SoundDevices MixPre 10M - NAB 2018

Last year Sound Devices announced and shipped their MixPre-3 and MixPre-6 recorders and then later added the MixPre-10T with a few additional hardware features for professional sound engineers. One question I received several times was, "Can I use this to record my band and does it have overdub and punch in features? Any effects like reverb?"

In this episode, Paul Issacs talks with Cary Judd, my brother who is a profession music producer in addition to filmmaker. The MixPre-10M looks a lot like the 10T, but the operating system is re-designed from the ground up and optimized for multitrack music recording.

As a bonus for those who already own a MixPre-3, 6, or 10T, you will be able to add all of these music recording features with a plugin that runs $99. The plugin will be available some time in the summer of 2018.

Gear covered and used to shoot this episode:

Sound Devices MixPre-10M for musicians

Sound Devices MixPre-10T - 8 XLR/TRS inputs, timecode

Sound Devices MixPre-6 - 4 XLR/TRS inputs + stereo 3.5mm input

Sound Devices MixPre-3 - 3 XLR inputs + stereo 3.5mm input

RODE Reporter Microphone

RODE iXLR Adapter - Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad

Panasonic GH5 - My favorite small camera for shooting events

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

Sound Devices MixPre 10T & New Firmware - NAB 2018

Last year Sound Devices announced and shipped their MixPre-3 and MixPre-6 recorders and then later added the MixPre-10T with a few additional hardware features for professional sound engineers.

In this episode, Paul Issacs runs down the list of additional features in the 10T along with the new features that will be added to the 3, 6, and 10T in a new firmware update that became available earlier this week: Re-mix, cue markers, and more flexibly channel linking.

You can find the firmware update over on the Sound Devices site here.

Gear covered and used to shoot this episode:

Sound Devices MixPre-10T - 8 XLR/TRS inputs, timecode

Sound Devices MixPre-6 - 4 XLR/TRS inputs + stereo 3.5mm input

Sound Devices MixPre-3 - 3 XLR inputs + stereo 3.5mm input

RODE Reporter Microphone

RODE iXLR Adapter - Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad. Works ok for short clips (6 minutes or less) but drifts on longer clips with my iPhone 7+

Panasonic GH5 - My favorite small events camera

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5 most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

Deity Microphones NAB 2018

Last year, Aputure made their first serious shotgun microphone for independent filmmakers called the Deity. It was an impressive first design with a decent sound and the ability to withstand water exposure. But now they've decided to get more serious by spinning off their microphone business so that the Deity team can focus 100% on sound.

In our interview, Andrew covers the S-Mic, D3, and D3-Pro shotgun microphones, Deity's first three models.

Gear covered and used to shoot this episode:

Deity S-Mic Coming Summer 2018

Deity D3 Coming Summer 2018

Deity D3-Pro Coming Summer 2018

RODE Reporter Microphone - Amazingly good dynamic reporter's mic for about $130

RODE iXLR Adapter - Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad

Panasonic GH5 Camera - My main "event shooter" small camera. Love the in-body image stabilization

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

Audio Ltd A10 Wireless Microphone System - Sound Devices NAB 2018

The professional location sound market now has a fully digital wireless microphone system option - the Audio Ltd A10 from Sound Devices! Here we have a closer look at the A10 system with Kish Patel at the Sound Devices booth at NAB 2018.

Gear covered and used to shoot this episode:

Audio Ltd A10 Wireless Microphone System

RODE Reporter Microphone

RODE iXLR Adapter (Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad)

Panasonic GH5

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

ATOMOS Ninja V ProRes and Avid Recorder: NAB 2018

ATOMOS makes HDMI/SDI recorders with very nice monitoring capabilities along with focus and HDR exposure tools. Up until NAB 2018, they've made 7" and 19" monitors. But now they've announced their first 5" monitor/recorder with the capabilities of their Inferno line of recorders (top of the 7" lineup) - Focus, exposure, high frame rate, and HDR tools as well as ProRes and Avid DNxXX recording. This makes shooting and editing faster and with high bitrate and high quality codecs that playback smoothly so you don't have transcode.

Now why would you want to use a recorder like this? Here's why I use them:

Gear covered and used to shoot this episode:

ATOMOS Ninja V 4K HDMI HDR Recorder Monitor (coming Q3 2018)

RODE Reporter Microphone

RODE iXLR Adapter (Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad)

Panasonic GH5 - My favorite, small camera for handheld use with a great image stabilizer

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

Zoom F8n: First Look

The Zoom F8 audio recorder and mixer changed the location audio world two years ago when it was released. Zoom showed that they could make some very good preamps and most of the features pros expect in their recorders including timecode, dual card recording, and an incredibly robust build all for a price that sits under $1000 USD. 

Of course the F8 wasn’t perfect. The hybrid limiters weren’t perfect, the inputs were only line level when using a TRS cable, and the headphone amp was a little rough to listen to all day. It appears that Zoom heard the customer feedback and starting summer/fall, the F8n will address many of the few remaining hardware issues.

Gear used to shoot this episode:

RODE Reporter Microphone

RODE iXLR Adapter (Record a dynamic XLR microphone to iPhone or iPad)

Panasonic GH5 - My favorite, small camera for handheld use with a great image stabilizer

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA by Cary Judd, used with permission.

