NZVNmarch2017

MARCH 2017

Vol 233

Cables

– what you should know To an ancient mariner, a cable is one tenth of a nautical mile but to us, it’s how we connect our devices and it’s often neglected … to our peril! I’ve travelled to West Auckland to find out the current problems people are having with cables from Wes Printz, a real cable guy.

Ed: Wes, what do you do for the television and cinematographic industry in New Zealand?

Wes: I work very closely with camera assistants and Production Sound Engineers in the cinema world, commercial television shows, and features.

A camera assistant will come up to me and say “hey Wes, I’ve got this new little whizzbang gadget and I’d like to plug it into my camera. Can you make me a cable?” And I’ll say “I’ll have a look at it and I’ll let you know.”

Ed:

So aren’t these cables available off the shelf?

Wes: Some of the cables are available off the shelf locally with most available overseas.

The prices for cables vary, in addition you will pay shipping and it usually takes a lot longer to get the cable you want.

Someone recently told me they had ordered a cable overseas and there was a 6 week backorder. I delivered them that exact cable the next day.

Wes at his home workshop.

Ed: Wow. And I guess also you can do them to any length that the customer requires, rather than shop supplied fixed lengths?

Wes: Yes, most of my cables are standard in length for the application. Some people want something a little shorter, a little longer, so that’s where the customisation comes in … they want a Y-cable to plug in 2 different things at the same time from the same port.

Ed: So in other words, cables that no one else has made, they’ve got the idea in their mind and they give you a sketch drawing and say “well we want it to look like this and do this” and then away you go?

Wes: Yes, pretty much like that.

Ed: And they can have it in any colour they like?

Wes: They can have any colour as long as it’s black! Most of my cables are black.

Ed:

People don’t like coloured ones?

Wes: Some people do, but the cable that I bring in from overseas is generally black. Black is less distracting to the talent on set.

Ed: What about the connectors themselves, because every time a new camera comes out, it seems as though it’s got some sort of special connection, you‘ve got to source those connectors from somewhere?

Wes: Yes, that’s true.

I only use original equipment, such as LEMO and Fischer, and Anton Bauer connectors are the most common ones used right now.

Ed:

What about ARRI?

Wes: ARRI uses a combination of Fischer and LEMO connectors. There are several “knock-off” brands available – after-market, third party connectors etc.

The after-market connectors are patent infringing, also they’re not up to the quality standards of the original LEMO and Fischer, so I stay away from those, I only use original.

Yes, they are very small wires.

Ed: Can there be quite a difference in cost between cheap and genuine, branded connectors?

Wes: Yes, there can be a difference. The after-market connectors can be 20-35% cheaper than the original connectors, but the original connectors will last longer.

Ed: And I’m pretty sure, if you’re dealing with cinematographers, that if you get a faulty cable, a big job could be lost?

Wes: Yes true.

Camera assistants have a large investment in their personal gear with their remote focus systems, on-board monitoring, on-set monitoring, wireless video transmitters – it’s an investment that can be easily damaged by a cable that’s made wrong, or having a substandard connector on it.

Ed:

Do you give a guarantee with your cables?

Wes: Yes I do. If any of my cables fail, I will repair them at no charge. If they’re damaged in some way, such as closing a case lid on them, run over by a dolly or whatever, there will be a charge for that.

Ed: How long does that guarantee last – for the life of the cable?

Wes: Pretty much so – about 8 years ago, a camera assistant from Los Angeles came down for a job they were shooting on ARRICAMs. He had in his kit some cables that I made for him in 1998. He told me that he carries those cables everywhere he goes, they’ve been

all around the world and he’s never had a problem with them. I was happy to hear that. That is what you get from using quality connectors and cable.

Ed: Do you bother with the simple cables like Canon to Canon audio cable or would it be sensible for somebody to buy that sort of thing off the shelf since they’re pretty well everywhere?

Wes: I will do audio cables – I do the 3 pin XLR, as well as the standard 4 pin XLR 12V power. They are available off the shelf in various lengths at various suppliers around Auckland and the country. It’s up to the end user if they want something specific or they just want a standard. If they need it now, I’ll advise them where they can purchase them.

Ed: Do you offer any personalisation … I know some people like to have their equipment with their own names on it or somehow branded so they know that that is their equipment. Do you offer that with your cables, any sort of additions that people will know “that’s my cable”?

Wes: A very good question and yes I do. When I make a cable for a specific client I use a P-Touch label and either put their company or personal name on the cable and secure it with clear heat-shrink wrap over it.

When you’re on set and you have 3 or 4 different camera assistants and they all bring their own gear …

Go to https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/ for more news.

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Rock Solid Support.

Which microphone is best?

Microphones - a customer perspective.

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Ed:

Their own black cables?

Wes: Everybody’s bringing their own black cables, things can get mixed up and then somebody says “oh that’s my cable” Ed: Now Wes, I understand there are situations when a manufacturer of a device that has something plugged into it, comes up with a new connection for some reason and so there’s a cable required or connector required that nobody else has got. It might be similar to something else and this can cause problems … correct?

Wes: Yes, correct. There’s a pretty good case in point – a manufacturer released a new camera about a year and a half ago …

Ed:

That would be the ARRI ALEXA Mini I understand?

Wes: Possibly … the manufacturer introduced a connector which had not been seen or used in the film industry before, and camera assistants were not familiar with it. A lot of the time, camera assistants are plugging in cables in low light situations and a lot of connectors look similar – they might be the same size but different pin configurations. This one particular cable happened to also be able to be inserted into another socket on the camera, thus resulting in damage to the very small pins. The manufacturer has come out with a retrofit for that and everything is very clearly marked and that problem has gone away. Also, time and education has also reduced the issue.

Ed: Have there been other situations like that over the years that you’ve had to find solutions for?

Wes: When ARRIFLEX introduced the “grey cameras”, referring to the SR3 and 435 back in the late 90’s, they introduced the now very common 3 pin Fischer

Internet Uploading Tips

connector or the RS port. The mating connector on the cable end is normally straight, but some people install a right-angle connector.

With any of the keyed connectors, they will only plug in one way. With the right-angle connector, the cable exit direction is fixed.

