[Craig Alan]

I would use a field mixer that will allow you mic level in with phantom for your mike and line level in from the house board then output to your cam using line level. This will give you a lot more control. If this is not an option than everything Peter says makes sense but I would also get a pad with a variable 10/20/30 in case 40 is too much.

I am also pretty certain that channel one and two can be set independenently with the option of input one being used for both channels. From the manual:

Using the XLR terminals
1. Connect a microphone to one of the XLR
terminals.
To supply a microphone with phantom power, set the
corresponding switch to ON. Make sure to
connect the microphone first, before turning the
phantom power on. Keep the microphone connected
when turning off the phantom power.
2. Open the menu and select [AUDIO SETUP].
Select [CH1 INPUT] or [CH2 INPUT], and
select a setting option.
• Select [XLR MIC] or [XLR LINE] for channel 1 or
channel 2.
• When using the XLR terminal to record to only one
channel, use the CH1 input terminal and set [CH1
INPUT] to [XLR MIC] or [XLR LINE].
3. From the [AUDIO SETUP] menu, select [XLR REC CH], select a setting option and
close the menu.
Select [CH1] to record on channel 1 the audio from the CH1 input terminal or [CH1/CH2] to record the
audio on both channels.
4. If necessary, turn on the microphone attenuator (20 dB) by setting the corresponding
switch to ATT.
The microphone attenuator will only be effective when the input is set to [XLR MIC].
5. If necessary, adjust the gain of the input signal. Open the menu and select [AUDIO
SETUP]. Select [XLR 1 TRIM] or [XLR 2 TRIM], depending on the audio input you want
to adjust. Select a setting option and close the menu.
The gain adjustment will only be effective when the input is set to [XLR MIC].

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I need to learn a workflow for them as well. My need comes from sharing media drives among different groups of users in a lab. You can password protect a sparse image and the content will not load in FCP X until the sparse image is opened/mounted. The project files are already protected on the system drive by having user accounts. But OS X has always been iffy when it comes to assigning permissions to external drives.

I need to figure out an efficient way to open and close the user accounts and mount and unmount the sparse images that “belong” to them. I got a copy of Apple Remote Desktop. Hopefully this will do the trick but I’m new to using ARD. It would be great if I could learn to automate the process: unmount, log out, log in, mount (to 30 stations at once).

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

unchecked that option and now all posts show up.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

what’s the model #. google will find the specs. some go flex are 7200 but I still see no mention of buffer. It kind of smells of not being up to editing specs. you can always use it as a back up drive.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Most old school professionals in any craft will have similar observations about the state of their craft/art. Even music producers. Dynamic range anyone? Yes educational institutions are heavily oriented towards computer labs. It’s fairly easy to set up 35 computers with a pro program and teach students to use it and “produce” product. Then the schools can claim to have a “state of the art” production lab. But how do you give 200 students the opportunity set up a three input or five input shoot and ride the levels on an audio mixer during a live performance? Or trouble shoot an audio problem on location? Almost all film students learn how to edit. How many actually learn the craft of directing? A hand full in each class. Directing vocab yeah. Actually dealing with real world crews and talent and the elements … a few. In the old days, you did not learn this stuff in school. You learned it by getting a gig under a pro in the field.

It seemed to me like Shuling was experimenting and was working with a chain of tools that had a broken link. They couldn’t get the sound in the ballpark to begin some fine-tuning. Using your ears and fine tuning the result or adjusting as conditions change is the craft/art. But it can be very frustrating when a piece of gear you have no experience with just won’t play nice. When our sound devices 302s first arrived, learning how to adjust the output levels by pressing a combination of two small buttons on the front panel and watching the LEDs was a bit less than intuitive. If someone or a tutorial can help me get in the ballpark then through experience and experimentation and listening I can learn the rest.

What bothers me more is that so many will be perfectly happy with good enough and once they are in the ballpark that is all that they ever care to do. When we play recordings back I will comment on a voice with perfectly good levels sounding muddy or thin and that the same levels will not produce the same quality for each talent. Truth is this is a collaborative art form and your talent has to help with audio quality as much as your boom operator. But you know if you’re the audio pro its on your head. In a truly enjoyable production, everyone communicates with each other to produce the best moments possible. The director allows the audio engineer and lighting designer to work out problems and perfect the look and sound. Or you can just decide its good enough and leave it all to the editor to make it sing.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Brian,

I doubt an audio pro was being hired for this shoot. Lots of folk, myself included, are generalists and use a variety of prosumer level gear that sometimes plays nice and sometimes does not. The FP33 line level out is not the line level that many cams can handle. Different devices are using different “standards.”

