves the audio substantially, even though it is still not quite ready for prime time. I think that many people suspect that they made some poor hardware choices and that the amount of audio improvement possible may be limited in RED ONE. Time will tell, and RED isn't saying...

Audio is definitely lagging image, and their top priority has been image -- I think audio was enabled in Build 12, so they've had 16 firmware upgrades to perfect image and only 4 audio upgrades. Let's give them a chance to play catch up with audio before drawing fixed conclusions.

When RED dropped HD as an output standard and built a digital cinema camera, I think they built out the audio on the assumption that double system recording would be the de facto standard, so they did not put a lot of effort into building in world-class audio to match the world class image. Assuming, instead, that world-class audio could only be achieved using double system...

But the outcry from users demanding good single system recording is causing them to re-think that assumption. RED is pretty aware that they dropped the ball on audio with RED ONE and are making the proper adjustments on SCARLET and EPIC.

The MKH60 has better off-axis rejection and a richer, darker coloration, but I think you can get very good sound from the ME66. MKH60 is a better dialogue mic, but I often prefer the ME66 in documentary applications where some ambient sound in the sound mix is a good thing. The ME66 has been used successfully on many indie films, but you won't regret a mic upgrade if you are trying to achieve cleaner, darker professional sound. Certainly the ME66 is adequate though and friendly to RED ONE, in its current incarnation, where the phantom power is a bit sketchy still.
 
Maybe that's part of the rebuild, dunno.

In Protools, when you start a session, you determine the bit rate there. Any files you bring in are converted to the session bit-rate.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
Are you using the Red Audio cable?
be sure to use the newer Red cable with any audio recorded directly to the Red.

"We recorded some footage without a microphone plugged in and that tone is being recorded as well we think."

What do you mean "we think"...how are you playing back your audio??
 
Ty, do you have access to a Red camera? I'm in Baltimore and expect to get mine in August. I have been concerned about the assumption that double-system sound will be required.
Thanks
Rob Gardner
 
digitalfx said:
Are you using the Red Audio cable?
be sure to use the newer Red cable with any audio recorded directly to the Red.

"We recorded some footage without a microphone plugged in and that tone is being recorded as well we think."

What do you mean "we think"...how are you playing back your audio??
Click to expand...

I take it from the QT proxy.
It shows 32 bytes audio that doesn't make sense anyway "bytes" instead "bits"
but someone mentioned here that it is 24 bits.
I don't know what A/D converter on RED audio is.

When you open the proxy this is what you see:
 
Andrew said:
I take it from the QT proxy.
It shows 32 bytes audio that doesn't make sense anyway "bytes" instead "bits"
but someone mentioned here that it is 24 bits.
I don't know what A/D converter on RED audio is.

When you open the proxy this is what you see:
Click to expand...

What I meant was;
1. when you originally recorded the audio, did you use the Red audio cable from mini XLR to XLR?

2. you stated "we think" we recoded tone in our audio, what do you mean "we think"? Did you listen to it on a good sound system?
 
digitalfx said:
What I meant was;
1. when you originally recorded the audio, did you use the Red audio cable from mini XLR to XLR?

2. you stated "we think" we recoded tone in our audio, what do you mean "we think"? Did you listen to it on a good sound system?
Click to expand...

I think we record 24 bit (not tone in our audio)
I use XLR to xlr RED cable, YES.
But the question is the decoder in the RED camera, is it 24 bit per each 48KHz sample or what?
 
Philippe Vandendriessche said:
Double system has always worked very well and modern recorders (Aaton Cantar, Zaxcom Deva, Sound Devices...) can offer you 8 or more tracks of high quality audio with routing, monitoring, filters, precision measurments, phantom power and timecode. Audio is a matter for specialists!
Click to expand...

It's great to have a sound department, but recording digital audio onto the camera should work. Sync sound should travel with the picture. Double system recording and workflow are only needed with multi track recording. I have $2000 cameras that record digital audio better than the Red. Hopefully this pathetic mis-match (world class picture with bad sound) will be fixed, though it will clearly require a hardware upgrade.
 
Audio performance

Audio performance

I have $2000 cameras that record digital audio better than the Red. Hopefully this pathetic mis-match (world class picture with bad sound) will be fixed, though it will clearly require a hardware upgrade.
Click to expand...

Others have a different experience. With line level inputs the performance is at least as good as an F900 or a Varicam.
 
GFIRob said:
Ty, do you have access to a Red camera? I'm in Baltimore and expect to get mine in August. I have been concerned about the assumption that double-system sound will be required.
Thanks
Rob Gardner
Click to expand...

Hi Rob,

I don't, but August will be here soon. I'd like the chance to compare audio aspects between your camera and my Sound Devices 744T. Put this question to rest.

I also have a SD 788T here right now for a review I'm writing if you'd like a look at that.

Regards,

Ty Ford
410.296.2868
 
I have a Red and a SD 744T. I can conduct a test for you guys, just give me the parameters and I will try to accommodate.
 
Tone persists...

Tone persists...

I get the tone sound on channel 1 and 2 with no mic plugged in at all. Plugging in the supplied Red mini to xlr doesn't change this. It is really evident if I turn up past the default 32dB. But it's definitely there when I play back the .mov files at 32dB. It's a problem for me. Is there a fix?


digitalfx said:
Are you using the Red Audio cable?
be sure to use the newer Red cable with any audio recorded directly to the Red.

"We recorded some footage without a microphone plugged in and that tone is being recorded as well we think."

What do you mean "we think"...how are you playing back your audio??
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top