If inserted the wrong way and turning it to attempt to make it fit the angle desired, you will damage both of the connectors – the one on the cable and on the camera. I avoid using the right-angle 3 pin Fischer connectors for that reason.

Ed: So Wes, your experience with cables has obviously come from the industry, you’ve been associated with Panavision I understand in Los Angeles for many, many years, and now that association continues in Auckland?

Wes: Yes correct Grant. I started with Panavision in 1990 at Panavision Hollywood then, in 2003, I transferred to the Auckland office. So I have quite a bit of experience with cameras and connectors and cables.

I’ve made many thousands of cables throughout my years.

Ed: What is it that you actually do at Panavision in Auckland – you’re in the rentals department I understand?

Wes: I am the Service Manager looking after the maintenance of the cameras and electronics.

Ed:

And doing all their cables for them?

Wes: And doing the Panavision cables as well, yes.

Ed: But if anybody wants a cable from you, they contact you directly through your email or phone number which we’re putting here?

Wes: Yes … wes@cablesolutions.nz or phone 027 227 7779.

From last month, while I had him cornered, I asked Andy Wild about uploading content to the internet.

Ed: This has been an issue for me and I thought it was all sorted when YouTube came out with “these are the codecs you can use” and so you just upload in this particular codec – but you say there’s a better answer?

careful. But yes, high data rate, H.264 is a great starting point.

Ed: So it’s still true – like in the old days when you were doing something for the web you would say to the talent “now keep as still as possible because it’s only the moving bits that are actually being compressed in between the images”, and that’s still relevant even with the high data rates that are now available?

Andy: Well I suppose I would always say whatever you do, when you come to export your timeline, go for the best possible quality you can, so keep it like an H.264 codec particularly for producing high definition material and you can export it out in progressive rather than interlace because most computer displays will be progressive.

Keep a reasonably high data rate as well, because ultimately, when you submit that on to YouTube, YouTube will compress it further anyway. So if you can give it a high quality codec that’s going to be loaded on to YouTube, then recompression isn’t going to damage the content too much. There are loads of formulae out there, but ultimately I’ve always found that a good high quality data rate ( don’t do a quarter res or anything like that because it just suffers issues, maybe half res would be fine without making like a 25 gig file ) and let YouTube compress it and then just look at what YouTube does and go back and reexamine the image and make sure there’s nothing that’s funny. Talking heads always look great, the old kind of wide shot of a park and wispy trees and details in leaves will disappear quite quickly if you’re not too

Andy: Yes, even at the very high data rates available now. One of the things you need to be aware of is that it’s not the good old days where you used to watch things on a little quarter res screen and keep still because we may not even have had broadband, I remember dial up modems, 56K modems, and obviously that’s gone away but you know we watch the likes of Netflix now which offers stunning image quality, and that’s what we expect to see when we watch the likes of YouTube and things like that. So yes, the loss of image quality is still worthwhile bearing in mind because it may well be that we used to compress a lot in the early days and playback was very poor and pixelated, people would disappear and reappear when they moved their head around, but it’s more to preserve that overall high image quality. There’s no point in going shooting on an ALEXA camera if you’re not going to worry about the content coming out and getting the best format that’s going to go to a broadband delivery. So even my DSLR camera – it shoots HD, it looks great, compress it right it can still look stunning even when NZVN you view it on YouTube.

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Ed: As the technology develops, are different connectors being produced by different manufacturers or is there much standardisation?

Wes: With the change in acquisition from film to digital more players have entered the market, more manufacturers are offering products, not only on the camera side, but also on the accessories side such as remote focus controls, on-board recorders, on-board monitors, there’s a plethora of connectors. Trying to stay current with the modern connectors is a task all in its own. Previously, film cameras traditionally had 3 standard connectors throughout their life. Now there might be 5 or more different connectors on the same camera.

Ed: And I’m sure it’s also true that you might have the same connector, but depending on what you’re plugging it into, the polarities might be different or the pins might do different jobs. Is that correct?

Wes: Yes, very good point.

The most common connector in use now is the 2 pin LEMO 0B connector.

It became widely used on the ARRI ALEXA for 12 Volt out.

In the 5 years since the camera has been available, there have been several devices produced using the same connector, but the polarity is not always the same. Case in point, your Teradek Bolt and your Hedén CARAT both use the same connector for power, but the polarity is opposite.

Ed: How would somebody know that the cable that they’ve got is not compatible between particular devices?

Wes: That’s where identifying and marking the cables clearly comes into play. All of the cables that I make for Hedéns or Bolts I label them accordingly.

Ed: And there are more situations like that?

Wes: Yes. Going back to after-market connectors, the biggest offender currently is what was commonly known as the D-Tap power connector.

There are many different manufacturers of that connector and all of varying standards. With some of the manufacturers, the standards are so loose that the D-Tap connector can be plugged in either way, resulting in reverse polarity at the device end, thus releasing the magic smoke. That is another reason why I use only original Anton Bauer D -Tap connectors.

A manufacturer has developed a solution which is ideal, the Lentequip SafeTap which is a smart connector. If it’s plugged in correctly, a green LED will light allowing the voltage to pass through; if it’s plugged in reverse, a red LED will light and it will not allow any voltage to pass thus saving your device from reverse polarity damage. I offer those and they are very popular because they’re fool proof, and have saved several devices.

Ed: I would assume that where you’ve got a small camera light that takes a D-Tap, you’re not going to have a problem if the polarity is round the wrong way, but if you’ve got a radio microphone or some other more delicate piece of equipment, then that could be a big problem?

Wes: Yes correct, but the new reporter lamps are solid state and drive LEDs, so reverse polarity could be an issue there.

Ed: But that would mean it just wouldn’t work?

Wes: Depending on how the device power input is designed, if it has reverse polarity protection or not, or it may possibly blow a fuse in your camera, supplying the 12 Volt to the reporter lamp D-Tap. Ed: So I guess the moral of the story is don’t try and make up your own cables unless you really, really know what you’re doing?

Wes: Unless you really know what you’re doing, leave it to a qualified professional.

Ed: Now Wes, I’m sure you not only make up new cables but you get people who have damaged their cable – it might not be one that you’ve made for them, but it’s a pretty valuable cable and they need it repaired in a hurry. Is that something you do?

Wes: Yes. I consider myself a full service cable-stop.

