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  • 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 :)

Best audio setup for Indies.

For Lavs: The TV show I edit uses Tram microphones connected to a top of the line Lectrosonics wireless system. This setup has held up well in the harshest conditions in the world. Sound is great too if setup properly. I've also heard good things about Countryman mics.

For Shotguns: There have already been some great recommendations made, 416, Schoeps, etc. I'd also look at the Rode NTG-3. It compares well to the 416 and you can find it at great prices new.
 
Rowland said:
For Lavs: The TV show I edit uses Tram microphones connected to a top of the line Lectrosonics wireless system. This setup has held up well in the harshest conditions in the world. Sound is great too if setup properly. I've also heard good things about Countryman mics.

For Shotguns: There have already been some great recommendations made, 416, Schoeps, etc. I'd also look at the Rode NTG-3. It compares well to the 416 and you can find it at great prices new.
Click to expand...

This is also a response to the previous threads.

Audio genie suggests the same Lectronics system and countryman mics. My problem is that I never expected to have to buy audio equip. but he is the best in the country (Trinidad), could be difficult to work at times with but passionate about "his" work and that counts for a lot to me. (I can be a bit arrogant myself). What this means is that I have to shift items in the budget i.e less lights, less robust edit station etc.

I'll check out the Tram mics. I just need to get the best bang for my buck. I wont skimp, it's just a matter of prudent choices... and a little bit of sacrifice.

Thanks again all.


PD1
 
I should also add that for the cost, I could bring a team in from the US or even S.America, but I am establishing a film production company here in Trinidad, so it makes sense. If any of you guys know any producers who want to do some work in the Caribbean and have a hard core edit facility hook me up...lol
 
Good day to all,

Just in case anyone is still looking at this thread. My audio guy who has no equipment of his own is trying to push me to the extreme high end of equipment. The least expensive of which is a recorder for over $4,000.00 USD.

The only other option he gives is the Fostex PD-4. I am not fond of the DAT format.

ALL of the items posted in this thread are to him, unacceptable, his least favorite but would be acceptable is the SD744T (he will not work with less). Am I getting in over my head? Or just go for the PD-4, get the film in the "can" and call it george? Or of course find someone else?


Please comment. Thanks.
 
PD1 said:
Good day to all,

Just in case anyone is still looking at this thread. My audio guy who has no equipment of his own is trying to push me to the extreme high end of equipment. The least expensive of which is a recorder for over $4,000.00 USD.

The only other option he gives is the Fostex PD-4. I am not fond of the DAT format.

ALL of the items posted in this thread are to him, unacceptable, his least favorite but would be acceptable is the SD744T (he will not work with less). Am I getting in over my head? Or just go for the PD-4, get the film in the "can" and call it george? Or of course find someone else?


Please comment. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I would highly recommend that you take your audio guys advice and try to use the equipment that he recommends. If he is familiar with a particular piece of kit and wants it, it will help him do a good job for you. While I personally would not use a DAT recorder, there are many others out there who still are. If his budget is simply too high, you guys have to talk to get it down or possibly find somebody else to do the job, even rent equipment or hire out of town help that come with their own gear. There is a lot of good advice coming from this thread, however, none of use are going to be working for you.
 
PD1 said:
Good day to all,

Just in case anyone is still looking at this thread. My audio guy who has no equipment of his own is trying to push me to the extreme high end of equipment. The least expensive of which is a recorder for over $4,000.00 USD.

The only other option he gives is the Fostex PD-4. I am not fond of the DAT format.

ALL of the items posted in this thread are to him, unacceptable, his least favorite but would be acceptable is the SD744T (he will not work with less). Am I getting in over my head? Or just go for the PD-4, get the film in the "can" and call it george? Or of course find someone else?


Please comment. Thanks.
Click to expand...

maybe you can find a used pd4 somewhere - but why is he not accepting less than the sd744t if the pd4 would be an option? imo the sd702t (also mentioned by bruce allen in this thread) is a very good tapeless replacement of the fostex pd4?
 
In response to all above posts.

Tom, I will take his advice, as much as he is putting everything other than what he dictates down, and including myself in the mix at times..., for the sake of company and production, I think I will give him what he wants... that is as far as recorder and mixer goes, I'm not going for the Neumann mic etc.

If you guys are still patient enough, I will run a few ideas by you guys to get feedback. He has some great ideas, but I think I can cut back on the budget a bit (i,e Senheiser vs. Neumann). I would go to him, but the arguments for the higher cost purchases are taking too much of my much needed energy.

If I can continue to confer with you guys, I'll be able to present him with viable cost effective alternatives.

