"Professional I/O" Module alternative for Audio

[Ryan Patch]

Hey all-

So, after owning a RED ONE for about a year, I've been mentally planning (as I'm sure we all have been) my next rig. I've used the RO extensively for narrative work, and I'm excited about the Scarlet for run-and-gun documentary work that I've been shooting on an HVX.

The one thing that I keep coming back to for Scarlet is the "I/O Module" and audio capability. For run-and-gun documentary work, obviously it would be vastly superior to have onboard audio capabilities - 2 or 3 inputs, phantom power, good preamps. However, with the "Professional I/O" module, you also get HD-SDI, sync signals, etc.

For documentary users, these output features aren't really necessary, would add more to the price - and most importantly, to the size and weight. I operate in conditions where we're traveling and packing the camera into dangerous environments for days, and any and all weight that can be saved is absolutely necessary. By having to add an entire, cumbersome I/O module for sound, it seems it would make Scarlet far less desirable for doc applications where weight/space is an issue.

So, question: can we see a module that just does audio really well?

Please?

 

[David Rasberry]

Beachtek and Juicedlink are a couple of options that work well with any camera with a mini-jack input. I think the brains all have those.

http://www.juicedlink.com/index_files/CX_camcorder_XLR_microphone_adapter_audio_mixers.htm

 

[Stuart English]

Audio

Audio

How small are you thinking here ?

 

[Michael Schmitt]

So, question: can we see a module that just does audio really well?

Please?

Possibly with an on-board compressor/limiter?

 

[ericyoung]

And real level knobs please!

 

[Chris Newman]

This is what I want too. For the low-budget narrative and video work that I do, I only need good audio with XLRs, phantom power, and real level knobs. I know RED is planning on making several I/O modules; hopefully this is one of them.

 

[Scot Olson]

I like the idea of an audio I/O module. This seems like it could also be very useful in ENG/EFP configurations. Some initial suggestions.

On the dumb side
- Channels 1 and 2 inputs, 2 x 3 pin XLRs with Line, Mic, Mic+48 switch
- Channels 3 and 4 inputs, 5 pin XLR with Line, Mic, Mic+48 switch
- Monitor Output, Male 5 pin XLR with a Mic, -10, Line switch.

On the operator side
- 2 preferably 4 dedicated input level knobs
- 1/8" or 1/4" headphone jack
- Level knob for headphones volume
- Switches for monitoring channels 1,2,3,4

For extra credit.
- A dedicated level meter on the operator side.
- Low Cut filter swichable per channel
- A good limiter swichable per channel
- Wireless receiver slot on the top side?

 

[Kirk]

:thumbsup:

And real level knobs please!

Ditto!:thumbsup:

 

[Ryan Patch]

Stuart-

I was simply thinking something that was as small as it possibly could be. I'm not familiar with the electronics needed, but presumably something that would simply be as small as you guys could make it. This may mean mini-XLR jacks, or that might be mute, as the preamp electronics may need so much space that full-size connectors would be accommodated anyway.

Scot-

What you said seems to be a little overkill for my application - again, I'm thinking for a stripped-down unit specifically geared to rigs where size/weight/cost is an issue. The specs that I would be looking at are more like:

3 x 3-pin XLR input, switchable +48 power on all
- 3 channels gives the opportunity for 1 stereo mike and 1 boom/lav mike.
Physical level knobs would be great
Mini-plug headphone monitoring

Scot brings up a lot of features that would be great for bigger applications, perhaps on an "advanced" audio module. The thought of a "wireless receiver" module is a very exciting and fascinating one, as well, but I think I would rather see that as an additional module, not something that I would have to buy/carry around with the "stripped down" audio module.

Thanks for listening, RED team!

Ryan

 

[Peter Weisberg]

Scot brings up a lot of features that would be great for bigger applications, perhaps on an "advanced" audio module. The thought of a "wireless receiver" module is a very exciting and fascinating one, as well, but I think I would rather see that as an additional module, not something that I would have to buy/carry around with the "stripped down" audio module.

I too would like to encourage red to consider developing a wireless audio module that would record high quality sound that would sync with the video timecode but that wouldn't have to be attached directly to the camera. Perhaps it would have a flash memory card reader in it that would record the audio and could wirelessly send some form of metadata to the camera that would archive the audio files when they were imported.

This kind of technology could be REDvolutionary and if finally at the point where i could see it pheasibly panning out. Please consider a wireless audio module that syncs!!!!! it would be so cool if the sound guy could walk around with the audio module clipped to his belt and adjust everything from there and not have to worry about a slew of other wires hanging off my camera!