I will assess a damaged cable and decide if it’s worth repairing or not repairing, if I can repair it or if I can’t repair it. There are limitations to what can be done with repairs on other cables.

Ed:

Is corrosion a big issue in New Zealand?

Wes: Yes it is. I’ve repaired a lot of cables that have been used in rain, or a saltwater environment, that just destroys them.

Ed: So it’s something that you don’t see initially, but suddenly things don’t work as they should and corrosion has actually got in where you can’t see it?

Wes: Correct. The easiest way to identify corrosion from water ingress is if the pins of your connectors are starting to turn a powdery white or green. That’s not a good sign.

Ed: And you don’t recommend just spraying them with CRC then?

Wes: Any equipment when used in a wet environment, or if it happens to rain in Auckland, most people will wipe the equipment down before putting it in the case.

Cable maintenance is something many don’t think about. After shooting in a wet environment, one could dry the connectors then use a VERY light spray of CRC 2 -26. If corrosion has started it’s too late, it needs to be replaced.

Ed:

See the cable guy.

Wes: See the cable guy.

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NZVN

Rock Solid Support We’re at Oceania Audio Sales with Nigel Russell to talk about stands and clamps and other things that are essential pieces of kit in our trade. Having a good stand that doesn’t tip over easily and clamps that fit quickly and stay where they’re put, is very, very important.

Ed: So Nigel, you’re not actually part of the big rental company that is Oceania, but you’re here with them in Rosebank Road in Avondale, Auckland?

Nigel: I was part of the bigger company but in 2013, they offered me the sales department which was something I’d developed over my 20-odd years with Oceania and I took the opportunity to buy the audio sales part.

Ed: So it’s a very close relationship and, if somebody wants to buy audio stuff that they’ve rented from Oceania, you can supply that, but also you’re getting good feedback on how your products fare out there in the rental arena?

Nigel: Absolutely. I specialise in a whole lot of little brands that fall between the cracks for a lot of people – they have a market, but they’re not the sort of things that are going to make people millions you know.

Nigel in the R&R museum at Oceania - tours possible.

Ed: Now what we’re looking at here especially is the TRIAD-ORBIT. I know that it’s a product developed for the audio recording market, but having just had a look at the range, it is so robust and flexible, I could see this being very useful in the video production area as well?

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Nigel: I agree. TRIAD-ORBIT are now coming up for 4 years of production and they first pitched their products in to the audio field, looking at the microphone stand market. They saw that there hadn’t been any significant development in that product for many, many years and looked at how they could make a better mic stand. Since then, people have come to them and said “you know you can use this for cameras, monitors, lights as well as microphones.”

it’s very easy to get a good tightness on it and quickly loosen it?

Ed: Well I look at these and I see that they’re slim but very robust and also quite heavy which, in many cases, for a stand, that’s exactly what you want?

Nigel: Yes, this is very compact.

The next unique thing about the TRIADs is the leg assembly. Each leg has a foot actuated locking system that allows the stand to be set up in such a way that it can be angled to 4 different positions and remain stable in all of those. Each leg is articulable and can then be unlocked by just using your foot to pull that lock towards you.

Nigel: Absolutely – it ain’t gonna fall over that’s for sure and I think that’s the first thing you’ll notice with TRIAD-ORBITS when picking them up, actually how hefty they are. I guess, putting a whole lot in a carry case is going to be good exercise!

Nigel: That’s right.

It has a rubberised feeling to it and it’s very easy to grab. Now the clutch is also used where the vertical meets the base, so it makes setup and pull down very easy.

Ed:

Aaah I see, it folds up into a very small pack-age.

Ed: Yes but if you’re having a flyaway kit, okay, you go back to your light aluminium stands, but then you have to be more careful with them. I can see with even the basic single stage unit here that it would be very hard to tip over, even without sandbags on it?

Nigel: That’s right, and there is a sandbag option available which will either fit to each of the feet, or wraparound the base of the stand if you require it, if you’ve got something heavy and high as well.

Ed: Now I’ve had a play with this and I’m very impressed so tell us what you see as the key features of the stand range?

Nigel: A key feature of all the stands is the weight. There are 4 basic stands; a mini stand, followed by the T1 which is a small floor stand, the sort of thing you might use for an unobtrusive mic boom or low light in a tight space.

The T2 will come up to probably about shoulder height and is a single stage with a clutch locking mechanism …

Ed:

Easy foot adjustment.

Ed:

Well they all have that mechanism don’t they?

Nigel: they do.

So you don’t have to bend down at all?

Nigel:

Yes

The T3 is a 3 stage and will go to about 2 metre.

Now that is also air-cushioned, so as you release the clutch on the verticals, it will not drop away on you, but it will just lower itself gently.

Ed: Now what I like about the “clutch” as you say, it’s a hard rubber clutch that is very easy to grip even with a delicate hand and

No bending at all.

Ed: And it allows you to position the stand on steps or uneven ground?

Nigel: That’s absolutely correct – or even allow you to have the stand on an angle up to 65 degrees.

Ed: Or if you’re a bit tight for space, you can bring the legs into the smaller profile?

Nigel:

Correct, tuck it into a tight corner.

Ed: And because of its weight, it’s still incredibly stable?

Nigel:

It isn’t going anywhere at all.

Ed: The other good thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes robust products are made for gaffers and rental punishment, but these actually look very smart and I can assure you the fittings are well machined, so there’s no slack, they fit tightly and adjust to the position required very easily.

Speaking of fitting, there’s a unique but very simple and clever connecting system?

Nigel: Yes. At the top of the stand, rather than having a threaded end as you would with a mic stand, it has a hexagonal brass rod which is a push fit and quick

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release. Pushing it downwards into the top of the stand clicks it in place and then a small collar beneath is the quick release system.

problem at all. have.

Ed:

It’s all doable with the bits that we

There are also nice C-Clamps?

Nigel: Yes, so riffing from that, the quick release system is available on a C-Clamp, which can be clipped to a bench or onto an existing stand, so sort of multiple microphones or lamps or whatever you want to put on it can be added to a single fitting. The quick release is available on a wall mount, so if you’re tight for space in a vocal booth or something like that, you could put a stand on the ceiling. That quick release will also fit for small monitors, so if you’ve got up to a 32 inch monitor with a Vesa mount, they will support all of that sort of equipment on that mount.

