[Tim Dowse]

For what it’s worth, I of course agree with Ty that it’s never a good idea to leave levels unattended. One of my much earlier posts seemed to suggest that I leave levels unattended, which I don’t. Even when I’m shooting alone.

Jakob, as I stated, I’ve been happy with the R44, but I don’t have a direct comparison with your mixer, or indeed a much cheaper ~$700 mixer as per my original question. For my purposes, the R44 is certainly good. I am not an audiophile, and I’m sure pros on this forum with experience of both will be able to speak more eloquently about it. But in my experience, it does a very serviceable job. For me, the quality of the recording is not noticeably superior or inferior to the zoom h4n. the levels can be controlled independently, there are 4 XLR inputs, with phantom power. all in all it’s a good package.

Whether or not intimacy improves with less people is an entirely different question. Yes, it’s a personnel problem, but one of the personnel is the subject of the interview, and they may be the ones that would prefer less people in the room. I’ve been involved in a project where we conducted many interviews on an even more intimate subject than breast cancer, and with some very challenging interviewees. Some subjects were very happy to talk and talk whoever was in the room. Others less so. I did very rarely, and as a last resort, ask the rest of the crew to leave because I felt that the subject would be more open with just me in the room. And on occasion there was a noticeable difference when it was just me. Of course that meant that I was now riding audio levels as well, but it was a risk worth taking to get the content.

[Tim Dowse]

I am certainly happy with a premix any and every day as you say, and that part always seemed to be a no brainer for me. Indeed, a highly respected audio post guy I asked said this:

I’ll often get separate iso tracks even on jobs
where there’s a competent sound op mixing mono at the same time. The
editor pays attention only to the premixed track, but cuts them all
simultaneously. When it’s time for me to mix, I can use the premixed
track if I like it… or go into the editor’s muted iso tracks and
pull up individual mics.

It was always a question of the best way to spend $1k. I was always just worried about whether the edirol r44 would suffer a loss in quality so bad as to negate this advantage when compared with a 4 track mixer/zoom h4n combo. The fact that I couldn’t find evidence of this potential cost outweighing the advantage anywhere, I went with the 4 track recorder, and I’ve been happy with the decision. If there is a difference between the r44 and a $700 mixer quality wise, it’s obviously not so bad as to have been widely written about.

[Tim Dowse]

Hi Richard,

I agree, my original question seemed to get lost… Like you, I saw the enormous benefit in avoiding a “premix,” and despite trying to find out I never heard any definitive response about the inferiority (or otherwise) of the sound quality on a 4 track recorder vs a comparably priced mixer/zoom h4n combo.

So in the end, I went with the Edirol R44, and I’ve loved it. It’s not perfect, and I’m sure a more expensive option would be better, but it’s certainly good enough for the TV and web-based stuff that I’m doing. I have no idea whether it would stand up to the demands of theatrical distribution. It’s certainly better than a Zoom h4n. As well as being four tracks, you can control each channel independently with proper dials. I’ve noticed no difference in sound quality with the zoom (but… I use JBL LSR-2325P speakers for my post, so better speakers and a more trained ear might well notice something that I don’t). Also, you can output a mix while recording and send to the camera, which makes synchronizing with pluraleyes a cinch. That said, the output is a rather annoying RCA connection.

Just to state the obvious yet again, clearly hiring a sound pro is a better option and you should do what you can to hire someone who really knows what they’re doing. But if that ain’t an option for you, then this is a good solution, in my non-sound-pro opinion. And of course, to state the obvious still further, it’s all for nought if you don’t use good mic technique.

[Tim Dowse]

Thanks Alex… easy as that! Happy to know my that the tool I’ve just discovered doesn’t have to die with my FCP7 use 🙂

Cheers

Tim

[Tim Dowse]

Just in case anyone else stumbles across this thread, I finally fixed it.

What I had missed was that all the files were “locked” so that even though I had changed the permissions, I couldn’t write to any files. Perhaps this is obvious, but in order to change the locked status, you just have to uncheck the locked check box in the General pane at the top of the Info window. If you want to do that for multiple files at once, you select all the files, right-click, then hold down option so that get info changes to show inspector. Click on that, and unlock all your files.

[Tim Dowse]

still doesn’t seem to work. grrrrrrr…

Such a useful feature, so near and yet so frustratingly far.

[Tim Dowse]

Thanks for the rapid response! Just went and tried that. used “apply to enclosed items” on both the contents folder and the video folder that contains the .MXF files. Then when I “get info” on one of the .MXF files, it still shows me “you can only read.”

Am I missing something?

[Tim Dowse]

But you can export something by sending the sequence to Media encoder, and then return to working.

[Tim Dowse]

Ok, I’m learning myself (also a recent FCP convert) using CS5 on a Mac Pro. The default short cuts for go to next edit/go to previous edit are the Page Up/Page Down. Did you try those?

You could also do a ripple edit slightly more quickly by holding down the command key while dragging the previous edit to the playhead ( or current time indicator in adobe speak). Saves having to blade all clips, select clip, and then hit shift-delete. I haven’t found a ripple-previous-edit-to-CTI shortcut yet.

[Tim Dowse]

Thanks! Will that work for multiple clips at once? I seem to remember trying it for a clip, and being confused because the pixel aspect ratio I had to choose to make it look normal wasn’t the same as the pixel aspect ratio that I saw when importing P2 footage directly.