Utility

Sound Devices makes a little free utility called Wave Agent which will split poly .wav files into multiple mono .wav files, or join mono .wav files into single poly .wav files.
Since I derped and recorded a bunch of individual tracks the other day, it was nice to have a little utility to sew them all together again.

Shooting a reel or "demo" for a movie in a very beautiful bar in Astoria.

And also the Zoom F8 worked for two whole days recording 3 and 4 tracks (plus stereo) to two SD cards without failing! Woo! This is with the latest update to their firmware.
I ran a backup to a Tascam handheld recorder anyway, but it was nice to not have any failures on the F8.

Noise Reduction in Production

So check it out, Cedar actually makes a portable and simple DNS. It's interesting because it means that a dialog mixer in the field might very well use it because Production is incapable of shutting the hell up for takes.

This is a quick and dirty solution for cleaner-sounding takes, but it ain't cheap -- it's $4000. And cleaning up with single-ended noise reduction while recording is not the "right" way to do it. But two things about that -- 1 it's likely that you'll have separated tracks of each microphone being recorded pre-noise reduction anyway and 2 so many productions go through post so quickly that the production sound person really is the last time a sound pro will touch the audio so you may as well make it sound like the finished product.

DAW, Transcriptions, Microphones, and Spaceship Panels

Here is my workstation where I am editing dialog and sound effects and music on Carbon Copy. I actually ended up with two workstations. The other one is half-set-up in the bedroom.

My little apartment seems weirdly spacious in this view.

Rev via Kangas. $1/minute transcription. This is relevant to my lifestyle choices.

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Sanken COS-11 microphones. Without accessories. With accessories. Honestly, with the relatively inexpensive Sennheiser "Evolution" wireless systems I'm fairly happy with the quality of the wireless transmission and reception. I'm not as excited by the microphones that come with them (sort of a cheap-o version of the Sennheiser MK2). And in most scenes one shoots the difference between good mics like the Sanken and bad ones like the MK2 knockoffs really isn't that big a deal. But every once in a while you have a microphone in a bra or elsewhere that the location isn't quite perfect and bleh. The little bit extra by paying upwards of $400 for microphones makes a big difference.

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2 Coast Customs makes props including spaceships panels. Sometimes a man needs spaceship panels.

Time Code and You

Let's face reality: in indy feature films there's practically no reason to use timecode. There just isn't. You can't really sync any sub-$100,000 camera with timecode on set, and so you can't really use it in post.
But because I was a sound mixer in a previous life, I have a fancy-pants timecode slate made by Ambient. Thing is, I've never fed it timecode. Originally I had one of those Fostex PD-2 DAT machines. That was a clunky thing. Expensive. Fiddly. But it could read and write timecode in whatever format you wanted, do pull-up and pull-down and whatever nonsense people used to do when shooting at 24fps, blah-blah-blah.
Then I went to a computer system. Metacorder. Way over-priced but fairly workable. That system would actually jam timecode too. Uh. Just on the output? I think maybe it just output timecode which the slate could sync to. I think. Wow. It's been a number of years...
But then we worked with non-timecode Sound Devices recorders for the last many years. And we use the slate because it comes down and makes a "whack" sound which is easy to sync up on the timeline (actually, I like the Ambient slate because there are these lights which come on when the slate actually hits and that makes finding the visual mark where the whack happens really simple.)

The slate here is twice as expensive as the 8-channel recorder. What you see here is the transmitter to the slate, a battery (top) and the Zoom F-8 (in stop so it's not transmitting TC), and an Ambient slate.

I found that as a production sound guy, producers loved the numbers going around and around on the timecode slate. They never used that timecode and pretty much nobody on set knows what they're going to do with anything you deliver anyway, but that's just how it is.

The timecode menu on the Zoom. Note that you can set the "user bits" to be almost anything you like. Here I'm experimenting with having it display the number code for a movie called "1601". The "auto mute" means that it only puts out timecode when the recorder is running, so the slate will only display moving timecode when you're in record.

So now that I have timecode available again, even though we'll never use it, I'm still going to make sure the slate receives it. Why? Who knows? It's completely irrational of me. But we can do it, so we're going to.

It's ten minutes of 8pm. You can see the record light is on and the Zoom is recording, therefore it is outputting timecode. When the slate is clapped, the user-bits will show up for a second or two but that is just about impossible to photograph with a still camera.