Mind you this is useful information. somewhere in the future a producer/ director is going to need this information.


PD1
 
Jason Ing said:
Will Red One's upcoming audio board upgrade take care of everything? Can I just get a mic, boom, and record directly to Red One?
Click to expand...

Sure. And it will sound just as good as the visual equivalent - autofocus and no manual control over aperture, because we sound people don't actually DO anything, we just sit around and munch on the free food.

Camera guys, please try to accept the idea that there is an art and science to mixing audio to get a nice recording. You may think it's obvious, but good production sound doesn't just record itself. How would you feel if the sound guy on your next shoot just pulled out his camcorder and said he was ready to shoot while you are still building the camera?

For all but the simplest jobs, I question the average DP/operator's ability to give their full concentration to the image they're shooting and to properly evaluate the sound track they're recording at the same time.
 
PD1 said:
Tom, I will take his advice, as much as he is putting everything other than what he dictates down, and including myself in the mix at times..., for the sake of company and production, I think I will give him what he wants... that is as far as recorder and mixer goes, I'm not going for the Neumann mic etc.
Click to expand...

To be honest, if you are shooting with RED or anything better than a DVX100, you should be thinking about sound equipment that costs about the same as the camera.

Fostex PD-4: the bad part is it records DAT, and that means a long time copying off the DAT tapes after the shoot. But it has a good internal mixer, very solid timecode, and it's built like a tank. This is why it was THE production sound recorder for a long time.

Now the Sound Devices stuff holds that same position, unless you want serious multi-channel and can go to solutions like the Zaxcom Deva or Aaton Cantar. Fostex also make the PD-6 and PD-600 audio recorders which are as good as the PD-4 but which they didn't market as well. Any of the above are good. With Sound Devices you generally need a mixer and a recorder because the onboard mixer on the SD recorders is not as hot as some others.

Field devices like the Tascam compact flash recorder are not good. I would rather use the zoom, because it's cheap enought o buy 2 or 3 and has reasonable audio quality. The Edirol R-4 is rather better than people imagine, but the brand has a poor reputation.

You should not be trying to skimp money on mics. They are the only analog devices in the sound chain, just like the lens on the front of your camera. You wouldn't rent an expensive camera and stick some junk glass on the front, why do you think it would be OK to do this with audio? If the sound guy doesn't have the equipment, you rent it. Schoeps make the best microphones for film production. a CM1t-5u boom mic will give you terrific audio in almost every imaginable situation. For critical dialog in cramped interiors, a Schoeps CMC41 is better, but it's pretty marginal.

Neumann make absoltuely excellent studio mics and some of them are also good for film production. However, my experience is that Neumanns are engineered to record music beautifully and color the sound a little. I prefer Schoeps because I hear exactly what I hear with my ears, both good and bad. Making it beautiful is something for post. The Sennheiser 816 or it's descendants (the looooing shotgun, about 20 inches) is the telephoto lens of the film world, if you are doing a lot of outdoor wides you need to have this but it is not good for interiors.

Lectrosonic make the best wireless mics, but Sennheiser products are also quite good in this area and cost much less. I have used both extensively but the ones I own are the Sennheisers. Third party mic capsules (ie just the mic on a cable, not the wireless transmitter part) are very good, but used more in theater and TV where the schedule ins much faster than film and the requirements somewhat lower, so it is OK to capture main dialog from a lavalier. This is how some shows like ER are done, everyone is wired for sound and it's more important to keep the take going than to have perfect framing or boom position. For the same reason the camera is often wide open too so they don't have to sweat over critical focus.

For indie film you are OK with stock wireless capsules, because the boom is providing your reference audio. If the environment is not friendly to a boom (eg a noisy factory or right next to the freeway) you won't hear the limitations of stock mic capsules compared to the specialist models. You should have at least 2 wireless mics, that's usually enough.
 
Audio

Audio

At the risk of starting a fight :red_bandana: there is nothing wrong with recording to the RED ONE and using a high quality external mixer and microphones.

Especially if the RED ONE has the newer audio board.
 
Stuart English said:
At the risk of starting a fight :red_bandana: there is nothing wrong with recording to the RED ONE and using a high quality external mixer and microphones.

Especially if the RED ONE has the newer audio board.
Click to expand...

I agree that the newer board probably fixes any reservations that I would have about printing sound to the camera, but I think that the old boards would give me pause. I personally would do external audio since I have it, trust it, and allows me to be untethered from the camera. In addition to a simultaneous HDD / CF backup copy, I may employ another backup recorder if the budget allows for it, and of course any combination of on board mics / wireless hops for scratch audio to the camera itself.
 
