DSMC2 A-box with I/O Expander on Raven, good enough for run-and-gun doc?

[kesten migdal]

I like to keep my rig really small for run-and-gun doc shooting. I bought the OMOD XLR2, but don't like how big it is, plus they shipped me one with a screw loose somewhere in the housing that drives me nuts. I've heard bad things about the pre-amp in the Raven, but I'd like to use RED's base or I/O expander and the A-Box for DSMC2. Do you think it's good enough with the Sennheiser AVX-MKE2 lav for final audio?

 

[Roger Singh]

I have a mixpre 6 attached to my epic-w by using a rear 15mm rods and a cheese plate with a lock it box split going to the camera and mixpre. And a 3.5mn cable from mixpre to camera for guide track. I chose this method over the omod XLR. It's cheaper, and gave me a lot more options, especially 3x more audio inputs.

Not the most compact, but I wouldn't do it any other way when I don't have a sound recordist on set. The pre-amp in the red cameras are pretty awful and I'd treat it as a last resort thing.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

But you can bypass the internal preamp and enjoy the incoming signal from the mixpre, right?
Do you have any picture in the setup?

 

[Bob Gundu]

The Beachtek Amplifier is my Go-to quality preamp.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiA-U6wHOLs/?taken-by=bobgundu

 

[Roger Singh]

But you can bypass the internal preamp and enjoy the incoming signal from the mixpre, right?
Do you have any picture in the setup?

Yeah, I have the gain all the way down on red, and it does record a clean track from the mixpre. But more times than not nowadays, I'm recording more than two channels, so I end up making proxies for the client with synced audio from the mixpre.

Here's the picture without cables and lockit attached. That's what I had on hand. I can send a full setup photo if interested.

I looked every option there was for a one man crew documentary setup. First the omod XLR, but at the time it didn't have audio playback through the headphones, the new version fixes that. I also looked at preamps. But then the mixpre came out last year and it just opened up doors to recording multiple channels, a great limiter for when I'm not paying attention and I can ride the channels like the omod XLR. Then on top of that, i don't need it attached to the camera.

 

[David Peterson]

Define "good enough".

As I'd say no, it is not good enough. But that is a subjective value judgement.

As heck, there are people who find an iPhone to have "good enough" audio!

So in the end, how long is the piece of string?