Ed: So really good for fixed location studios, but also for carrying around as long as you’re not flying a lot?

Nigel: Absolutely. All of the booms have a ball joint at the top of the boom which again is a unique feature of the ORBIT system – hence the “ORBIT” part of the name – and that is like a standard type boom arm which has this locking ball arrangement. We have a double boom arm, 2 booms on a single fitting … again, as I was saying, if you wanted to run a couple of lights or a camera and a light off one stand, you could do that; you could use it for putting up multiple wireless antennas. Your imagination is the limit with the range.

Ed: When you say “camera” it’s obviously not a tripod system, so we’re talking about a fixed position camera?

Nigel: Yes that’s correct, however the T3 has a wheel option so you can screw in casters. It could be used as a dolly or if you wanted to move a monitor from room to room, it’s very easily done.

Easy “click fit” connectors.

Ed: It’s a long connector so it’s not going to snap off, it’s providing a very stable support. I guess you can just fit this to your light or microphone holder or anything, giving you a very quick and stable setup?

Ed: An amazingly versatile product and if anybody wants to have a look at it, you can come out to Oceania here or start by having a peek on the website – everything’s available and what really surprised me was the price. I won’t tell you what it is, I think you need to talk to Nigel, because I expected this to be about twice as expensive considering the quality of the build and the features. It’s very reasonable let me say and I’m sure for a large order Nigel will do you a deal?

Nigel:

Nigel: Yes, so rather than having to screw it down every time, it’s just a push down and a pull to release. Now if you’ve got existing stands, that fitting is available as a retrofit so you can purchase that, add it to your existing stand while you transition to your new TRIAD-ORBIT and everything will be the same – or you can use the same fittings on your flyaway stand kit.

Ed: Because it’s those fittings that are the icing on the cake – there are lots of connector options and I especially like the ball joint arrangement?

Nigel: I kind of liken it to “Lego for grownups”. If you can imagine it, you can probably build it with this stuff. It basically clicks together and you can create all sorts of weird and wonderful mounts for your gear. For example, if you wanted to mount a couple of lights along with a camera on one stand, no Page 10

Happy to help, step into my office.

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Which Microphone is Best?

I went to Sound Techniques to talk with Stephen Buckland and Tim Riley about a question that has been on my mind for quite some time. People on the production side, they want a microphone, they realise what they might be using at the time isn’t the best, they want something better. How do they go about choosing both shotgun microphones and radio microphones?

Ed: Stephen, looking for?

what

should

they

be

Stephen: They obviously need to get one that’s going to work with their camera. Then, presumably, they want to get good sound. If people have got a budget for a film or pictures, then they need to think about how important is the sound.

Is it worth 30% of the final production, is it worth 90% of the final production?

Then, if they think about how much they’ve spent on cameras, are they going to spend that proportion of money on their sound equipment, because I ( at the risk of never going to the Cinematographers Society again ) would say that bad pictures paired up with good sound is a lot better recipe for the audience than the other way round.

Ed: For what it’s worth, I would actually agree with you on that Stephen, Stephen: Thank you Grant – for once we’ve agreed on something. So when someone approaches us to ask how they can get better sound we try to determine what’s going to work best for them.

Ed: Because the push of camera manufacturers has always been towards promoting high picture quality and the sound has often been secondary. I believe that one of the ways camera manufacturers can save money is by not having XLR audio inputs?

Stephen: Well I’ve never heard of a camera that anyone’s sound recordist has used where they’ve said “this camera is great for recording sound”, so I would agree. When someone brings in a camera, we have a look at it and often say “well, where’s the audio input?”

A thousand dollar camera might not even have any audio input, they’ve got a cheap microphone on them, but even if they do have an audio input, often it’s a 3.5mm mini jack.

Ed: Does just having a 3.5 mini jack give an indication as to what audio capability is inside?

Stephen: Well it indicates that audio is not the priority. It also indicates that it’s an unbalanced input, therefore there is the risk of interference from other sources in the room, causing hum or buzzes on your audio track. The other thing it often indicates, even if it is there, is that the whole audio chain or audio level is recorded by automatic gain. So you are then reliant on the camera’s electronic intelligence to set appropriate levels for the audio that’s being recorded.

Ed: And there’s no point having an XLR adapter that connects to a mini jack is there?

Stephen: That’s not true, you can get XLR adapters that have a clever way of overriding the automatic gain control. BeachTek make such a thing and they work

Tim with shotgun on a lyre support.

with a bit of clever trickery. They put out a 20 kilohertz ( quite high frequency ) onto one track of the audio and that fools the audio circuitry into leaving the channel open the whole time. Meanwhile, on the other channel, it records the audio at the level that you’ve determined.

Ed:

And you sell that product?

Stephen:

We do sell that product, yes.

Ed: I guess that’s particularly useful for the DSLR users out there?

Stephen: Well particularly the camera that I know we’ve dealt with quite often, the Canon 70D I think it is, and that’s a lovely camera, it takes great pictures so I understand, but the audio is automatic unless you can figure out some way of overriding it.

Ed: Right, so providing you’ve got XLR inputs, does that indicate it’s a much better sound quality possible inside that camera, or are there other things to look for?

Stephen: XLR inputs probably do suggest that it’s a better quality of camera, but of course there are no DSLRs that I can think of that have XLR inputs. You’re going into the next level of professional camera – and even then, there are various models where the basic camera shoots high quality pictures, but the actual audio interface to go with them is an add-on, it’s an optional extra. So your several thousand dollar camera costs even more with the audio add-on.

Ed: So now that they’ve shown you the camera and it’s got XLR inputs, then comes the question “okay, what sort of shotgun microphone do they need” and Tim is going to tell us that?

Tim: Once we’ve established that we’ve got professional inputs, we can go to the microphone. Most professional shotgun mics are condenser microphones, so they require phantom power.

Ed:

So that’s 48 Volt?

Tim: Correct. P48 or phantom power as it’s sometimes labelled on the equipment. Now there are several ways you can deliver that power to a condenser microphone, one of those being a AA battery inside the actual shotgun mic itself. There are some models which come with a caddy inside of them, you can flick on a switch

Page 12

and they’ll supply phantom power to the microphone, not drawing the battery power from the camera battery.