Look forward to testing that new audio board the moment I have a way to read RED audio files on a PC without buying a $10,000 Scratch system.

Also, you can't read audio from footage shot on Beta Build 18 anamorphic mode, right? And you can't record audio at the same time as high speed 120fps etc?

As long as people are aware of the gotchas, sounds good.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I am a sound recordist as well as taking the pictures and pretty fussy when it comes to sound and i agree with Stuart. Line level into the camera is actually excellent.

However, if you want to go the double sound route, Eddie has given some spot on advice concerning equipment. You cant beat Schoeps particularly the hypercardiod.

Good luck.

Rob
 
Stuart English said:
At the risk of starting a fight :red_bandana: there is nothing wrong with recording to the RED ONE and using a high quality external mixer and microphones.

Especially if the RED ONE has the newer audio board.
Click to expand...

this is really good to hear.

what would be the minimum, but "high quality", additional equipment/brand recommended?
 
I've shot three separate projects now where I recorded audio to my RED with no external mixer. I used a RODE NTG-2 mic with a Denecke PS-1A phantom power box and the sound is actually pretty good. Perfectly acceptable for run of the mill corporate stuff I shoot a lot of and even for some more critical narrative work. The NTG-2 mic has internal battery power of its own, but I've found that it's output from internal battery to be rather low and I have to put too much gain on it in post. Compensation onboard the RED over ~30-32db introduces a hum.

I'm looking forward to the new audio board so that phantom power right from the camera can be used.

Anyway, this Denecke phantom power supply is a real good solution for those wanting to record to the RED now before they get the new audio board upgrade and they can't justify the cost of a good external mixer or don't need that functionality.

For times when I need real good audio, I call my sound guy. He uses Sound Devices equipment, I think his normal mixer is a 744T, but don't quote me on that. I'm not much of a sound recordist myself.
 
All the posts here hit on the big elements, but there are a lot of ancillaries that will make or break a system as well. I personally think you are better off buying 2 less expensive mics and get the accessories that will make the difference:

Indoor:
Oktava MK102 (3 capsule kit) http://oktava.com/inc/sdetail/475
Windscreen http://oktava.com/inc/sdetail/1459
K-tek mount http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=326&cat=36&page=2

Outdoor:
Sanken CS-1 http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=390&cat=47&page=1
Rode Blimp http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=963&cat=39&page=1

302 Mixer, vest or belt for 302, boom pole, mic cables, Sony 5702 headphones. Jack the mixer into the camera and be done with it.

This setup is not the ultimate, but I believe it is good enough for feature film work. There is no single mic that will do it all, shotguns (even small ones) isolate to the point of making indoor booming work more difficult but are still required for outdoor work. If your whole shoot is indoors then get 2 Oktava rigs and skip the shotgun altogether.

Blimps are essential, a $800 shotgun in a $300 blimp will sound much better than a $2000 mic in a foamie. Even moving a mic in still air will create wind noise, so you will need something.

The most important aspect to sound is the skill of the sound crew: evaluating the environment to select the proper tools and level settings and getting the mic as close to the talent as possible. If possible, you should have someone reviewing the footage on set for the typical problems, and that includes sound problems.

Good Luck,

Bob
 
I'll echo what Bob said. The most important element required for good sound is a skilled person using the sound equipment.
 
martinnoweck said:
instead of timecode we used the good old slate (which i would recommend using even if i had a timecode sync - you never know what happens with timecode on his way to the post - and if you are using the slate anyway you can easily get rid of the timecode hassle...)

regards,
martin
Click to expand...

I totally agree and I did some research on this and asked a few Editors/DPs/Directors as well that edit how hard was it to get things to sync and they said its not that hard. They never really had a problem. Just let the audio/sound roll first and use the slate(clap) as the marker.

Nicole
 
PD1 said:
Good day to all,

Just in case anyone is still looking at this thread. My audio guy who has no equipment of his own is trying to push me to the extreme high end of equipment. The least expensive of which is a recorder for over $4,000.00 USD.

The only other option he gives is the Fostex PD-4. I am not fond of the DAT format.

ALL of the items posted in this thread are to him, unacceptable, his least favorite but would be acceptable is the SD744T (he will not work with less). Am I getting in over my head? Or just go for the PD-4, get the film in the "can" and call it george? Or of course find someone else?


Please comment. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should hire and audio guy that does have his own equipment and not invest in it yourself. Or, maybe rent the audio equipment. If you love audio, by all means, by audio equipment. If you just want good audio, hire a guy that bought good audio equipment AND knows how to use it.
 
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