 

[Michael Schmitt]

A wireless audio module would truly be something to behold.

 

[Ryan Patch]

*thought*

If audio knobs could be integrated, it would be great if they were like the ones on the Sound Devices recorders - recessed, then pop out on press for adjustment, then able to press back in for locking/ergonomics.

Ryan

 

[Tom Visser]

This stuff already exists...

Sound Devices 702T, Tascam HD-P2, Zaxcom ZFR100, etc...

Wireless stuff exists already too. What you guys seem to be really asking is for a RED branded accessory that bolts onto the camera body, is proprietary just to this particular camera, and moves all the controls to a really inconvenient place for the sound mixer to do his job, if you have one, and creates another mess of controls and wires for the camera operator to have to deal with.

The brains are supposed to have an unbalanced audio input. You can actually get really professional results from an unbalanced input, so don't let that scare you. Purchase a Lectrosonics SR receiver, a pair of SR or HM transmitters, the appropriate balanced to stereo unbalanced audio adapter, and you'll have top notch professional sound that will certainly only be limited by the mics and techinques used to capture sound; AND you can use this audio setup with any camera system past, present, or future. The RED Scarlet I/O module will only be usable with Scarlet cameras. Maybe someday you'll want to use a Canon 5D mkII for a highly specialized shot, or heaven forbid, maybe someday you move onto another camera system besides Scarlet. Do you really want your investment in hardware to become obsolete by your camera choices? Audio is audio, keep it separate. If double system workflows scare you, go ahead and keep the audio "printed" along with video, but don't feel that your limited to only RED accessories to get the job done. Wireless is your friend. I hardly pull out my breakaway cables anymore, but it doesn't eliminate basic audio principles and is not a magic cure all for your audio challenges.

 

[DDahlquist]

Mini-pin input vs XLR

Mini-pin input vs XLR

The problem with mini pin connectors (ring-tip) is that they are unreliable.
They can disconnect easy,break easy and have a problem with shorting out.
You can't repair them in the field easily because they are usually molded one pice plugs. You all do know how to solder?
They also have a problem with external RF interference.
I shelved a complete Pro wireless system because they had a mini pin connector on the receiver and transmitter. I was having to replace the mini pin side all the time.

I had ten of these systems on seven cameras. The system worked great the manufacture support was great it was just a bad idea to use a mini pin connector.

I think what some of the members are asking to be offerd is a simple I/O module that had just audio. To keep the bulk down I would recommend just two full sized XLR inputs and a selectable gain circuit and a selectable limiter.
If you needed more then you would use(buy) the module with audio and HD-SDI video.
As to having pots that are not in a convenient place for the sound tech to adj. while shooting. This would not be a problem if you zero out the mixer to the camera before you start shooting.
My sound engineer recommends to always tape over the pots after the camera and mixer has been set-up to tone so no tweaking happens during shooting.

I think Scarlet will be a great tool for Documentary's but its audio inputs will need to stand up to the rigors of that style of shooting.

 

[Scot Olson]

Tom-

I don't disagree with you that you can do it the way you suggest and that that might be a cheeper more flexible way to rig a Scarlet. But as the original poster suggested if you are working in a documentary fashion there are certain features you may have become accustomed to that make things faster and more robust.

When you are working as a one man crew without a sound mixer (95% of my shooting) you often don't have time to move into a menu to adjust levels and there is nobody with a mixer to do it for you. As Ryan suggests what you care about is that it is small, lightweight, ergonomic and works quickly and precisely for YOU the operator. The base features I suggested are actually nothing new or obscure or innovative. They are simply the the EXACT features you will find on every professional ENG/EFP camera that Sony or Panasonic currently sell. I will also say that the lack or these features played a critical roll in my decision NOT to complete the purchase of the Red ONE that I had reserved. I just did not feel it was the right camera for ME.

My suggestion for Stuart and Red is that they take advantage of the modular nature of the DSMC cameras and provide a professional audio I/O for those of us that need the traditional controls and connections provided on ENG/EFP cameras. That way I can configure a DSMC camera that works great for me. If others don't need those features they can happily save their money and leave that module out.

Ryan -

As far as size and number of inputs. I think you can find room for 4 inputs on the dumb side, 2 x 3 pin XLRs and one 5 pin XLR. Maybe move the output to the top. This could potentially keep the module only a little wider than one XLR.

Stuart -

I really dislike cables sticking strait out the side of the camera. Would it be possible to place the XLR connection on the BACK of this module? This might necessitate it being the last module at the back of the camera, but that would be fine by me.

Scot Olson - Reminiscing about discussions with Stuart 20 years ago about Rotoscoping using 1" tape and an AVA-3.

 

[David Rasberry]

My suggestion for Stuart and Red is that they take advantage of the modular nature of the DSMC cameras and provide a professional audio I/O for those of us that need the traditional controls and connections provided on ENG/EFP cameras. That way I can configure a DSMC camera that works great for me. If others don't need those features they can happily save their money and leave that module out.

I second this suggestion. mini-jacks are a PITA. Mini XLR's are better but they are kinda delicate too.

 

[Peter Weisberg]

This stuff already exists...

Sound Devices 702T, Tascam HD-P2, Zaxcom ZFR100, etc...

Wireless stuff exists already too. What you guys seem to be really asking is for a RED branded accessory that bolts onto the camera body, is proprietary just to this particular camera, and moves all the controls to a really inconvenient place for the sound mixer to do his job, if you have one, and creates another mess of controls and wires for the camera operator to have to deal with.

The brains are supposed to have an unbalanced audio input. You can actually get really professional results from an unbalanced input, so don't let that scare you. Purchase a Lectrosonics SR receiver, a pair of SR or HM transmitters, the appropriate balanced to stereo unbalanced audio adapter, and you'll have top notch professional sound that will certainly only be limited by the mics and techinques used to capture sound; AND you can use this audio setup with any camera system past, present, or future. The RED Scarlet I/O module will only be usable with Scarlet cameras. Maybe someday you'll want to use a Canon 5D mkII for a highly specialized shot, or heaven forbid, maybe someday you move onto another camera system besides Scarlet. Do you really want your investment in hardware to become obsolete by your camera choices? Audio is audio, keep it separate. If double system workflows scare you, go ahead and keep the audio "printed" along with video, but don't feel that your limited to only RED accessories to get the job done. Wireless is your friend. I hardly pull out my breakaway cables anymore, but it doesn't eliminate basic audio principles and is not a magic cure all for your audio challenges.

I think you may have misinterperted what i was suggesting by wireless. I am not referring to wireless microphones or really anything wireless. But rather an audio module that does not have to be connected to the brain that will maintain audio sync. Just picture this for a second. You are a 1 man crew and you want great audio. So as you are shooting and moving your camera from position to position it might be a little worrying to move the camera with the xlrs plugged in. Imagine now a small very basic audio module (small enough that it could clip on to a belt) The audio from this module records onto cheap flash memory while the antenna on the module sends a signal to and from the camera that archives the file name and controls when audio starts rolling and keeps everything in sync.

The idea is to keep audio and video together while allowing them some flexibility by not nessicarily being connected, and not having to work about trying to sync it up later. I know if i wanted to do some intense dolly or crane work, the last thing i would want are xlr cables hanging off the camera causing potential problems with the shot.

The beauty of a system like this is that it would be incredibly practical without having to be super expensive. The only R&D would be figuring out the wireless sync through an extra line of metadata or something along those lines and seeing as the redmote can be detatched and handle wireless i feel as though this wouldn't even be that hard to do. And I don't believe any other cameras have their own audio system that can work seperately from the camera while maintaining sync, but i could be wrong.

Even if the wireless module wasn't super compact (and didn't have to fit on a belt buckle) but was more along the lines of just a normal mixer that could transmit to the camera wirelessly. There are a lot of possibilities for this, but ultimately what it comes down to is the concept, and i hope red is listening because i'm sure i'm not the only one who would find something like this beneficial

 

[David Rasberry]

I have taken a different approach to the sync problem. A MOTU Ultralite MKIII firewire mixer with SMPTE timecode connected to my laptop.
I get a record mix off the master console at a music event or set it up with its own mics, jam sync to the camera and let it free run and record the whole event.
The camera is free to move and start and stop recording at anytime with TC also in free run mode with the on camera mic for scratch track and ambient sound. There may be a little drift over a 45 minute set, but not much. Match the time code in post and you are synced. The scratch track gives a reference to match if there is any drift. No need to stop and start the audio recording.
The Motu is awesome. I use it mostly for doing acoustic measurements with FFT software and the noise floor is around -120fs. Samples at up to 192kHz.

Ps: It has been suggested that one of the features on the new cameras may be WiFi, so the wireless communication needed to maintain sync or remote control on this type of setup may already be there.