Ed:

Is that a good thing?

Tim: Well, it allows your camera full use of its battery but the downside of using the AA battery is that you don’t get quite the same signal to noise ratio as you do if you use phantom power. So there is a slight tradeoff, not that probably the person using it would discern, but if you want to get the absolute best out of the microphone then using the external phantom power I think works better.

Ed: So really high quality microphones – do they have batteries in them or not?

Tim: No they don’t. The higher quality microphones don’t have batteries, they need phantom power and generally that would come from the camera or the mixer. There are little external boxes that can provide phantom power if necessary, but if you’re in that league …

Ed: … you’ve got a soundie or you’ve got an off-board recorder. Alright, what’s the downside if you have an unpowered mic and you forget to switch to phantom power and you just use the ordinary mic input? What happens then?

Tim: Well you’re not going to get any audio for a start.

All condenser microphones require 48 Volt.

Ed: Okay, that’s easy then. So what happens if you do it the other way, that you have a mic that has its own power, like a radio mic input, but you’ve forgotten and you leave it on the 48 Volt phantom power. What happens then?

Tim: At that stage you’d probably just be draining unnecessary power from either the camera or the interface.

Ed:

But it shouldn’t affect the audio?

Tim: It shouldn’t affect the audio, no.

Ed: So obviously, there’s a huge price range of shotgun mics available. How should people choose one above the other?

Tim: Well first off, with a shotgun mic, you’re going to get different polar pattern pickups, so they’re intended for different purposes. Some have got a very narrow pickup range which is designed for very specific pickup of dialogue from one person in a group.

Ed: So in other words, you’ve got to point them pretty well directly at the subject?

Tim: Yes. Stephen: What you need to think of with microphones is different to, say, cameras. Cameras have a zoom lens, so you can pick up an image from something that’s far away from you, or you can widen out the lens and get something close to you.

Microphones do not work like that – they are like a fixed lens, so yes, the longer the capsule the more directional that it will be. This is fine if you’ve got a camera, just like you’re pointing the Dictaphone at me, you’re right in front of me and that’s fine. But if Tim starts talking off-camera, his voice will be indistinct with a longer shotgun microphone. So a different polar pattern, a wider polar pattern, is going to mean that perhaps, even though I’m pointing the microphone at you and the camera at you, if Tim interrupts or comments, he

Page 13

will still be heard. The other thing about the length of the microphone from a practical point of view is that long microphones and wide-angle lenses don’t necessarily go too well together, and that’s been a common problem, “oh we can’t have that microphone even though it will be perfect for the job, because we don’t want the microphone in the top of shot.”

Ed: Yes, and I can attest to that, because it happened to me and it’s a case where you might zoom in using the viewfinder as reference and think “yes, the microphone’s out”, but when you actually look at the picture on the timeline, “bugger” it’s still there. So there’s one benefit of 4K. Right, okay what else?

Tim: Once you’ve established what polar pattern you’re going to require for your job, or what you’re going to be using the most …

Ed: So it’s actually probably good to get 2 – one long one, one shorter one?

Tim: Sure yes, having 2 for different purposes …

Stephen: That’s one of the reasons why we promote the Sennheiser K6 modular system, because you can get a variety of different capsules and swap them over on the same microphone body. So rather than having 2 microphones you can have one microphone and a collection of heads that serve different purposes.

Ed:

Aaah is that quite a cost saving?

Stephen: Well you can only use one microphone at a time, but yes it is, it’s quite versatile. The rental kits we have for DSLR work in particular, or that level of work, have both capsules and then it’s over to the

operator to choose which one suits their job.

An example of that is we have people wanting to do a “fly on the wall” kind of documentary series where they give a camera to a novice or untrained people, and they go into the situation – it might be their own family, or their friends, it might be 3 or 4 people sitting on a sofa, and they want to cover all of them, and they’re going to zoom in on the ones talking, but the rest of the time the others are going to be talking as well, and so a wider angle capsule is going to suit.

However, if they’ve got to cover the one person, a single person talking to camera, then they can swap over the capsule and put the shotgun capsule on and get better, more direct sound from that.

Ed: Okay, considering shotguns that are the same length and have the same polar patterns, you still offer a number of brands – what is there to choose from between the brands? Is it just the frequency response, or signal to noise ratio or what is it about the cost involved in different brands?

Tim: We primarily sell 2 brands, one of those being Sennheiser, the other one being Sanken – German and Japanese microphones – and they’re both very, very good at what they do. Obviously, each model has its own purpose, but as soon as you start buying more expensive microphones, the specs get better.

Obviously, you’ll get better sensitivity so it’s better capturing the very small nuances of speech, dialect or just general atmosphere.

With the cheaper ones, you’re going to find that you probably won’t get as good a sensitivity as the higher end ones.

Page 14

Ed: Is the correct term “flat” – you talk about a “flat” sound from a cheaper microphone?

Stephen: Well it depends what you mean by “flat”. If by “flat” you mean the sound sounds dead and lifeless as opposed to sparkling and like you’re in the room talking to the person when you hear it back …

Ed: Like what I’m hearing now?

Stephen: No, what Ms Hellfinger is hearing when she listens to this actually. That will sound flat I would imagine and reasonably so because you want just my words and the sense of emotion is unnecessary.

Basically all microphones sound different and when it comes to edit what microphone might sound good to your ears, when it comes to editing what you want is audio that fits nicely against the picture, and any other elements of the soundtrack that you might be adding, such as music or voiceovers or atmospheric sound. I would say ideally, you’re trying to get a crisp natural sound, but it’s got to “cut through” whatever else is going on, because at the end of the day, presuming the person’s listening to it on a television at home on cheap speakers, you want the audio to be audible and understandable.

Ed:

So your recommendation is?

Stephen: Well my recommendation is the more you spend on a microphone the better that it will sound, but e v e r ybo d y ’ s e a rs ar e different, so different microphones might sound different to different people.

Ed:

Ed: And also comparisons – you can plug 2 in at the same time?

Tim: Absolutely. You can “AB” them and see which one is going to suit your needs better in terms of frequency response or the sensitivity.

Ed: Now of course Stephen, the microphone is just the start of the audio workflow, you can still stuff it up in production if you don’t get other things right?

