What NOT to read about audio

[Arnold F.]

There is an article on the Zacuto website sensationally entitled, "Is Wireless Dead?" that gets it more wrong than anything I have ever seen written about sound. It compares apples to oranges, grossly oversimplifies and misunderstands Production Sound workflows so badly it's hard for me to process. Why a camera gear company would have an article about sound I don't understand in the first place - it helps to perpetuate the idea that we are also responsible for sound . Imagine an article on a sound gear website entitled "Are Lenses Dead?" A) No, B) not the concern of audio.

 

[CK Olsen]

I haven't read the article, but FWIW, Zacuto started out as a full service production rental house (providing camera, lighting, AND audio gear), and only after years of rental/production, began to supplement their rental division with camera gear design/sales. The owner(s?) are active production guys, so they use a lot of new gear/technology from many vendors personally... and in addition they have the opportunity to see the needs of their rental customer base, so are in a fairly sweet position to review gear, see forming trends, and comment on them.
That being said, if you have an issue with an article on their site, I am not really sure why you are bringing your comments HERE to RedUser instead of sharing directly with them...
-CK

 

[Arnold F.]

lol...wasn't expecting that response (I guess we all have bad days) and it isn't a discussion about audio, just a heads up because we are generally not Production Mixers here. There are many such informative posts here on a variety of topics.

I did send Zacuto an email as well as I know they have only good intentions.

If the guys at Zacuto once rented Zoom recorders the article is no less problematic. If the theoretical sound equipment company I used as an example once rented HVX's, an article asking if the use of lenses is "dead" would still be just as misguided. I think we'd also wonder why a manufacturer of sound equipment has articles on lenses. Nothing to discuss here, just a heads up to watch out for some wrong information on a website many of us probably visit every once in a while. Rock on.

 

[Marc Wielage]

This is a horrifyingly ignorant article. Anyone in the business will tell you that all professional movies routinely use wireless all the time. A recent article on War Horse mentions that they used up to 12 simultaneous wireless mikes on this production -- and Spielberg is a very traditional guy, not a radical technology user.

The problems with putting recorders on actors include 1) battery life, 2) size and weight, 3) sound quality, 4) reliability, and 5) the inability to monitor the mike. If the lav is moved or has a lot of noise in it, you'll never know until after you play the recording. If it's a wireless mike and you hear a mike placement problem, you can immediately stop the take and fix the problem.

There are some advanced wireless systems, like Zaxcom's, which build in an integrated digital recorder to the transmitter, but those are intended mainly for backup, or in cases where the wireless system has a momentary dropout or interference.

The other big issue with putting recorders on actors is, instead of having one big multitrack file for all the actors on set, now you have one separate file per actor which has to be brought into the editing timeline at a time. Also, a self-contained recorder will not have scene & take metadata, plus it won't start at the beginning of the scene and stop at the end. This is not an efficient sound workflow, in my opinion.

Wireless microphone systems are very, very important in modern film, TV, and documentary production. But so are boom microphones. Many experienced sound mixers will point out that a good boom mike, placed correctly, provides the most accurate sound quality of anything. Merely slapping a lavaliere mike on every actor is rarely the best way to approach a scene.