Zoom F8

The Zoom F8 is an 8-input portable recorder with time code for a thousand dollars.

Now let's face reality, nobody actually needs timecode. But people love seeing timecode slates on set with their pretty numbers going around and around, so you may as well sync to something. Traditionally that extra feature on a portable recorder (having timecode) jacked up the price like crazy.
But the Zoom F8 has a huge feature set for a cheap recorder. There's even a switch for a slate mic and tone. 8 inputs all go to different tracks. You can even control the sucker with your iPad. That's a lot for a thousand bucks.
This thing is designed for what is a relatively small market which has been dominated primarily by Sound Devices and Zaxcom. Does this mean everyone will have to drastically lower their prices?
Maybe we'll end up selling our Tascam and get one of these. 

See Why I Like This?

The book Dialog Editing for Motion Pictures by John Purcell.

Dialog editing

Actually begins a chapter this way:

"Picture plays a huge role in cinematic storytelling--almost rivaling sound in importance."

I am tremendously amused by that sentiment.

Undercovers

There's a thing which is available now and which I wish I'd had back when I was a production sound mixer.
One of the biggest hassles with recording production sound in a movie is the clothing noise actors' costumes make when you're hiding lavalier microphones on them. You can drive yourself crazy by making little "footballs" of gaff tape and using bunches of moleskin and whatever else you can find, in order to make a kind of rig on the lav mic in order to keep them from rubbing against the clothes they're behind.

Undercovers -- made by Rycote -- do the thing you want them to do. They're stupidly simple double-stick pieces of tape like wigtape, with little fuzzy felt covers which go over the lavalier microphones.
I will admit that where before I might rig a mic and then spend a long while listening to it to make sure it wasn't rubbing, I now will rig a mic and then walk away -- never listening to it until we get to the edit bay. (I know. That's totally not pro of me. But I'm the cameraman for crying out loud. Why do I need to listen to the mics?) Still, it's about the confidence that I have in a mic rigged with Undercovers that allows me that sloppyness.

Papa's Got a Brand-New Bag

So the Pandora Machine got itself one of these cheap Gator bags.

It's my bag, baby.

The purple thing on the left is an old model Battery Distribution System. There's an Anker 12volt 10,000 mAh battery in the pocket on the far right. The Tascam DR-680 sits in the center with a Lecrosonics receiver there in the top left corner. Along the near side of the bag are three Sennheiser E3 wireless receivers. Those two cylindrical holes are for handheld microphones I think. I don't know what to do with that space yet.

This bag is closed.

CALM Down

You are utterly fascinated by relative broadcast levels of dialog, aren't you? Yes. Yes you are. 

The Angry Sound Professional explains the CALM act and what it really means. Here's part 1.

We used to have one of these jackets. It was stolen out of my car. 

In part 2 we go deeper into the meaning of dialnorm as Vince Tennant explains how the Act works. I suspect that part 3 will show how the act doesn't work but we're still waiting.

Bat-try

You can, of course, get the Tascam DR680 modified. Busman audio does modifications -- 6 channels for $300.

The Tascam DR680 is fairly small and light.

I need a decent way to remotely power the thing. One could buy these Chinese 12v batteries (apparently the charge time on them is long though).
Or if one wanted to go rechargable and AA there are these Eneloop XX batteries.


Or you could go crazy and get a 12-pack of Energizer Lithiums for the whole shoot. Lessee, if, and only if, you could do an 8-day shoot on only 4 12-packs, that's about eighty some odd bucks.
 
So the conclusion is: ah. Erm.
There's also the option of getting one of these high capacity batteries for DVD players. That's $200. Word on the street is that it works.

On Wireless microphones

Dig this lavalier shoot-out on Vimeo.


Lav Shootout! Sennheiser Me-2 / Tram TR50 / Sanken COS11D / RØDE Lavalier from Chad Johnson on Vimeo.

