Does anyone have any experience using a Mix Pre 10T II

J

JimS2

Member
I got a job recording location audio for a feature film, and I am use to using my own equipment. But for this one, they want me to use this particular field recorder. I read the user guide on it, but if anyone knows of any hidden catches I should be aware of that the user guide does not go into, that would be great!

Or anything I should know, would be great as well! Thanks.
 
Ask if you can get your hands on the recorder a couple days in advance, so you have some time to test it out and familiarize yourself with its operation. Reading the manual is great, but is not as effective without actually getting hands-on.

Use advanced mode so you have separate input gain and mix levels, and so you have pre-fade ISOs.

Talk to post about how they want projects named and file naming organized.

AA batteries are useless. Make sure they have a better powering option, ideally NP-1 or smart battery cup with either a BDS or direct Hirose connection.

Download the Wingman app from Sound Devices to your phone and learn to use it. You’ll have to be connected to the recorder to be able to operate it.
 
I'd also go over to YouTube and watch the Curtis Judd videos, he does some pretty good hands-on setup and function exploration that got me up to speed on using the Mix Pres in one sitting.
The Mix Pres are prosumer, therefore are pretty simple if you've ever used professional audio gear. I find the 833, Scorpio and the higher end SD devices to be MUCH deeper and more complex
to digest.
 
Getting the machine to record is childs play. Setting up the HP filters, limiters, file naming, scene advancements, false takes, re-takes, track metadata and sound reports are not, I would not go to a paid job without having a day or more exploring an unfamiliar machine and going though as many scenarios as you can think of. You you will not have time on-set and will hold up production.
This assumes you already have the other usual PSM skills.
 
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JimS2 said:
I got a job recording location audio for a feature film, and I am use to using my own equipment. But for this one, they want me to use this particular field recorder. I read the user guide on it, but if anyone knows of any hidden catches I should be aware of that the user guide does not go into, that would be great!

Or anything I should know, would be great as well! Thanks.
Click to expand...

I gave up my 633 for this ... and it can be a bit of a challenge ... for the first session or two.

Time code can be sync'd with Nano Ambient Lockits or other systems ... if you record in 32 bit you lose the limiters ... which
may not be a big deal for you.

I always set one track -6 db from the other ... so that I have a bit of safety from clipping.

You can use the USB C to upload files ... but when you do the record function defaults to 44.1 and you need to reset it when you return to
normal recording ... 48 or 96 ... whichever is your preferred rate. Seems that they assume that the file upload function should be the same
as their USB audio interface ... why it defaults to this is anyone's guess.

Each track needs to be armed ... push in on the individual encoder knob and the menu to do so appears.

I use the Hawk Woods SD-2... Sony battery adapter ... can record all day with a couple of big NPF batteries.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1382309-REG/hawk_woods_sd_2_mixpwr_sound_devices_mix_pre.html

There was a bit of concern about the internal clock ... so I always jam TC to an external Nano that has been synced to one that
provides TC to camera ... there is a small 20 - 30 msec delay in HDMI from camera to recorder that needs to be adjusted.

Sound Devices just released a new FW for the unit ... worth updating on the unit you will be using.

Cannot comment on their paid NOise and MIXassist plugins ... look to be worthwhile but most of my recording is limited
to 1 or 2 sources.

Have not done it ... but you can use a USB flash drive to backup the recordings .... I believe in realtime.
 
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I’d echo the thoughts of other posters. The mixPre while not fully pro is still fairly complex if you never used it. Read the manual, Curtis videos, followed up with a few days of hands on practice. If all they’re expecting is a simple single track boom op recording fine, but if you need to mix multiple inputs, iso tracks, time gen...

At minimum you need to know how to set limiters and operate the gain and faders. Knowing the OP I’d be concerned with his ability to pickup such a device and run with it. Seems odd a pro production throwing gear at someone who’s never used it...
 
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Ryan, I have a feeling you may be getting yourself in over your head, and that won’t turn out well for you or for the feature film.

I just saw your thread on another forum that clearly demonstrates you don’t understand why omnidirectional lavs are preferable to cardioid lavs, or why they actually do work just fine outside. This makes me think that you may not understand enough to be able to properly manage actor lavs and transmitters. There’s another thread on that forum that shows you have a hard time navigating a field mixer/recorder without numbers on the faders, and that you don’t have a good grasp on proper gain staging.

I know you’ve done some very limited “location sound” in the past on your smaller projects and have been a boom op on a couple of projects, but dealing with a single lav and/or a single boom is an inherently different situation from a feature film as a production sound mixer, moreso as a one-man sound department.

There are lots of things you need to know to do this job aside from how to use the mixer/recorder and how properly to select and place lavs and wireless transmitters. You need to understand how to sync and manage time code (both time code boxes and slate are typically provided by the sound department). You need to know which camera they’re using before production, and how that camera interfaces with time code and camera hops (if you’re using hops at all), and you need to know which cables and adapters are necessary to connect all the gak to the camera. You need to have a deep understanding of on-set protocol that’s probably above what you’ve experienced.

You need to understand what sound reports are and how to generate them (both paper versions and within the MixPre using Wingman), and to be religious about keeping up with them each and every day. Related to that, you need to understand file naming schemes, specifically the way post wants them delivered. If post for some reason isn’t yet on board, or doesn’t have an answer, you need to know how to label them clearly so there’s absolutely zero question about what they’re looking at when they open your daily project folders. You also need to know how to markup the working script before production so you know everything you need going into each shoot day. And you need to know how to work with the DIT on set.

