[John Fishback]

IMO the most important feature of a tripod is the head. How smooth can you pan and tilt as you’re operating? How steady is it when you come to a stop? I couldn’t tell from the website anything about the head. I suggest you actually put your camera on the tripod, test it out, and see how it feels.

I haven’t used the Sony wireless package, but the specs look very good for the price. You get diversity, frequency selection, variable rf output and a lav. The only downside is the unbalanced miniplug output. Just be sure you get a very high-quality jack and cable to go to your camcorder.

Again, I’ve never used the ECM-678, but its specs look good. I suggest you should think about getting a decent boom pole. You can mount the pole on a C-stand with a mafer clamp as long as the interviewee isn’t going to be moving around. This will let the interviewer concentrate on interviewing not holding steady a handheld mic.

If you’re looking to do serious sound, you’ll also need a serviceable mixer. However, that won’t happen with your current budget. Perhaps you’ll work with a soundman who has a mixer in his package. If you’re not experienced with sound, definitely hire a soundman (at least to begin). He or she will save you a lot of pain later.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

I couldn’t agree more with Scot. Have it done professionally. A lousy track will subjectively tell the audience the program is lousy. All the VOs people hear on radio and TV are professional. This is what they expect and when they don’t hear it they think something is wrong. A pro will not only save you time he or she might also save you a client.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

My work-around for this is to send tone from my audio console to FCP while in the capture/logging mode. Adjust so the reading of console’s meters and FCP’s meters are the same. Then, when you actually capture and FCP’s meters turn off, you just use the meters on your console to ride your levels.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

Checkout this thread that may offer some ideas to reduce the noise you are hearing:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=839315&forumid=8&postid=839510&pview=t

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

The sense of this thread was to address some audio challenges while editing. Of course the visual component is critical. I can’t count the number of times I’ve L-cut an edit to line up dialogue from a different take in an over-the-shoulder shot, or just replace a word or two from one take with audio from another. The best situation is having the best overall edit – visually and aurally.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

If you use ST Pro or a program like Sound Soap Pro, instead of trying to find a noise reduction setting that works for the entire clip, cut the clip into pieces. Cut the pieces so the sound you’re trying to remove stays the same throughout the clip. You have a better chance of removing the bkg sound that way since it is more constant. After doing that (it can be very time consuming) you might want to add some bkg noise back in to mask the clip-to-clip changes in bkg sound in the processed clips.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

I’ve been waiting for the answer to this question, too. It’s crazy that an app bundled with FCP doesn’t have a professional I/O (excuse the pun).

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

I have a ThinkPad running W2000 with the Interactual DVD player. It should work with your machine (I think). It’s a free download at https://www.interactual.com/

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

Is your audio very loud? Check your FCP audio meters. It’s possible you are hearing clipping distorsion because the audio level is too hot.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

Check this out: https://www.chv-plugins.com/motion.html

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.3.8 QT6.5.2
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP4.5 DVDSP 3.0.2
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG12.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.20
AJA IO driver 1.3.1 firmware v21-26
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors