[Will Salley]

My absolute go to system is the Lectrosonics 411 Digital Hybrid receiver paired with a UM400 transmitter – add a Countryman B6 lav and some quality cables and you’ve got – in my opinion – the best sounding, most reliable wireless. Just today, I used two sets in some pretty fierce conditions (heavy RF, lots of metal obstruction and stray signals) and not one single dropout in 8 plus hours of shooting. Plan on paying about $4000 per channel for everything.

[Will Salley]

Dan,
Thanks for the great information. I’m glad to see someone include the Beyer 836 in a review; it’s hugely popular in the UK but almost unknown here in the states. I just happened to have a friend at Beyer who recommended I try the mic, and as it turned out, it was an good recommendation. In addition to the excellent test that you performed on the mics in your review, I also like to compare the character of a certain boom / overhead mic to that of my favorite lav mic (in most cases a Countryman B6); and I think this is where the Beyer really shines. I have two other mics in your review – well almost – Schoeps Collette and the original Sennheiser 416 – both of which give better s/n ratios, off-axis, and high end response, but the Beyer matches the B6 incredibly well when cut together in post – something many location mixers don’t always think about. Although I still use the others regularly, I find the Beyer the go-to mic for most situations.

Again, Thanks for the great article.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

And you can ignore the inclination to “slow it down” – just acquire the location audio at the normal 48K and make sure your initial sequence (in FCP) is set to that rate.

Since you are syncing visually to the clapper, there should be no need to worry about timecode. When you export the OMF, the resulting files should be re-written with the current sequence settings, not the original media settings.

As Peter said, only if the sound mixer goes back to the original media file will the timecode rate be an issue.

One tip: Always include the clapper audio on every track of your OMF export so that if a track does get re-imported, it can be easily synced.

[Will Salley]

Both of those mics are excellent VO booth mics. I would recommend giving both a critical listen with a wide range of voices and determine which one works best for which voice.

I have the AKG 414 and the Beyer 742 (a stereo version of the 740) and I use them both for VO recording and more. If I had to give some specifics, I would say use the 414 for big male voices and the 740 for young and female voices. In a booth, use omni paterns on both.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

Shouldn’t make a bit of difference. Go with your preference with editing software.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

I would suggest you invest in one of these USB or FireWire units and bypass the hassle, expense and signal degradation caused by going to analog videotape. Record the two voices at the same time, but isolated. It would be best to locate them in two separate (sound treated) rooms with glass in the wall so they could see each other. If you don’t have that luxury, just separate them by about ten feet and close mic them. Record the tracks “dual mono” and you should be able to edit between the two sources.

It’s well worth the time saved to go direct to computer and the basic Cubase software included with these devices is fine for your purpose.

https://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=MOBILEPRE

https://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=INSPIRE1394

https://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=TNT-BUNDLE

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

It depends on your edit workflow and your final output.

I assume you are asking about timecode for audio since you already said the video is to recorded at 24 f.p.s.

If you are keeping it 24P all the way through post, with no pulldown conversion, then record the audio timecode at 24 or 23.97 if it’s NTSC. This would be a usual workflow for printing to film. Otherwise, record the audio TC at 29.97. 16bit/48k matches the HVX resolution.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

Logic Pro

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

I don’t use OMFs much any more unless it’s strickly an Avid>Pro Tools transfer. I do use XML filetypes with Final Cut Pro and MXF files which are generated by the Panasonic P2 cameras. The benefits of both are that they comtain more metadata and will hopefully be implemented by a large group of manufacturers (I guess we’ll see at NAB).

I’m not sure about AAFs – although I see so many different filetypes I’m not sure what some of them are.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Will Salley]

I was able to get rid of most of the buzz by using the noise print / reduce noise filter in Soundtrack Pro. The only adjustment I made from the default settings was to put the thresho;d at -52 db. The Soundtrack Pro software comes in the Final Cut Studio bundle but it is, by no means, the only app that can do this.

You can listen here( 9.6MB):

http://www.auralondesign.com/stevetalkrepair.wav

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8