[John Mcclary]

Any answers?

[John Mcclary]

If you set your input levels right (never use the “high” setting), then the modern Tascam DR-60 mkii, Dr-70D mkii, or DR-701 noise levels are very usable (unlike the older models). However, the Zoom F4/F8 have really good preamps. Your other option is to use a separate preamp like a Sound Designs DigiPre or the Juicedlink Riggy or BMC388 and then use your line inputs instead.

John McClary

[John Mcclary]

An investment in someone to always monitor the audio levels (or at least the cameraman) – with a good set of headphones – is an investment that you will appreciate in post production. The only way you can ignore your audio levels when recording is if you set good starting levels AND have fairly expensive limiting equipment (only the best stuff like the limiters in Sound Designs preamps are undetectable).

Instead, if you cannot arrange/afford an extra person to ride the audio levels, try setting a good level at rehearsal and then record TWO tracks of every audio source with the second one recorded 6-10dB lower. This way, if at any point they are louder than the rehearsal then you will have a second copy recording at a safe level to use in post production. Surprisingly, the inexpensive 4-track recorders like the Tascam DR-60/70D/701 all do dual-track recording (though they eat the batteries) as do the Zoom H5/H6/F4. All these have digital limiters, unfortunately.

John McClary

[John Mcclary]

Bob, have you looked into the AWS Storage Gateway Virtual appliance? The throughput there (when using compression) seems decent with something like Google gig service because it’s iSCSI. Of course, fast throughput demands CPU cores, SSDs, and RAM like any server.

John McClary

J. McClary
Productionline Media

[John Mcclary]

h.265 would be a good answer since you are backing up a lot of HD video. From an archivist point of view, duplicating footage to a NAS is not technically archiving footage – just having a backup copy. Plus, if you are looking to repurpose the footage later, h.264 may be too lossy to be used as resolutions go up in the future (4K and beyond – just like digibeta can repurposed but VHS… isn’t). It’s more of a delivery codec than a mastering or archive codec like ProRes can be or JPEG2000.

If this is footage that is going to sit a long time until/unless it’s needed, might I suggest Amazon Glacier storage or LTO as a better archival medium? Both are long-term storage options that are less likely to die on you (the more drives you have spinning, the less time you have statistically between drive failures even if they don’t take your storage down). However, if you’re accessing it frequently then NAS is a great solution.

J. McClary
Productionline Media

[John Mcclary]

Short answer – use the “Pitch” setting in the Properties panel that pops up when you right-click the clip and select “Stretch->Stretch Properties…” This will get your music back up to the same pitch it was. But really, you stretched the length of time that it is playing – of course it’s slowed down. What you want to do is loop it by repeating the part of the music that you want to hear again in the same rhythm as before – that’s tougher than it sounds.

Of course, I’m probably being trolled here….

J. McClary
Productionline Media

[John Mcclary]

Another thought would be you use a plugin filter that synthesizes harmonics up and down the frequency range like Waves MaxxBass or Renaissance Bass (or adding some tasteful distortion) and use that to add the impression that the lower bass is there. With some EQ boost or even the right amount of white/pink noise across the breakpoint (around 200-300Hz), it can help. But yes – making frequencies louder that smaller speakers can’t reproduce anyway doesn’t help.

J. McClary
Productionline Media

[John Mcclary]

Audition is intended to edit audio AFTER the picture and synced audio are locked. When you decide to bring in your OMF with handles (extra unseen audio on both sides of a clip), you are able to create landscapes of audio and multitrack sessions with edits down to sample accuracy (48,000 with 48kHz audio) while syncing it to a video track. Fixing dialogue is a matter of manipulating edit points, room tone, alternate takes, and backgrounds, not editing timing. Audition is for manipulation and sweetening – but you did get it in CC for free, right?

Pro Tools doesn’t edit video either. But if it’s what you’re looking for, buy it with an interface to get the best deal. But it’s not free…

J. McClary
Productionline Media

[John Mcclary]

I see what you’re saying – thank you for also including an example file 🙂 Having never opened a FCPX/Motion file before, I had no idea how clean the XML was inside. I was expecting a tangled mess….

John McClary

[John Mcclary]

I use AutoCat. It is cheap and will catalog drives by creating aliases. It’s quick, idiot-proof, and drives stay searchable by Spotlight over the network after you unmount them.
https://kebawe.com/autocat/

John McClary