Honestly, the Sennheiser ME2 doesn't sound too bad. I've used many an MKE-2 in my life and I are tired of 'em. I'm sorta interested in the RODE mics. Otherwise I might go in the direction of the Sannken COS11 mics but then again those COS11's are expensive and I find their shape to be weird.
I'm a-gonna cheap out and get a pair of Sennheiser G3 wireless sets.
The Sennheiser frequency finder is not the most intuitive tool I've ever used. Apparently blocks A and B are best for the New York metropolitan area. That's the word on the street at least.
The best information I can get is:
The Sennheiser ew 135 G3 is available in 3 frequency blocks: A (516 - 558 MHz), B (626 - 668 MHz) and G (566 - 608 MHz).

This is the Thing

Tascam DR 680.

Good for Pandora Machine, good for Tyrannosaurus Mouse, good for Russian Chamber Chorus of New York, good for The Imaginary Opera, good for the City Samanas, good for Pleasure for the Empire.

It can handle line in levels of +24dBu.

What doesn't it do? Timecode. I cannot even begin to express how little I care about timecode. I actually own an Ambient timecode smart slate (with timecode transmitter). And yet. Still. I don't care. I do not care about timecode at all.
The other much smaller issue is that the Tascam DR 680 does not have an onboard slate microphone. Honestly, it's been a long time since I've had a slate mic. We'd have to dedicate one of the inputs to a slate microphone in those rare instances where one really needs a slate mic. For me those are only the instances where the actors are 100' away from you on a long lens yet you're slating near the camera. I'll open up a slate microphone in order to get the smack of the clapper sticks nearby. Other than that, meh.
Six analog inputs will get you through most scenes. Even ensemble scenes in TV.
We're gonna need a couple more Lectros to get us through those scenes...

Mad MAXX

I'm somewhat enjoying the war between Sound Devices and Zaxcom right now, because sound mixers are winning.
The new Zaxcom MAXX looks very awesome. For only $2195 it gives you a 4-track recorder (records onto CF or SD with a CF adapter.)

Even with multi-camera shoots there are very, very few scenes which require more than 4 tracks. I guess if you're doing wireless on each character and then a boom you might hit your max (ha) track count more often with only 3 tracks available for wireless iso tracks. But if you're just slapping wireless on each of your characters without a boom it's very rare to run more than 4 channels at a time in a feature.
Sure, about once or twice in a feature you get one of those scenes where 9 people talk at different points. And in TV it probably happens fairly often. But for what we do, 4 tracks could really do a whole lot for us.

Rolling Sound

When we first began as Pandora Machine we were very pro-wireless lav microphones. This was because I had a set of them and a recorder for them and that's the way it was.
By the time Angry Planet came around we'd gone almost 100% boom mic. (And I don't even like shotguns, so we use a hyper-cardioid, but that's another issue altogether.) Until Prometheus Trap we shot almost entirely with a single boom for recording dialog.

This used to be our boom operator but he went union and now works in TV.

Now the thing is that lavalier mics are obnoxious to listen to on headphones. But they do isolate the person speaking a little bit better -- when you can avoid things like clothing noise and rubbing on the microphone itself (no easy feat). And it's true that a boom (a nice hypercardioid like a Schoeps or one of the good Oktavas we use) edits a bit more easily (when you have a quiet room to record in and actors aren't scuffling.)
But, we have a devil of a time getting and keeping a good boom operator. I do not believe, as some might suggest, that this is because I am "mean to the boom operator." I may very well be mean but that's not what the problem is.
The problem is that being a good boom operator is an enormous achievement. And they tend to get paid once they get good. And paid well. When I think of all the boom ops I've trained who went on to get bigger work I just sigh.
In any case, I'm a-thinking about going back to lavs. Recording isolated tracks from different lavs.
What inspired me to do this practically was the fact that Greg Bartus from the City Samanas owns one of these cute little 2-channel Fostex recorders. Them Fostex folks make a pretty nice $600 recorder. So rather than getting a $4200 Sound Devices (which, admittedly, is pretty darn nice) we could just throw another 2-track recorder in our bag next to the Sound Devices 702 we already have. Then we could record four tracks at a time (by pressing two record buttons).
To be sure, the Fostex does not have God's Own Limiters on the inputs the way the much more expensive Sound Devices does.

