Jean-christophe Boulay
Forum Replies Created
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I second Alain, here. The SM57 and SM58 are absolutely identical apart from the SM58 having an integrated windscreen. The 58 is geared for vocals, but can replace a 57 anytime, while the contrary is less true. The difference in price between the two is less than the cost of the extra windscreen accessory for the 57, also. Both are absolutely indestructible. If you get an SM58, you’ll be passing it on to your grandchildren.
If you’re going to be recording only voice overs, though, I think you should look into the less expensive condenser mics available. In the last few years, the quality in the lower price range has become quite impressive. You can get an AudioTechnica AT2020 for around 100$, Studio Projects have a large-diaphragm condenser for a little over 100$, even AKG are playing on that field with the Perception line. This type of side-adress medium or large-diaphragm condenser is more suited for voice overs. You sacrifice some versatility and roll-over-it-with-a-car-yet-still-work-ability compared to the Shure SM line, but it would give fuller, warmer VO’s in the proper conditions.
IHTH,
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
That folder holds the installation receipts for the content you installed on that drive. The receipts for the main FCS apps went to your system’s Library. I find that kind of screwy, as Apple should’ve expected people to install the Additional Content in a location other than their system drive. There isn’t much you can do about it. Moving receipts is a bad idea, as they are what the system looks at to determine which versions of which software are installed and for permission repairs in Disk Utility.
You’ll have to learn to live with that Library folder in the middle of your nice organized HDD structure.
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Hi Zach,
Beyond the pure technical aspects of your question, I think you’re missing a much broader workflow question: camera sound is only one ingredient used in the production of the final sound track. The more focused the camera sound is, the more flexible it is for the mix and, normally, the better the final mix can be.
Recording audio in stereo on set is one great way to ensure your audio mixer hates you. We like focused recordings: each talent on his own lav mono feed, ideally, and a mono boom mic feed of the overall dialog. We can edit tightly inside a take with that, place stuff where it should be (as opposed to where it was when you taped it), take decisions on backgrounds and ambiances… If you record to stereo or, god-forbid, surround on set, any sound mixer will be stuck inside that perspective and will probably end up taking out a mono feed from your multichannel tracks so he can do his thing properly. You’ll have wasted time and ressources on your multichannel recording.
Things that should be recorded stereo include ambiances, room tones… basically the canvas onto which we’ll be placing the dialog and effects. For example, your crowd example would be a good stereo recording candidate.
Surround recording really should be left to experts and it’s rather pointless to invest time and money for this on set. There’s every chance the mixer would use a surround ambiance from a professional library, which requires much less work, so costs you much less money. Mind you, your stereo crowd would probably suffer the same fate, unless they are chanting something specific that I don’t have in the 200-plus crowd sounds I have in my library.
As for your live performance example, if you’re talking about a music performance, you’re getting into highly specialized territory. That is much more in the realm of live music recording and is a whole other world. You really have to know your sound to start playing on that field.
IHTH,
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Sorry, can’t help you on the iPhone interfacing. I’m still resisting my inclusion into The Hive. I have an application to record calls on my Android phone in mp3 format, so I imagine something similar would exist for iPhone, unless that somehow violates Apple’s terms.
IHTH
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Hi Aidan,
Gold-plated optical cables, huh? That is one of the funniest things I’ve seen. The part they gold-plate is usually made of plastic! These cables have zero electronic contact!
Right off the bat, no modern digital connection benefits from gold plating.The vast majority of “high-end digital cables” for consumer formats are a pure scam. In digital formats, signal degradation is not really a concern. It takes major degradation for a digital signal to suffer and optical cables are not subject to RF interferences.
Incidentally, the best optical cables I have are some of the cheapest. They’re the really thin ones with minimal shielding. You know those scary-thin optical cables that you look at the first time and think “I’ll break those in a minute, I’ll buy some expensive ones instead”? Those. They don’t pull on the plug, they’re a perfect balance of supple and rigid… they do the job perfectly.
