Robert Morein wrote:
"vas" wrote in message
oups.com...
Sweet Christ...wireless cameras, cell phones...yes you _could_ do all
that. You're considering spending money on convenience before you have
a good set of mics? Your priorities are out of whack.

It's not that complicated. Good stereo pair in a good room with good
performers. Worry about _THAT_.

Sorry, Vas. A stereo pair can provide a marvelous experience for the
audiophile, but is insufficient to satisfy the needs of my associates.

Ok, so what EXACTLY is the WHOLE problem? You give small tidbits, but
what's the actual project? What specifically are you trying to
accomplish?

Multi-mic setups, snakes, video communication, walkie talkies and the
other crap will come later, when you realize that your gigs are getting
too big/fast and you need technological or human help because otherwise
you will LOSE the gigs in question.

Did you read in a past thread that I'm not doing this for a fee?

No. But now I have. So you're doing this as a favor? As a learning
experience?


By the time you NEED to have this
stuff, you will (or SHOULD) be making enough money on this to hire a
competent assistant. Start with a good set of headphones and if your
recorder doesn't have a good headphone amp, buy something decent (I
like the OZ audio or the Rane can amps; the new Behringer is not too
bad) to supplement it so you CAN crank it if you need to.

I never crank the phones. My hearing is very good, and I want to keep it.

You sometimes need to, for a short period of time; for instance, to
evaluate something close to the noise floor, like a reverb tail.
Regardless, it's nice to have the option.


. You want to
listen and move the mics? Make a long headphone extension cable.

There is a very strong argument that it is impossible to be sufficiently
isolated.

Go do it, see if you can make good decisions on site, and then we can
'argue'. It all depends on the situation in question.


You're making up problems so far. Get two mics, a recorder and a set
of cans and go record something.

Vas, I have ten channels of 24/96 to hard disk, and twenty mics.

Great. What mics? What's the project? BTW, this mentioning of my
name in every sentence is really ****ing annoying.


Listen to it at home and figure out
what you don't like about it. Then figure out a way to change your
method so that the next one comes out better.

Vas, I've been doing film production sound since 2001 with an HHB Portadat
and Sennheiser shotguns.

I don't really give a **** what gear you used. Plenty of people can
afford expensive toys. So, are you a beginner or an experienced
warrior or something in between? Your questions indicate the former,
yet you now say you've done a bunch of stuff. What's the project, in
detail?

There is no way to foresee everything and there is certainly no way to
transfer experience between people. You've gotten every bit of
information a beginning recorder needs. Go get some of YOUR OWN
experience, come back, share it, then we can talk.

I've done two film soundtracks, one chamber recital, and one TV show.

Congratulations. What did you learn from the chamber recital (seeing
as that particular experience is the most applicable to the situation
you have, not to discount the others)? What setup did you use, what
advantages/disadvantages did it have, were you satisifed with the
results and what would you do differently today if you could?


So what about the camera?

Wireless is expensive. Get a run of coax, you're already running
cables anyway. Don't use the recording laptop for anything but
recording, so forget about USB/Firewire unless you're planning to bring
another machine for that purpose. Don't know a good cheap make/model
off the top of my head, the video guys you did the TV/film work with
would be much better equipped to help you with that. You could get a
wired remote pan/tilt head for the tripod as well as a wired remote, or
IR repeaters for the camera, so you could move/zoom/focus it from your
monitoring location. Or you could just get an assistant who
understands a thing or two about recording.

--Vas