Better Sound for Your Videos: Basics for Sound Newbies

How can you make your videos sound better? Here’s a quick overview for newbies who just want better sound but aren’t really interested in becoming a sound expert. 1) Get the microphone close to the person speaking. 2) Choose the right kind of microphone. Boom mics sound more natural but lavaliers allow the flexibility of moving around more. See the videos below to help you choose the right mic for you, and if you choose a boom mic, how to boom it close to the person speaking.

My recommended microphones and how to boom a mic for not too much money:

RODE VideoMic Pro+ boom/shotgun microphone - Incredibly convenient, flexible, and good sounding microphone

Aputure A.Lav Lavalier Microphone - the best sub $40 microphone I have found

RODE VC1 Extension cable for when you boom your camera-top shotgun microphone.

How to boom a microphone like the RODE VideoMic Pro:

3 camera top shotgun microphones compared:

6 Affordable Lavalier Microphones compared:

5 Indoor Boom Microphones compared:

5 Shotgun Microphones compared:

3 Professional Indoor Dialogue Boom Microphones compared:

3 Affordable Indoor Dialogue Boom Microphones compared:

Panasonic GH5S (My current favorite small camera)

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - incredibly versatile lens that is on the GH5S most of the time

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd

Sound for Video Session: Quality, iOS Mics, Limiters, Monitoring, G4, Lavaliers, Cameras Audio, & Quiet Voices

In this week’s Sound for Video Session, we answer your audio for video questions:

00:12 Quality Difference Between USB and SD
01:04 iOS Mics
05:37 Limiters and Quality
06:31 Getting Audio to Boom Op
09:20 Sennheiser G4
12:57 Lavalier microphones directly to Mixer
16:43 Camera Audio
21:51 Quiet Voices

Gear and links discussed/used to record this episode: 

DPA d:vice - dual lavalier interface for iOS, Mac, PC

Sennheiser Clip-Mic Digital (Lightning)

Sennheiser MKE2 Digital Microphone (Lightning)

Shure MOTIV MV88 Stereo Microphone (Lightning)

Zoom iQ6 Stereo XY Microphone (Lightning)

Zoom iQ7 Stereo Mid-Side Microphone (Lightning)

RODE iXY Stereo Microphone (Lightning)

Sending wireless audio from your mixer with the Sennheiser G3 system:

WAV.REPORT’s First Look at the Sennheiser G4 wireless system:

Outro music licensed from Artlist: Keep an Eye by Back to Dream. Artlist provides high quality music tracks for your film and video projects. You can receive two months off an Artlist account by using our link.

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

ProRes Raw

Today Apple announced a new version of their ProRes video codecs: ProRes Raw (and Raw HQ). The reason this is significant is that capturing raw footage on cinema cameras poses two main problems: 1) Massive, massive file sizes that can only be captured to the fastest cards and drives which are, of course, quite expensive and 2) Cannot generally be played back without first de-bayering or rendering in post (before you edit).

Of course there have been proxy workflows for a long time to get around this where the camera records raw plus a much lower quality proxy file at the same time. You do your edit with the proxy files and then once you've completed your edit, you swap out the proxies for the de-bayered raw files. It's a workable, but less than ideal workflow.

Since I bought my first ATOMOS recorder in about 2012, I've appreciated the benefits of working with a ProRes workflow (my Ninja II recorder took an HDMI feed from my DSLR and recorded a ProRes file to an SSD drive). This was a nice compromise solution because it captured slightly higher quality footage, but could still be edited without re-rendering the files. It wasn't raw, but it was pretty darn good in terms of quality.

Now, we can have the best of both worlds. And Apple also has a new update of Final Cut Pro X that plays back ProRes Raw footage in real time!

But then there's the problem of how to record ProRes Raw. This is where ATOMOS delivers. Their Sumo19 and Shogun Inferno can both record ProRes Raw with the new firmware update which will be released on Monday, April 9th, 2018.

Of course you'll also need a camera capable of sending a raw signal to the ATOMOS recorder. Out of the gate, the Sumo and Shogun Inferno will have support for the following cinema cameras:

• Canon C300mkII, C500
• Panasonic EVA1, Varicam LT
• Sony FS5, FS7

I haven't shot a lot of raw simply because the workflow was too heavy for most of my work, with an occasion exception for "beauty shots" - e.g., an outdoor landscape with plenty of sky, deep shadows, and incredibly wide dynamic range. That may just change here really soon. I'm looking forward to seeing how the new workflow pans out.

Now what we need is an affordable playback device for HDR so we can use that Sumo as an HDR grading monitor (at least roughly decent HDR monitoring). AJA's monitoring converter box comes in at $2500 USD presently. I'm hoping for something in the sub $1000 range soon so I can put this Sumo to work in post.

See Apple's white paper on ProRes Raw here.

See see the details on ATOMOS's ProRes implementation on the Shogun Inferno and Sumo here. 

Sound for Video Session: Questions for the Director When You're the Sound Mixer

In this week’s Sound for Video Session, we cover some of the questions and topics you can discuss with the director before a location sound job.

Gear and links discussed/used to record this episode: 

Elvid slate/clapper board
At Amazon
At B&H

Sample gear packing list for location sound job.

Outro music licensed from Artlist: Keep an Eye by Back to Dream. Artlist provides high quality music tracks for your film and video projects. You can receive two months off an Artlist account by using our link.

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd