What is the best way to wirelessly feed audio to the Weapon?

[Wynn Padula]

I keep working with sound recordists that can't send an audio feed to my new Weapon. Is there a cheap product out there that I could purchase and loan to sound recordists, so that they can feed my weapon an audio signal? Keep in mind that the new Weapon has a single stereo mini-port that records to the 3/4 channel.

Thanks!


Wynn




Wynn Padula
San Francisco based Director of Photography
www.wynnpadula.com

 

[Randall Weatherington]

You are pretty much going to need a wireless receiver that is compatible with their equipment.
Short of acquiring a collection of wireless receivers, you should get together with your sound person and see if they have a spare receiver you can mount with the camera.
Most can be plugged into the mini jack, but might be mono.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I used a Lectrosonics SRb receiver for years, and found a similar-sized battery pack for it that would power it for 12 continuous hours. I came up with a fairly painless strapping/velcro system that would keep the Lectro on the side of a Red camera without getting in the operator's way, and I had special cables made of the exact length needed for Red (and another set for Alexa and Canon). Be aware that 2 Lectro transmitters and 1 Lectro receiver are nominally about $4K. But these are generally rock-solid reliable and worth the money. You can also rent them fairly inexpensively, maybe $60-$80/day in large cities.

Cheaper camera hops are possible, but the issues there are that they're going to be less robust in terms of interference and they'll sound crappy. The Lectros are all digital, plus you can beef up the transmitters to 250mW, which will easily go a city block under most conditions.

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

Marc's recommendation is absolutely the best and if you can swing it, go with that.

If you need a cheaper solution, I use the Rode Filmmaker lav kit. It's $400usd and uses a different wireless frequency than majority of professional lav systems which makes it ideal as a camera hop. It will have issues here and there, but honestly it's been more reliable than an old g2 pack I used to use. Make sure to map 1 or 2 channels to the internal mic for scratch just in case the lav has interference and goes down without you noticing. I had to learn that one the hard way and pissed off some assistant editors before.

 

[WesG]

Have to lodge a vote against Rode's Filmmaker kit. We bought three of them for a doc and they were hopeless. Constant drop outs within short ranges. We worked with the Rode tech team online here in Aust and did a whole range of tests - performance was poor and we had to ditch all three as seemingly unless for professional use.

Would recommend you spend the extra and go with a more established product from Sony, Sennheiser - or definitely Lectro if you can afford

cheers
wes

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Why does nobody tackle the Superslot Weapon module?


Pat

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

On the cheap you can look into wireless AV transmitter for home theater systems. I've done similar things with my Paralinx Wireless system and just sent audio HDMI. You need HDMI/Audio converters on each end though.

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

Have to lodge a vote against Rode's Filmmaker kit. We bought three of them for a doc and they were hopeless. Constant drop outs within short ranges. We worked with the Rode tech team online here in Aust and did a whole range of tests - performance was poor and we had to ditch all three as seemingly unless for professional use.

Would recommend you spend the extra and go with a more established product from Sony, Sennheiser - or definitely Lectro if you can afford

cheers
wes

Crazy how different my experience has been. Worked with them all over the states and never had any actual dropouts. We did run into low-level interference but it was just used for a more reliable scratch track so the editors could automate syncing by waveform. I use the kit for one-man-band interviews but those are very controlled environments and very short distance.

Going higher cost from one of the established products removes this variable for sure!

 

[Marc Wielage]

I continue to be baffled by people who will buy a $50,000 camera, and then scoff at paying $4000 for sound gear and instead opt for a $500 solution. C'mon, guys.

One big, big issue with wireless hops is if the camera operator uses a remote focus unit and/or a Teradek or similar wireless video assist system, those wreak havoc on sound receivers. At the right frequencies, the Lectros can survive just fine, provided you do a scan ahead of time and find a clear frequency. It's not automatic, but once you set it it's typically good all day long, or until you change locations (whichever comes first).

 

[Clint Lealos]

Not super cheap, but this Zaxcom IFB Tx/Rx system does it all. https://zaxcom.com/products/ifb200/ We use it to send a scratch track and timecode from the audio mixer. The Zaxcom receivers are tiny, lightweight, and 2 lithium AA batts will last a couple days. The output is the same 3.5mm jack as the Weapon audio input. Also the Zaxcom IFB200 transmiter can internally record a backup to a microSD card.

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I continue to be baffled by people who will buy a $50,000 camera, and then scoff at paying $4000 for sound gear and instead opt for a $500 solution. C'mon, guys.

To be fair, I think he's looking for a scratch audio solution, no need to go crazy for that personally.

 

[Matthew J]

Try and find a used Senngeiser G2 kit like this (Sennheiser ew 100 G2 Wireless Mic System w/ SK100 transmitter, EK100 Receiver) They are great little packs and work really nicely. I bought my set used 8 years ago and they are still working fantastically. You might get an RF hit here and there but without buying a super pricy multi band set, that's what you'll get. If you just want it for reference audio you can't go wrong.

 

[David W. Jones]

To be fair, I think he's looking for a scratch audio solution, no need to go crazy for that personally.

In Marc's defense, the OP did ask for "the best way" without mention for intended use of source audio. I also realize the OP asked for a cheap solution. But there was no mention of budget.

 

[Nick Fury]

In Marc's defense, the OP did ask for "the best way" without mention for intended use of source audio. I also realize the OP asked for a cheap solution. But there was no mention of budget.

This questions reemerges frequently enough. The best thing is to listen to Marc. The second best is to rent, say the Zaxcom system, with other wireless on camera kit, in a metro/dirty interference locus and compare to what else is available and then define what "cheap" really is, in this application. The Zaxnet transmitted, calibrated timecode, at all the usual rates, is a significant bonus, though not in the OP's request list. The investment in what a high quality sound system, is one of the most rewarding that one can make, especially, as Marc has reiterated many, many times, with high digit camera gear as a starting point...

Thank you very much

Fury

 

[Marc Wielage]

To be fair, I think he's looking for a scratch audio solution, no need to go crazy for that personally.

The $4000 Lectro solution I used for years was for scratch audio. The main audio recording system was much, much more costly. I just didn't want to compromise and give them a crappy, tinny-sounding feed that might occasionally have dropouts and RF hits.

Renting a system (or hiring an experienced sound mixer who owns a decent system) is always a much more affordable way to go than buying lots of audio gear.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

In defense of the cheaper audio solution, it's radically changes the possibility for audio waveform sync with external sound if the sound waves are coming from the same source. Scratch audio from the camera mic won't always be perfect for waveform syncing and if there are two or three clips that aren't syncing in the automated process it takes time finding those and manually syncing them. Improving the accuracy of this process can be an extreme time saver for post production.

The $4000 Lectro solution I used for years was for scratch audio. The main audio recording system was much, much more costly. I just didn't want to compromise and give them a crappy, tinny-sounding feed that might occasionally have dropouts and RF hits.

Renting a system (or hiring an experienced sound mixer who owns a decent system) is always a much more affordable way to go than buying lots of audio gear.

I would never pay $4000 for scratch audio, not today. Also, scratch audio isn't used much in editing anymore. You edit with the real audio files and then send those over to the sound designer. So the sync have to be perfect, but you never use scratch audio anymore other than for checking sync or helping sync.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I'm with Marc on this. It's disturbing to give the director a headphone to review the clip and have to explain that he has to forget the drop outs. If your sound is good on the end of the chain (camera in this case) you can be confident it's good on every step. If you have drop outs in the camera you will have to check all your chain from the talent lavalier. Now if you are the DP, director and sound guy... It's another story.

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

just went from gk3 to l series, insane difference in quality, I usually use it to take a feed from a mixer for live events and record into a pix xlr

 

[Joel Voelker]

You need to work with different sound guys. Seriously. Any sound guy with a decent kit will be able to give you a scratch track to camera. If you're working with a sound kit that it so cheap as to not have the capability, then there's no sense in you spending thousands of dollars for a hop and you should just get something cheap.