And sometimes with every setting seemingly correct some menu item in a new piece of gear fouls things up.

If I were to post a question on the AVID forum on the best codec to output a pro res time line in order to burn a SD DVD, I would not expect someone to tell me I’m not qualified to be a compressionist.

I understand that this forum is titled for audio professionals. But if you took all the threads that were clearly started by non-specialists in any forum in which they were posted, I would guess that the cow would have a very very small percentage of its current threads and traffic in general.

I always tell my students that IF they can afford one pro on a film they want to make, “hire an audio engineer.”
Most films can’t afford this luxury. So the next logical thing to do is research and test test test, in order to learn how to use the gear they have well enough to end up with usable or better audio. And if they ask me where they can start that research, I would point them to this forum. If they were to ask me how to find an audio engineer for their projects, I would do the same.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

If you want to use line level out the FP33 you could try an xlr pad on both right and left. I know when I used the FP33 that line level was too hot for my prosumer cams. The pad fixed this and sent a stronger but not clipping signal to my cam. But if the signal is being sent wirelessly to the camera then the Shure’s output does not determine the signal being sent to the cam. So what you are saying sounds correct.

Did you use the G3 handheld plug to send the wireless signal to the camera? I’ve been meaning to try that. Do you loose any of the audio quality of the mixer by doing this? Does calibration still work for monitoring during the shoot? The reason I ask is that the meters on the G3s are no where near as good as those on our mixer.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

“The prob goes away when mixer n cam r hardwired instead.”

Meaning not using wireless mikes or not using wireless signal to camcorder? or both?

Since you were saying the mike level out/in was too hot and line level out/in too low, it might be that you have the switch reversed and line level out to mike level in was producing the distortion. And vice versa: mike level out would be too low for a line level in.

Try calling Lectronics Phone: (800) 821-1121 and ask for tech. support.

Here’s general advice for setting up levels for wireless mikes to mixer to camcorder but I have not used wireless to camcorder.
You start at the talent and work your way to the recorder (in this case the camcorder).

start with the source — that is the settings on your wireless mic transmitter. Make sure when the talent is speaking at the highest performance volume that the meter on the transmitter reads in a good high range but without clipping.

Then move to your receivers and make sure its meter reads in the sweet spot as well. adjust as needed.

Then make sure your receiver’s output is set to the right line/mic setting (usually line) to match the input of your mixer. Adjust output level so the mixers meters with the pot at 12 o’clock on the mixer reads in the sweet spot.

Then set a tone out your mixer and calibrate your cam. Again usually you’d go line level out to line level in. Calibrate so that 0 out of mixer is -20 on camera though you might want to leave a little extra headroom so that variation in the talents’ volume will not exceed peak. Once calibrated you ride levels on mixer not camcorder.

Your approach to both monitor with headphones and watch the meters is correct. Does not make sense that line level was too low and mic level was too hot. Make sure you monitor with headphones out the camcorder. That’s your recorder. You can send the headphone out to your mixer with a rtn cable.

Also be sure that you have not accidentally sent phantom power to mikes if the cordless kit already provided that. Or that you sent T power instead or phantom power.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

So a single sata 7200 rpm 800 firewire drive can handle two streams of video but a single sata 7200 rpm thunderbolt can’t? That doesn’t make sense. Are you sure its 7200 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/858956-REG/Seagate_1TB_GoFlex_for_Mac.html
says its 5400 but maybe different model?

and no mention of buffer.

My guess is there are single thunderbolt drives that can handle 2 streams of video.

I notice cal digit makes a portable one that can swap out drives and can accept ssd drives as well.

looks pretty cool but I’m sure its more money.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Interesting that the one that did not “apply” still played back on the Mac. I read a number of years ago how to burn a HD DVD on a SD DVD that would play back on Macs but not elsewhere.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hd_dvds_on_sd_dvds_young.html

As far as improving on the “best quality” setting: I don’t know. There are folks who make a living as compressionists But the whole thing is crazy. When BLU RAY won the war with HD DVD as the standard for HD DVDs we all lost. Apple wouldn’t go for it due to the excessive fees being asked for Blu Ray production (and they are high) and we were left without a replacement for SD DVDs. But it is very easy to play back HD files directly from a computer or video recorder and ridiculous to watch this stuff on SD DVDs.

But try this: https://forums.creativecow.net/appledvdstudiopro

And if you do improve on your best quality settings please update here — would be interested to know. SD DVDs well mastered do look better but seems like a lot of time consuming work for something that is still SD no matter what you do.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.