 

[Peter Weisberg]

I have taken a different approach to the sync problem. A MOTU Ultralite MKIII firewire mixer with SMPTE timecode connected to my laptop.
I get a record mix off the master console at a music event or set it up with its own mics, jam sync to the camera and let it free run and record the whole event.
The camera is free to move and start and stop recording at anytime with TC also in free run mode with the on camera mic for scratch track and ambient sound. There may be a little drift over a 45 minute set, but not much. Match the time code in post and you are synced. The scratch track gives a reference to match if there is any drift. No need to stop and start the audio recording.
The Motu is awesome. I use it mostly for doing acoustic measurements with FFT software and the noise floor is around -120fs. Samples at up to 192kHz.

Ps: It has been suggested that one of the features on the new cameras may be WiFi, so the wireless communication needed to maintain sync or remote control on this type of setup may already be there.

that may be a perfect solution to maintaining sync for you, but i think if red could just tie it all together with a bow on top it would be fantastic and would save a lot of people the time of figuring out what setup works for them. And ya with the wifi feature its just a matter of developing the module (if they haven't started doing so already) who knows what tricks jim has up his sleeves.

 

[Tom Visser]

I think you may have misinterperted what i was suggesting by wireless. I am not referring to wireless microphones or really anything wireless. But rather an audio module that does not have to be connected to the brain that will maintain audio sync. Just picture this for a second. You are a 1 man crew and you want great audio. So as you are shooting and moving your camera from position to position it might be a little worrying to move the camera with the xlrs plugged in. Imagine now a small very basic audio module (small enough that it could clip on to a belt) The audio from this module records onto cheap flash memory while the antenna on the module sends a signal to and from the camera that archives the file name and controls when audio starts rolling and keeps everything in sync.

The idea is to keep audio and video together while allowing them some flexibility by not nessicarily being connected, and not having to work about trying to sync it up later. I know if i wanted to do some intense dolly or crane work, the last thing i would want are xlr cables hanging off the camera causing potential problems with the shot.

The beauty of a system like this is that it would be incredibly practical without having to be super expensive. The only R&D would be figuring out the wireless sync through an extra line of metadata or something along those lines and seeing as the redmote can be detatched and handle wireless i feel as though this wouldn't even be that hard to do. And I don't believe any other cameras have their own audio system that can work seperately from the camera while maintaining sync, but i could be wrong.

Even if the wireless module wasn't super compact (and didn't have to fit on a belt buckle) but was more along the lines of just a normal mixer that could transmit to the camera wirelessly. There are a lot of possibilities for this, but ultimately what it comes down to is the concept, and i hope red is listening because i'm sure i'm not the only one who would find something like this beneficial

You are describing the Sound Devices 702T at the premium and large end or the Zaxcom ZFR100 at the mid-level compact end. Timecode already exists and is standardized, no need to reinvent a proprietary method of sync. We already distribute it wirelessly, usually through IFB or Comtek type transmitters. I happen to use units from Ambient, which are specifically made for this. Bluetooth will not work, because it is an asynchronous data transmission method and there is no control over the timing of the packet transmission. WiFi will not work, also not something you can time something from. The point of Timecode is that you can rely on it to be perfectly in time, using any other method other than the already established RF methods either eliminate the exactness of Timecode or bring up a situation, where a non audio company tries to introduce a proprietary new standard which no one is really going to want and RED probably doesn't want to invest in the R&D effort into such an endeavor. Wireless synch isn't so much of an issue except for playback, as you can set the clocks freerun and can probably go a whole day without jam synching the units, as long as they use good clocks. I would tend to jam synch twice a day or with RED specifically, every time they swap batteries if they don't hot swap.

EDIT** I see I missed your point about wanting metadata... well, that would be something unique. You can simply have the recorder timestamp the audio data with timecode in the filename, should be easy to find the files you want. you could just set it to chase lock, so when it sees incoming timecode, it rolls, when it doesn't, it stops. assuming that this will be an option in the RED settings, to allow timecode to roll only on record. My recommendation to RED would be to provide a simple dumb module that has a standard Beta slot-in opening on top, to allow the fitting of a Sony, Lectrosonics, etc... wireless receiver such as the Lectro SR... (but non-standard in that it would support stereo audio). That way, no other proprietary gain pots or connector methods would be required. Simply use the technology that is available now. RED is a camera company, not an audio company, and I'm sure they are smart enough to stick to what they do best. FYI, the RED One's audio board is NOT a stellar design, so from an audio standpoint, I feel RED is still at a catch up and learn the standards perspective and not in a position to push something progressive with respect to audio.