But overall it should work just fine. Right?
Are there issues with this? Yeah. One is that the slate has to be heard on both machines -- at least by one mic routed to each machine. Somebody has to be paying attention to that. Yesterday I was shooting a thing as a one-man-band (doing camera, slate, and audio) and the first take I totally blew off actually rolling record on the 702. So derp.
At this point we'd have to get three more wireless lavs. I have one very good lav. It's a Lectrosonics 411 receiver with the miniature transmitter. So it sounds very nice. Eats batteries but sounds nice.
Is it worthwhile to get the cheap Sennheisers? I don't know. I do get very cranky with audio gear that isn't pro (and made of metal). But I might not hate them.

Tips, Too, Steel

Today's script tip from Drew. Eliminate the word "Apparently" from any dialog in your screenplay. I'm a serial abuser of this rule myself, so I should know better. But so should you. Just do a search for the words "apparently" and "seemingly" and cut them out. Trust me, you'll be happier.

Plus, also, too. I can't say it enough times. Get the microphone close enough!
Actually, there's too much room sound in this video even with the boom mic for my taste. But the point is taken. Get. The microphone. Close. Enough.
Man, oh, man. Dig these fake rusted metal panels -- made with foam board. They are awesome with awesome sauce.

Oh Look

A video editor "mixed" this promo for Saturday Night Live. How can you tell? Because the mic for the guy on the left is in the left channel. The mic for the guy on the right is in the right channel. Just like the way it was recorded into the camera.

The production mixer (they're not really called that in TV -- I don't know how SNL does it but the position is likely called the "A1") is the person who was responsible for recording the dialog. And if you have two people, like this, you slap a lavaliere mic on each of 'em and send the mics to separate channels.
Very pro. That is, in fact, the pro way to do it.
But that's assuming that the person who will be touching the audio last (meaning, before it goes out to air) knows what they're doing with audio. And if you have a picture editor working on it, then it's likely they don't. Have pity on them. They're just simple picture editors. They don't know any better.
In Final Cut Pro the tracks that the two channels of camera audio would be dragged onto are, by default, panned hard left and right. But do you really want Bill panned hard left and Steve panned hard right? No, of course not. you want them both in the middle.
You can even hear Bill switch channels as he turns toward Steve. That's because as he turns toward Steve he's talking into Steve's mic. And he ends up (momentarily) being louder in Steve's mic than his own.
As the job of assembling all these takes and then putting them up on Hulu is probably one of the lowest-priority edit jobs on the show, it's probably thrown at the lowest-level editor they've got. Heck, the producers may have even lied to the editor and told 'em that someone was going to actually do the audio mix so they "don't have to worry about it". But the fact is, that as long as the audio seemed minimally acceptable to whomever uploaded it, that was the end of caring about it.
The trouble you get into when you do something like this is when somebody watches the dang video with (say) a speaker unplugged. If that happens then you lose one of the hosts. Either Bill or Steve will sound distant (because you'll only hear their feed from the other guy's mic.)
And mixing in FCP is no picnic. But it can be done. You just need to pay attention to what audio is bussed where.

Me of Little Faith

I don't actually believe in shotgun microphones. Uh. That's actually a long and complicated subject.



Here's the thing: even the very best shotguns (and I'm talking Schoeps and to some degree Sanken here) sound somewhere between "meh" and "poopity" off-axis. When you get to editing dialog it's much easier to have a nice hypercardioid that sounds good off-axis (I'm talking Schoeps again, with the cheap exception of one of the good Oktava mics like we use.*)
So what do you get with a shotgun? Well you get less sound from off-axis. But that sound you do get sounds more yukkity. Will the airplane flying overhead be a bit quieter? Sure. But when you move the microphone from one character to another you'll get a little squonky "swish" sound.

The advantage to wireless lavaliere microphones is that they sound equally crappy all the time, so you don't have to worry about them getting "swishy". The biggest issue with lavs is that they're prone to clothing noise when you try to hide them under shirts. It's very difficult to not hear the damn mic rubbing against whatever jacket or jewelry the actor has on.

The main "Hollywood" boom mic is the Schoeps CMC6. They're good mics. They sound good indoors, outdoors, wherever-you-want. They're a bit sensitive to moisture, but that's probably just because like many "pencil" mics they have interchangeable capsules and a bit of schmutz can get in there if you keep removing the heads.

Now, I'll tell ya, I just looked up the price of those Schoeps and they're not as expensive as I thought they were. Less than a thousand bucks.