Stephen: People often come to see us and yes, they would like to buy a microphone, but buying the microphone is only the first part of it really. The microphone needs to have some sort of suspension whether it’s going on a camera, or whether it’s going to go on a boom or be handheld.

Then the question “are you going to be using it outside, or moving it around rapidly inside?” in which case, you need some form of wind protection because wind is a great destroyer of audio.

Wind blows across a microphone and causes that ghastly breaking up noise – very prevalent these days in those “fly on the wall” News broadcasts where obviously the stringer has a cellphone or something. Even that can be sorted let me tell you. Rycote has a little fluffy micro windjammer which you can put over the camera mic … but anyway, wind needs to be dealt with.

Sooooo?

Tim: Maybe a visit to Sound Techniques and to actually listen to a microphone?

Someone who is spending several thousand dollars on a microphone, they’ll want to know what it sounds like.

We highly recommend that customers audition the microphone and even better on the actual equipment that they’re going to be using it on.

So if they’re able to bring their camera and if it’s got an interface then we can hook the camera up to the interface and plug the microphone in and let them audition it that way. If it’s on a professional video recording camera, then we can plug it straight into the XLRs and they can audition it that way.

Ed: And if they’re really, really keen and it’s an expensive purchase, you suggest that they actually take that recording away and check it out on the timeline?

Ed: And there’s a move away from fluffies these days, I mean it used to be everybody had fluffy covers over their microphones but the professionals have now gone for a more easy-care surface?

Tim: Sure yes, there’s certainly no harm in doing that – checking out the dynamic range of the microphone, seeing how sensitive it is …

Stephen: Yes, Rycote have managed to incorporate what is called a windjammer in their range of Cyclones and Softies.

In effect, the outer material is the equivalent of one of those fluffy windjammers and the previous sort of basket surround.

Ed:

Ed:

Seeing what it sounds like in post?

Tim: Exactly, yes, in a controlled environment, on some studio monitors or in a space that’s treated would be ideal if they were able to do that. But generally, you can get the gist of a microphone with a good pair of headphones. Sennheiser HD 25s are fairly standard, they’re used across the industry, I think people can get a fairly good idea of what a microphone would sound like through those.

But they don’t get matted with burrs?

Stephen: They don’t get matted with burrs, you don’t have to dreadlock the thing, probably not quite so likely to catch on fire if they’re put next to an old-style lighting device.

Ed:

And they don’t attract the water?

Stephen: They don’t attract the water and the new ones can all be wiped clean – in fact we have some

Page 15

instructions about how, using Softly, you can wash your Cyclone to bring it back to new.

Ed: Do you provide a bottle of Softly with every Cyclone purchase?

Stephen:

Well we could do, but we haven’t as yet.

Ed: Over the decades, microphones have tended to get lighter and have gone digital. Have all the analogue microphones gone digital or are most of them still analogue?

Stephen: Very few microphones are digital at this stage, and they come at a healthy premium. They’ve got slightly lighter because they all used to have transformers in them, but now it’s all done with electronic balancing, but you’re talking grams not kilograms.

Ed: What is it that people can do to a shotgun microphone to ruin it?

Tim: ( Once the laughter had died down ) … They can get it wet, especially salt water. That’ll stuff your microphone, that’ll corrode the capsule and it won’t be usable, you’d need to replace the internals …

Ed: But you must have some sort of softie to keep salt water out?

Tim: Absolutely, yes some form of wind protection is obviously going to supply some weather protection, so your microphone is generally safe inside a windshield to a point. You wouldn’t want to immerse it that’s for sure. You can also damage microphones by dropping them which will dislodge internal circuitry.

Stephen:

They don’t bounce.

Ed: What about putting a plastic bag over it?

Tim: The problem with that is it’s going to attenuate the high frequencies.

Ed: And it will also rustle?

Tim: And it’s noisy, yes.

Stephen: And talking about corrosion, probably the most common fault that we have is on the microphones which run on an internal battery – people leave the battery in the microphone, they put it on the shelf, they don’t use it for 6 months and when they come back the battery’s corroded away the inside of the microphone.

Ed: Right, so that’s shotguns but of course radio microphones are really important and there’s not many people out there who are not using a radio microphone in their production. With all the spectrum changes that have happened recently, there are a lot of people having to change their radio mics – or should be.

Again, there’s a plethora of brands out there so what does one look for in a radio mic – apart from it being spectrum compliant?

Stephen: Well for most people, budget is important and the brands we support mostly are Sennheiser and Lectrosonics.

We support the Sennheiser ones, generally it’s the entry level version, whereas with Lectrosonics, their entry level is more expensive than whatever the next range of Sennheiser ones might be.

Ed: Now are you supporting those just because you’ve got the agency for them, or is there another more valid reason?

Stephen: Well we support them because those people support us and it means that we can carry not just the hardware but also spares and information for each of those. A lot of people might buy, say, the Sennheiser G3 system and because it costs under $1000 they realise that the weakest link in it is in fact the microphone, which comes as part of the kit. So if they spend another $400 or $500, they can buy a better quality microphone, attach it to that and get better quality sound. We have that information, we have access to the connectors, we try to keep the various personal microphones in stock, such as the Sankens and Trams. But going back to your original question, yes we can support those brands best; yes there is a plethora of brands but if we tried to support them all, we’d end up with not much of everything.

Ed: So you pick those ones that are reliable to start with, but that you can also get the support from the parent company and they’re very good at responding to your requests – especially Sennheiser in Australia?

Stephen: That’s correct. Okay, so what do you look for in a radio microphone? Using those 2 brands as examples, but comparing the cheaper ones with the more expensive, the cheaper ones will tend to use what’s called a compander system.

So at the transmitter, the sound is compressed and when it reaches the receiver it’s uncompressed, which means that there are limits to the dynamic range, the quality of the sound at the other end. A test which is often used with radio microphones is called the “key test”.

Get a bunch of keys, jangle them at the microphone, listen at the receiver. With most cheap microphones, what you’ll get at the receiver end is a garbled crunchy kind of sound; with a more expensive radio system with a better microphone, the transients of the sound are conveyed much better through the audio chain. So transients equals clarity and that’s a good test.

Ed: So that’s not just the microphone, it’s the receiver/transmitter as well?

