URGENT : Do you Have Solution to this LEVEL Problem

[Stephen Strangways]

Stephen, I do have kind of an idea how to run sound. IMDB shows parts of projects I was on. That's what sent my kid to college, and it wasn't a cheap one ;-)
Question to you: did you ever run sound with this camera? Was this a paid job - meaning your reputation was on line? How did you monitor audio on this camera?

Karl, while my post on this thread may have come directly after yours, I was simply adding my view on recording method to this thread, and not responding directly to what you posted, nor calling your credentials into question.

To answer your questions: Yes, I record sound with the RED ONE on a regular basis, yes, they are paid jobs where my reputation is on the line, and as for monitoring audio:

1) I regularly work for a company that owns a RED ONE, which I know has a new audio board, is running whatever firmware build I have personally installed, and I get plenty of time to run audio tests with it before shoots. This makes everything a lot easier than facing an unknown rental camera at the start of the day.

2) If you are asking about monitoring in terms of seeing level meters, sometimes a shoot allows me to see the camera's LCD and monitor the level meters there.

If that's not possible, I've already set my output levels on my mixer (or used a pad) so I know that if my mixer is clipping, so is the camera. All I care about is 0dBFS and clipping, not the 0dBu reference mark.

I monitor levels on my mixer, and can use the limiter to ensure I never clip the camera. I've already checked to make sure that's properly setup.

3) If you are asking about monitoring the audio with headphones, I haven't had any problems there. A few times I've just plugged headphones directly into the camera headphone jack, and by raising the headphone volume in the camera menu, I get more than enough volume to monitor in most environments.

In most cases, I've been further away and not monitoring level meters on the camera's LCD, so I run a cable from the headphone jack to the monitor return on the mixer, and can easily set the monitor gain to get a good headphone volume level. I check the return on a regular basis, but mostly listen to the mixer because it's cleaner.

(EDIT - you can also use the TA5M audio out for the monitor return, but I've just used what I have handy.)

Like you, I'm using Sound Devices equipment, 302, 442, MM-1.

 

[Karl Lohninger]

Stephen, you essentially describe standard procedure.

I'm now trying to find the serial number of the camera I encountered a few weeks ago. Something seemed to be very very different. I hope I can get the information. It's puzzling, to say the least.

 

[Stephen Strangways]

While it may not have come up in this thread, I often see people getting hung up on where a 0dBu reference tone falls on the camera's level meter witness mark, and those witness marks have changed with different firmware builds.

I think that approach is a holdover from the analogue recording days, and all that really matters with digital is where it clips at 0dBFS. That also makes the witness mark changes far less important.

On another note... Whether the old or new audio board is in use does make a difference. Cameras shipped prior to Sept 15th 2008, may have an earlier revision of the audio board, but I don't what serial numbers that covered, and it is possible (or hopefully likely) that those earlier cameras have since been sent in for an upgrade.

The new audio boards should accept normal line level, but the old audio boards needed cables with pads. I don't know what RED specified for the cables they made with pads, but Trew Audio chose to make cables with 12 dB pads for the old audio boards.

 

[Brian Ferguson]

We use 302 mixers here at RED, and they work great with the current builds and audio boards. I have used my 302 since audio was enabled and it has always worked well with the RED One. I went on a shoot on Feb 08 (one month into audio on the camera) where a audio guy was using a Wendt mixer and his tone was a good 10-12 dB hotter than my 302 both supposedly at line level. We switched to my 302 and the audio was fine. Some mixers put out a hotter than line signal but you could turn it down with the camera pot so no one ever called them on it, or somehow the owner turned up the output. In either case we had to get the shoot done so we swapped gear and kept shootimg. If I hadn't been the cameraman on the shoot and consulting with RED on testing audio, I never would have caught it.

If you feed standard line level 1K tone out of a 302 it will hit the hash mark on the VU provided you are not set on the +10 in the RED Line menu. If it doesn't something is probably wrong with the camera. I do this every week in demos for customers.

 

[Mike Paul]

The Wendt X5 mixer will output 0dbVU or 0dbPPM, depending upon which version of the X5 you have. If you connect one of each type to a "reference" input (say, a Red camera) and hit the Tone button on the X5, you will see a roughly 4db difference in where the tone lines up on your meter, with the VU version being the hotter of the two. If the output switch on the bottom panel of the X5 is switched to the summed position, the summed output will result in an additional 6db increase in gain at the Line Out (this is with the VU or PPM version).

Sound Devices mixers will match the PPM version of the X5 exactly, unless the output attenuation is activated on the Sound Devices mixer (look for the Amber illuminated "Ouput Atten" LED on the right side of the SD).

My assumption is that the Red meter calibration is of the PPM variety (which would be a wise choice).

 

[Karl Lohninger]

The serial number of the 'camera in question' is: no. 790.

And again, my problems were: a) when sending tone to set up gain stages, audio got into distortion quickly on the camera (checking the very same audio file on my SD 744 shows none of that. and b) headphone output from the camera is very low. Too low.

Other things that should be fixed - now that we're at it: TC settings get lost when camera gets powered off. TC display does not mirror actual TC numbers....? Onboard monitor shows more or less 'lucky numbers'. I was told by folks here that, TC is written correctly even though the numbers on the monitor show different. That should be noted in the manual as well as any other possible audio related 'idiosyncrasies' of the RED camera.

This camera in question at the time used was supposedly build 20 and had the 'new' audio board.

I do not own a camera and being a hired gun do generally not really have enough time to play with the latest version of this camera. Therefore there should be very clear documentation about what changed or is new with the camera.

ACs for the most part have neither interest nor clue about anything audio related including TC issues. They obviously have enough on their hands to keep the camera from overheating (easy - just kidding here. Ice packs used are for decoration purposes only) ;-)
OR: what about a link on RED's web site that keeps us updated with all issues audio, real or imagined.

Karl Lohninger
sound recording + editing
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0517905/

 

[Stuart English]

Audio reference

Audio reference

My assumption is that the Red meter calibration is of the PPM variety (which would be a wise choice).

That is correct - the hash mark indicating reference line input level on the RED ONE is at 0dBu, not 0dbVU.

And 0dBu = 0.755v RMS = -20dBFS