This is the Oktava you want. It's nigh on $300, which is a little less than 1/3 the price of the Schoeps. I've done tests on both mics. Off-axis I'd say they're both equally as even - sounding. In other words if you're turn the microphone just as someone starts a line you won't hear a "swish" in the sound of their dialog -- they'll just get a little louder as the microphone turns toward them. The Schoeps has a little "rise" in the upper mids which can sound "better" on a lot of voices, but ironically the Oktava is more "neutral" sounding. In either case, you're not going to immediately notice that one sounds "better" than the other.

*You need to buy from the Sound Room. They have the "good" Oktava mics. The difference is in the quality control -- the QC of the Oktava mics you get elsewhere can really suck.

You Need My Notes

So I'm watching Modern Family on Hulu (because apparently I'm not going to be touching any scripts or mixing or doing anything useful this weekend) and the first thing that struck me is that the show is not "lit funny". There's this old idea in TV (and it maybe came from movies) that comedies have to be over-bright and everything lit evenly without shadows. Well this show has so many shadows it would make Titian blush.
And I'm sure I'm only one of several thousand people in the world who notice this sort of thing but isn't that a taped-up mic rig right in the center of his chest? Yep, you gotta be a techno dork to care about that. Of course, that kind of costume is somewhere on the order of simply impossible to body-mic. You could try weaving a Countryman lav into the ribbing of the collar but the sound would be pretty crappity because you'd be mic'ing under his chin. So yup, right under the clavicle it goes.
And you know, there's a chance that his shirt actually just folded and creased like that. But my guess is microphone.
Of course, he actually does a 360 where the back of his shirt comes up (immediately after this part of the shot, but in the same setup) and I dunno where they'd have put the transmitter pack. Maybe in a front pocket?
I always hated wiring people up. Clothing noise on lavs is just a bitch. Especially on men wearing tight shirts. Or women with dangly jewelry. Or squeaky leather jackets. Or skirtchy shirts. All of it.

I've been watching a bunch of stuff on Hulu of late. And doing so, I'm wearing headphones. And wearing headphones means I can hear all the clothing rustle on body-mics which used to drive me absolutely bonkers back when I was a production sound mixer.
The funny thing is, the people who complain the most about body mics are the production sound mixers (and the poor boom operators who are frequently responsible for placing them). Dialog editors, on a show where they sound crew really fought to keep the clothing noise from being a problem, don't have so much a problem with them. And honestly it's fairly easy to mix body-mics.

But of course, production sound mixers, boom operators, and, well, me watching on Hulu, are pretty much the only times a pro listens to body mics on headphones.

Now on set it's very very difficult to get body mics to be hidden on a person and pick up their dialog nicely and otherwise not rub against any clothing. With women wearing bras my first choice is to put the mic on the inside of the bra right at the "cross your heart" part dead in the center of the bra. Normally that part of the bra does not actually touch skin and is not rubbing against whatever the actress is wearing.
Men, on the other hand, are frequently nightmares. I asked a semi-famous actor once what the sound team on his TV show did with him when his costume was just a T-shirt. He told me that the sound guy would send him back to wardrobe and insist they put a sleeveless undershirt below the T-shirt. Of course, if your character is only wearing a "wife-beater" then you can just forget it. You're taping the mic directly to a piece of moleskin which is on his skin and you're hoping it doesn't show through the shirt.
For the last few years I've all but given up on wireless lavs on Pandora Machine shows. We've used them maybe... twice(?) on Day 2.
Back in the day Sebastian was the king of micing men. I have no idea what he did. A couple pieces of tape and the mic would sound great -- no rubbing on shirts, jackets, ties. And Alexandra was great with women. But ultimately nowadays all Pandora Machine pictures are done primarily with an Oktava hypercardioid mic about 18" from the actors' mouths. Directly into a Sound Devices 702 mixer. And the dialog is easy and great. No muss, no fuss.

The Boom Operator

Three minute take. Major-league pain in the tuchus.

Notice that the boom operator doesn't wear headphones. This is a very European way to boom. We in the Americas don't agree with that methodology but the Europeans think that it's the mixer who's responsible for hearing any problems. The fact is that you can learn to "see" a microphone's polar pattern on set.

Also note that like a good boom operator this dude has the scene memorized. This is why I'm such a crappity boom op. I never remember what's happening next.