Stephen: The electronics, yes, the compander system, because the compander reacts to the level of sound, but it can’t react quickly enough to the actual transient, the bright sound of a bunch of keys jangling.

Page 16

Ed: Also with the brands that you support, there should be some sort of training or some sort of knowledge base where people can go to and learn about the technicalities of things – like attenuation?

Stephen: Well yes, spectrum actually.

I

was

thinking

more

about

The other thing we’re able to help people with is finding spectrum for their radio microphones to work in.

Ed: That’s not just for New Zealand, but often freelance cameramen are going over to the Islands or going to Asia somewhere to do a shoot, and they’ve got to make sure that their microphones are actually allowed to work there?

Stephen: Well that they’re approved. We’d probably have to deal with that on a case by case basis.

Ed: But that’s something that you can help them with?

Stephen: Yes. The further flung you go probably the less rules there are, or the vaguer it is what you can actually do there.

Ed:

You wanted to explain attenuation?

Stephen: Yes, you need to set up the transmitter and the receiver to the correct levels.

A common mistake people make is that they don’t have the correct microphone level at the transmitter end and they overcompensate by turning up the receiver.

What they get is a very “boxy” sound, it doesn’t sound very good, and it’s got a high noise floor. So we’ll help people appreciate that.

Ed: But again, the actual manufacturers of the radio mics that you sell would have that information available on their websites, so there would be comprehensive manuals, training etc?

decide that that’s what you’re looking for, we can rent it to you.

Ed: What’s somebody looking at for a week’s rental of a top end radio mic kit?

Stephen: A top end radio mic kit you’re looking at about $300 a week and an entry level one is around about $180.

However, if you come back within a week or two of the rental, having decided you want to actually buy that item, it worked for you, we’ll rebate the rental towards the cost of buying the actual equipment.

Ed:

That’s a pretty good deal.

Stephen: Well it’s giving the user the confidence that it works and so do we, because we’re trying to make sure you have the gear that works in your circumstances.

Buying gear is expensive and you need to get a return on that over the time that you have it. We want all our customers to do well in their chosen field, but we have no direct control over their day to day work. In a couple of years’ time, what we don’t want is for you to be coming back and saying “oh you sold me that product, but I don’t need it anymore because I didn’t get the use of it that it’s worth” or you didn’t get its value back again.

Key links in the audio chain are the microphones and the speakers – those are the things that you’ll be stuck with the longest, so buying a good microphone is a good investment. The cameras will come and go in 2 or 3 years. I know you all love your cameras, but they will be out of date in 2 or 3 years’ time, whereas the microphones will last probably a minimum of 10 years, possibly longer. So it’s worth spending the money wisely.

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Stephen: Probably too comprehensive. I would say the majority of our clients do not read the manual first and foremost and so we can help them with that.

Here, further lively discussion comments regarding soundies and reading have been removed to protect the innocent.

Ed: Back point often business equipment can you Stephen?

on topic and a overlooked is the case for any purchase. How help with that

Stephen: First of all tell us what it is you’re trying to achieve, because that’ll determine what you want to spend on it.

Another part of that is we’ll show you the gear and we’ll prove that it works. If you

No, Stephen is not dressed up for his wiki cultural event … he’s modelling what every soundie needs for extreme wet weather. Very fetching at that.

Page 18

Microphones – a Customer Perspective To get a user perspective on microphones, we are here with Guy Quartermain, a freelance cameraman featured in our March 2015 issue.

Ed: Guy, you’ve recently purchased a new shotgun mic.

You’ve obviously had shotgun mics for many years, but you decided you needed a new one. What is it that you look for in a shotgun mic?

Guy: The old “price versus quality” equation and also physical size. I wanted something compact, reasonably cheap and as good a quality as I could manage. I did look at higher end microphones, like the Schoeps microphones, which are just beautiful, but they’re in the US$3,000 plus range which, for the nature of the work I do with my own gear, is too expensive. When I work with soundies they provide that top end gear of course.

Ed:

The soundie provides the microphone?

Guy: That’s right – any good soundie will have a Schoeps or pretty high end Sennheisers or better gear than what I’d generally consider would be realistic for me to keep myself.

Ed: Now when you say it “fits the work that you do”, why shouldn’t you be getting the best possible sound for a client even though they’re not paying a lot?

Guy: Good question – it’s capital investment really isn’t it. So yes, I could buy a $3,000 microphone and all the attendant bits and pieces, but there are a couple of other variables too …

Ed:

Then you couldn’t afford to eat?

“Fang” is considering an attempt to shorten Guy’s new Sanken shotgun.

Guy: Well then no, they wouldn’t want to pay my bill.

Page 20

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Ed: Because you’ve got to get a return on your investment don’t you. That’s got to be part of any business equation?

Guy: That’s right, absolutely, so I’ve got to be realistic about that and provide equipment at the level that my clients want.

Ed: And that’s true with corporate work especially – there’s not a lot of postproduction, it’s really getting it out quickly and it being good clean sound?

Guy: I actually do very little corporate work these days but that’s certainly true. I think, unless it’s very high end when I do do it, as long as it’s audible, they can’t actually tell the difference. This sounds very unfair to the clients, but it is true. They don’t care as long as it’s clear. With the TV work, which is most of what I do, it’s a little bit different.

It varies, some people are very quality focused and others aren’t. As I say though, the people who are very quality focused, will usually use a soundie anyway, which is my preference. I’d always rather work with a soundie if I can but, unfortunately, the budgets available today don’t always stretch to it.

Ed: So if you have to do it yourself, you want to make sure that, whatever equipment you’re using is reliable, so you’re not constantly having to adjust it?

Guy: That’s right, reliable, reasonably cheap and easy to use. Also quite forgiving, Yes, and that is something I looked for in the microphone when I was shopping … I did look at the Sennheiser 8050 and various other mics, but I feel the Sanken CS-1e I chose is quite forgiving. In a way, it’s quite a flat sound – I’m not a sound expert, so I’m not sure if I’m even describing it correctly, but to me the Sanken mics feel like they’re quite forgiving; I don’t get a lot of peaking. I can set it at a reasonable level and “set and forget” and it sounds nice and rich and warm, but I don’t have to be constantly aware of the levels. I have used higher quality mics, particularly the Sennheisers, and believe the Schoeps are really similar. They have an amazing range they capture in a wonderfully full sound, but they’re also a bit less forgiving because of that.

