Run n' Gun, from the ground up setup - advice needed.

[Steve Wall]

Hey guys,

Was hoping to get some advice on a DSMC2 run and gun doco audio build. This is a camera setup that's going to be torn down and reshaped on every given shoot day from underwater housing to gimbal, so developing an efficient onboard build for audio is vital to keeping things running smoothly.

I was looking at grabbing the SD Mix-Pre3/6 as an onboard preamp & recorder solution, and one that can be taken off camera when needed as well. Problem is, without HDMI trigger, and inbuilt TC i've got no proper way to roll the MixPre, and only the scratch track into the camera to pull it together in post later. Most of the time we would have 2 mic inputs, and occasionally a third, so running a pre-amp alone into the camera won't solve the problem.

Happy to run with a TC lockbox type solution, as long as it is not something which requires ongoing attention throughout a shoot day.

Will TC be maintained even when everything has been powered down - or does this need to be rejammed every time you power cycle the camera? Already stretched far enough having to run some of these shoots as a one man band, so efficiency is absolutely key here.

Any insight into a good workflow here will be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Tentacle Sync will be your best friend for timecode. If you get 2 of them...you'll never drift. One will be at your recorder side (if your sound recorder generates timecode), and then the other at the camera side.

 

[David Peterson]

Get either a Tentacle Sync E or an Ultrasync ONE, they're the two best TC options on the planet at the moment in my belief.

The MixPre3 and MixPre6 lack a timecode generator, thus you'll need to buy two TC boxes. Otherwise only one is needed if you are getting a Zoom F8n or MixPre10T.

Then buy a Sony UWP-D11 wireless to use as a cheap camera hop for scratch audio as a back up. And as you have a DSMC2 body then you can use the internal mics as a third layer of insurance for sync. Between all three of these methods you should always be sorted with a sync option that doesn't involve visually syncing by eye the clapper board for each and every take.

Any time you power cycle the camera, or even leave it on for a little while doing nothing... then the camera absolutely will drift and be inaccurate!

But this is exactly why you have a TC box attached to the camera.

So that no matter what the camera does (hopefully, if the camera manufacturer doesn't screw it up....) then it will always automatically get synced up instantly from the attached TC box. So no, you shouldn't need to worry about rejamming if the TC box is permanently attached and set up right.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

Thanks I like the last video where you showed the ultrasync one on the red.