Jay Windland
Forum Replies Created
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Not really. I have only used the old Beachtek units that were passive, so didn’t actually have preamps in them. I haven’t used the new ones. I did however just get back from demo’ing a Juicedlink DT454 in a local camera shop. It was awesome. They let me bring in my own shotgun mic and headphones to compare to the ART preamp, and there was really no comparison. You can crank the Juicedlink all the way with no audible noise floor. Crystal clear and a very strong signal. This little $69 unit is so going back.
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With regard to the “Why use a preamp?” and “You don’t need a preamp” comments – perhaps we are looking at two separate issues here. One is AGC disable, and the other is audio quality. These consumer grade external recorders (Zoom and Tascam) are not designed for film and video production. They are designed to record amplified music in practice sessions or on the road. That means strong signals going in and the ability to capture strong signals without turning the input gain very high. When you are recording dialog in a quiet setting with a lower output mic, you end up needing to crank the input gain all the way on the recorder to get a usable signal, even with proper mic placement and boom technique. This results in audible hiss from the relatively cheap internal preamps of the recorder. That’s why you need an external preamp when using a consumer grade external recorder. Granted you have camera mounted shotgun mics like the Rode Video Mic Pro that put out a very hot signal to combat this particular issue, but you aren’t going to use that to do location sound on a film.
All that being said, if your project demands audio be recorded in camera and you can’t control the gain (as on a 7D), the DT454 is really your best bet. I saw one sell used on eBay the other day for $235. Pretty sweet deal.
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Yeah, I’ve been scouring the web and audio catalogs, and there are tons of preamp models. Battery powered portable preamps are pretty few though. There is another cheap one by Nady that got some bad reviews, there is this one, then there is the Juicedlink models, and up from there to Sound Devices. Honestly though, I’ve just been testing this unit with different mics for the last few hours and it is so-so. There is an exact spec for preamp self-noise called Equivalent Input Noise, or EIN, but to be less precise, I would say this: DSLR preamps completely suck, my Tascam DR-40 is a lot better than DSLR preamps, but still not good enough, and this ART preamp is better than the DR-40, but still not amazing. It may work as an irreducible minimum, but I’m still looking at Juicedlink…and maybe even Sound Devices. I just really hate preamp hiss.
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I just picked up an ART USB Dual Pre and am so far really happy with the preamp quality. Low output wired lavs and dynamic mics get a nice big boost of quiet gain, it runs on 9V and it was only $69. I haven’t fed my DSLR or audio recorder with it yet (I literally just got it) but the preamps sound great through my studio headphones. There are no mounting options like on the Juicedlink units, so I was thinking of mounting it with a super clamp and friction arm. More testing to be done first though.
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Lame. I also tried assigning it as a Job Action in Compressor 4 and it again sits there. I’m wondering if it is possible that Apple just broke a somewhat major function with a new update and no one has noticed.
So here is my real question: Is blu ray out working for anyone on FCPX 10.0.3 or Compressor 4.0.2? If so, somebody speak up. Are you doing anything different?
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I’m experiencing the exact same thing right now with 10.0.3. It never happened to me on 10.01. It always worked. I skipped 10.0.2. Did anything resolve for you on this?
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Interesting. I’ll check into those conversion paths. To answer the questions though:
Re: Footage – Yes, it is native DSLR footage, so no timecode.
Re: Why not edit in X? In this case, the director, who also wrote the script, is also editing. It was a small project and we divied up duties before considering exact workflows. He is an Adobe user, but less experienced in grading than I am. I’m more of a shooter than an editor, but have spent a fair amount of time recently learning to grade my images in FCPX. So, learning a tool as comprehensive as AE to grade a five minute short with no budget isn’t going to be practical. DaVinci Resolve does look very exciting and would probably fit perfectly for future projects, but again, there will be a learning curve.
So while I will definitely check out 7toX and Automatic Duck, I’m wondering how these would compare to simply exporting the project in ProRes and grading in FCPX. Any downsides you could think of vs converting the project?
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All very good advice. I didn’t realize it was so affordable to have a phone consultation with an IP lawyer. I’ll check that out. In the meantime, I think I will starting tagging “alternative shots” where there are no people or locations that I don’t personally have a release form for (all the releases I get have the agency’s name rather than mine). And if all else fails, I think I could go for an extended private demo reel that I could password protect and send directly to prospective clients. Thanks for the ideas.
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Never mind. Issue solved – I didn’t actually have the latest version running on either OS. I had found the latest version to run on Lion, but a later version (2.10) was required to support the T3i. That later version was not Lion compatible (strange, as they lost compatibility in later versions of the utility) but did run on Windows. Hopefully this will be useful info to someone.