I think mine are from some Korean semi-no-name brand which I don’t remember. There is no reason to go overboard with optical cables. If you get any signal at all, you are getting full-quality signal.
IHTH
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Hi Adam,
That does sound like the type of thing DiskWarrior may well be able to fix. If I understand correctly, when you plug your array in, you get the “Disk Not Readable” error, you see the array in Disk Utility, but the only partition on it is grayed out and starts with “disk”?
When I get situations like that, the drive is listed in DiskWarrior as “Unknown Disk”. A rebuild of that normally gets me right back up. The drive mounts if you see it in DU, so it’s really funky if DW doesn’t see it. Have you tried firing up DW before plugging the drive in? I’ve read of people finally seeing stealthy drives this way. My next move would probably be to boot from the DW disk and keep the array plugged in to see if DW will see it from outside your OS.
Your problem sounds like a classic directory issue so it’s just a matter of getting the Unknown Disk to appear in DW. If you don’t see it from another boot, I’d try other computers with different configs. This problem is so frustrating when you know all your data is probably OK but can’t get the drive fixed for some reason.
Good luck!
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
If the final output is to DVD and BluRay, you’ll probably be creating AC3 files with the 5.1 audio mix. The audio should be bounced to discrete channels. From those audio files, you can create the AC3’s using Compressor or whatever encoder you use.
I think you should import that audio to your FCP project as well, so there is a final completed project to archive for later revisions. Just import the discrete channel mixes to your FCP project. They will be identified with tags in the filename (“Filename.L.aif” for example) so you can place the correct audio on the correct channel. Channel assignment depends on the delivery format so isn’t too critical for you, since the delivery is AC3. If you don’t know what assignments to use, SMPTE302M is what most people expect these days. That is 1.L, 2.R, 3.C, 4.LFE, 5.Ls, 6.Rs, 7.Lt/Lo, 8. Rt/Ro.
So you just need a multi-mono bounce of the audio and you place the channels as needed in FCP and for the AC3 conversion.
IHTH,
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
If Jeff’s tip of booting while holding down the mouse button doesn’t work, you’re going to have to channel your inner McGuiver. If you slide down the faceplate to see the front of the actual drive, you may be lucky enough to find a pinhole below the disc tray. Apple use more than one optical drive model in their desktops, so you may or may not have one on yours. If you have a pinhole, stick a paper clip in there and it’ll mechanically push out the tray.
If you don’t have a pinhole, you may be able to see where the drive’s Eject button used to be before it was ripped off to fit inside the case, on the lower right of the drive’s front panel. This is usually hidden just behind the computer’s case. If you see that, there may be a button stub hidden in there. I’ve managed to reach it with a bent paper clip when in a situation like yours and the drive opened up immediately. Some other drives I’ve seen in Macs still have a complete eject button. Basically, you want direct access to the drive’s controls, as it’s software that is preventing the drive from opening right now. Some drives have neither of these two lifesavers. In that case, you could take the drive out of the case and try to figure something else out, or take your machine down to the shop to get a CD out of the tray.
Good luck!
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
That logic holds up. It should work perfectly. I personally have an external drive with a basic OS installation with DW and other troubleshooting tools. Plug that in, boot from that drive and DW your system drive. That’s all.
Note that you shouldn’t do this with pre-10.3 Mac OS installations. Not that much of an issue anymore, mind you…
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Hi Adam,
On Tascam’s downloads site, there are drivers available in distinct 64-bit and 32-bit versions. The latest 2.02 version is only available for 64-bit systems. Windows XP 64-bit was a very marginal release and very few people are running it. I doubt that’s what you’re running, as you’d know from all the hoops you’d have to jump through every day. I think you’re simply trying to install 64-bit drivers to a 32-bit system. The Vista laptop might be running Vista in 64-bit, which is much more common. Try installing the 32-bit 1.14 driver version from https://tascam.com/product/us-122mkii/downloads/.
IHTH,
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com