Ed: So you actually went and listened before you bought?

Guy: I did. I hired one of these microphones off Sound Techniques to record a voiceover. We’d been making a short film so I went and tried a couple out and thought I’ll hire that for the day and we can use it to record our voiceover for the film and I can have a play with it as well.

Ed: Now one of the features you mentioned earlier was that you didn’t want it to be too bulky and, from my understanding, the longer your shotgun microphone, the more directional it is. You didn’t need that particularly high directional capability?

Guy: No, not particularly. The two applications where I would generally use a shotgun microphone would either be sit down interviews where, if I’m working without a soundie, I would simply put the microphone on a boom and a stand and just almost “set and forget” it. I might tweak it a tiny bit as I go if the person moves, but basically, just stick it in the right place and off you go; or just to get general sound on a camera, which is terrible of course, because you get handling noise and all sorts of other noise.

So for both of those applications, one very portable … the CS-1e is quite small, it’s probably about 20 centimetres long I guess.

there is some perspective reduction, but there is an obvious size difference here.

My old mic was a Sennheiser ME66 and it was about one and a half times the length, but also about one and a half times the diameter, so overall the Sanken is probably half the physical size of the Sennheiser, which is just fantastic. In both those situations, I don’t need high directionality; I’m not trying to catch faraway dialogue from a boom or anything like that.

Ed: Now you just mentioned handling noise so, while you were in Sound Techniques, you purchased a Lyre Mount from Rycote. Is this something you’ve been wanting for a while?

Guy: It is. I had one of the older rubber style Rycote mounts – they’re like 2 rubber rings – for my old microphone and I was never very happy with it. I always thought it had lots of handling noise and wasn’t great. You expect that to some degree, I mean it’s not a full size blimp and they’re a cheap system, but the Lyre Mount is fantastic. I’ve been really quite blown away by how it isolates handling noise, it’s very good, I’d really recommend getting that. I’ll also get one of their new Cyclones because I’ve heard very good things about them. I was talking to a soundie the other day, about the new Rycote blimps they’ve made, and he thinks they’re just incredible. By all accounts, the Lyre and the Cyclone systems have been about 10 years in development and he really rates them. He said they’re just night and day compared to the old ones.

Ed: And the fittings are the same, and the power supply is the same?

Guy: Yes, they’re all identical, it’s standard 48 Volt phantom power and 3 pin XLR. A minor part of the reason I chose a Sanken shotgun was to match up all of my microphones.

My aim is to have matching colouration and sound all through the whole kit, so I think having Sanken Lavalier and shotgun microphones should hopefully be a good match.

Ed:

Page 22

Do you get a Sanken jacket?

N

ot yet but … it will happen.

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Guy: I bloody should, shouldn’t I – I should at least get a cap.

Ed: Now in terms of buying from a local rep, this is something that is important for you because you’ve got that backup, you’ve got that guarantee that if something goes wrong it’s going to be fixed?

Guy: Yes that’s right. My higher value and complicated equipment I always buy from locals … well I always buy from locals “full stop” if I can. Traditionally, there have been some quite large price differentials, but in my experience, those price differentials have largely disappeared now. I don’t actually see a substantial cost difference and certainly you might pay a 5% or 10% premium to buy a complex and expensive bit of gear like this locally, but the service backup is absolutely worth it.

Ed: And the ability to hire it first was obviously quite high in your mind?

Guy: Well I mean for me, I really not an expert with sound … so it is always good to try something first.

Ed: I could tell you some horror stories of my own, but I won’t embarrass myself.

A little chip-in in here; I had a very similar experience to Guy many years ago when I was looking for a shotgun mic and my choice was between 2 brands – one was twice the price of the other. I went to Stephen and he plugged them into a recorder, gave me a set of headphones and we talked and I listened to both microphones, flicking between the two. In the end, I chose the cheaper one, even though I was quite prepared to pay for the more expensive one, because it was simply that I thought that the one I chose sounded very natural to me and a sound that I didn’t have to fiddle with in postproduction.

Ed: Now also, radio microphones, this is the other topic of our conversation and again Guy, we seem to be quite similar here, that many years ago I went for the little Sony UM1’s which everybody had because they were cheap, they did the job, they were pretty bulletproof and they took a couple of AA batteries.

They just kept going, and going, and going. You’ve had a similar experience?

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Guy: Yes – well I’ve gravitated towards the newer Sony radio mics for my work. The wee UTX series and URX – I think UTX is the transmitters, and the URX are the receivers. They’re great. I used to use Sennheiser G3 mics and then about 3 years ago, I borrowed a pair of these Sony’s and found that they’re just so much quieter. To my ear, they are electronically every bit as good as a “top brand”. The Sony’s are not as robust physically and, if I was a soundie, I think I’d still be going for what I would characterise as the “military grade” hardware, but in terms of pure sound quality, I think the Sony’s are amazing.

Ed: And again, running on AA batteries?

Guy: Yes. Ed: But do you use your Sony packs as they came, or have you chosen a different microphone for the radio mic?

Guy: I’ve used various Lavaliers over the years – even with the G3’s, I buy the radio mic packs, chuck the Lavalier it comes with into my box of useless junk which I’ll never use, ( of which I’ve got quite a few now ), and buy a new mic. So the first ones I bought were the Sennheiser Goldlines and they were good, quite “toppy” though, quite a tweaky kind of sound, but lovely, I mean really, really good quality. Recently, I’ve moved towards the Sanken microphones – they’re called a COS -11D I believe, again from Stephen. They’re just amazing and a lot of professional soundies I work with use them as well, they’re just very, very forgiving, lovely clarity and really resistant to handling noise too.

When I do work OPC, to be honest, I don’t have time to be super-picky so I need something that can rustle around in clothes or be taped on quickly and sound good. That’s just so important. I don’t have time to fidget around with radio mics all day.

Ed: So if you had to give one piece of advice to somebody who was looking at purchasing microphones, radio or shotgun, what would you say?

Guy: What would I say … read the internet forums first, go and talk to Sound Techniques and have a good look and buy what suits your needs, and most of all, listen to what they sound like to you.

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