I don’t know on which level this feature film is operating. Is it a low-level, low-budget, amateur-ish production? Or is it produced and directed by people who have some actual experience? If it’s the latter, everything above is crucially important. If it’s the former, well... I can tell you from experience that being a sound mixer on a sh*tshow film and being one of the few people on set who have a clue can actually save post a lot of aggravation. But if you’re just as clueless as the rest of the crew, well... not much can be done to save it in post. I got a phone call from an editor on a trainwreck I mixed a few years ago, when she first started working on it: “If you hadn’t been so organized with your sound files and reports, I wouldn’t have been able to put any of this together.”

And never, ever walk onto set on day 1 to start working with gear you’ve never before experienced hands-on. If you can’t get the recorder a few days in advance and really learn it inside and out, you’re setting yourself up for a disaster.

So you have a choice here. You can gracefully bow out, or recommend that they move you to boom op and find another mixer to take over. Or, you can gamble with your reputation and with the success of the feature film and try to study up before production starts. A feature film is not something to be taken lightly as a newb, and it’s not a place to test out the “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality.

Whichever you choose, and I hope you choose wisely, there are two books I highly recommend if you think this is something that you might eventually want to do on a more professional, paid basis. And remember, books and manuals can give you lots of good information, but nothing replaces actual experience.

How to Survive on Set: The Set Production Assistant’s Guidebook by Jessica Dean Rose
Yeah, it’s a guide for set PAs, but if you don’t know how an actual set works, this book is chock full of information that is invaluable for anyone looking to get into film production. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

The Location Sound Bible by Ric Viers
This is a must-have for anyone really wanting to delve into location sound production. Again: read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

But whatever you do, don’t jump into a feature film as a learning experiment. Sound can make or break a film.
 
Alex H. said:
Ryan, I have a feeling you may be getting yourself in over your head, and that won’t turn out well for you or for the feature film.

I just saw your thread on another forum that clearly demonstrates you don’t understand why omnidirectional lavs are preferable to cardioid lavs, or why they actually do work just fine outside. This makes me think that you may not understand enough to be able to properly manage actor lavs and transmitters. There’s another thread on that forum that shows you have a hard time navigating a field mixer/recorder without numbers on the faders, and that you don’t have a good grasp on proper gain staging.

I know you’ve done some very limited “location sound” in the past on your smaller projects and have been a boom op on a couple of projects, but dealing with a single lav and/or a single boom is an inherently different situation from a feature film as a production sound mixer, much less as a one-man sound department.

There are lots of things you need to know to do this job aside from how to use the mixer/recorder and how properly to select and place lavs and wireless transmitters. You need to understand how to sync and manage time code (both time code boxes and slate are typically provided by the sound department). You need to know which camera they’re using before production, and how that camera interfaces with time code and camera hops (if you’re using hops at all), and you need to know which cables and adapters are necessary to connect all the gak to the camera. You need to have a deep understanding of on-set protocol that’s probably above what you’ve experienced.

You need to understand what sound reports are and how to generate them (both paper versions and within the MixPre using Wingman), and to be religious about keeping up with them each and every day. Related to that, you need to understand file naming schemes, specifically the way post wants them delivered. If post for some reason isn’t yet on board, or doesn’t have an answer, you need to know how to label them clearly so there’s absolutely zero question about what they’re looking at when they open your daily project folders. You also need to know how to markup the working script before production so you know everything you need going into each shoot day. And you need to know how to work with the DIT on set.

I don’t know on which level this feature film is operating. Is it a low-level, low-budget, amateur-ish production? Or is it produced and directed by people who have some actual experience? If it’s the latter, everything above is crucially important. If it’s the former, well... I can tell you from experience that being a sound mixer on a sh*tshow film and being one of the few people on set who have a clue can actually save post a lot of aggravation. But if you’re just as clueless as the rest of the crew, well... not much can be done to save it in post. I got a phone call from an editor on a trainwreck I mixed a few years ago, when she first started working on it: “If you hadn’t been so organized with your sound files and reports, I wouldn’t have been able to put any of this together.”

And never, ever walk onto set on day 1 to start working with gear you’ve never before experienced hands-on. If you can’t get the recorder a few days in advance and really learn it inside and out, you’re setting yourself up for a disaster.

So you have a choice here. You can gracefully bow out, or recommend that they move you to boom op and find another mixer to take over. Or, you can gamble with your reputation and with the success of the feature film and try to study up before production starts. A feature film is not something to be taken lightly as a newb, and it’s not a place to test out the “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality.

Whichever you choose, and I hope you choose wisely, there are two books I highly recommend if you think this is something that you might eventually want to do on a more professional, paid basis. And remember, books and manuals can give you lots of good information, but nothing replaces actual experience.

How to Survive on Set: The Set Production Assistant’s Guidebook by Jessica Dean Rose
Yeah, it’s a guide for set PAs, but if you don’t know how an actual set works, this book is chock full of information that is invaluable for anyone looking to get into film production. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

The Location Sound Bible by Ric Viers
This is a must-have for anyone really wanting to delve into location sound production. Again: read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

But whatever you do, don’t jump into a feature film as a learning experiment. Sound can make or break a film.
Click to expand...

One glance at the "Camera" thread over on JW Sound would give many even experienced mixers pause. With all of the cameras people are using, there are sooooo many TC issues and interface issues and weirdness with the Venice, the REDs, the Arris, really all of the cameras
that people are using to shoot features. Lots of weird, rare connections (look at all of the different TC hookups just for the various REDs!) Add in all of the very real world issues Alex points out and not knowing the gear you are using inside out spells an impending disaster.

Sound mixing on a feature is largely about problem solving, not just mixing and recording sound. You are going to be hit up constantly with issues and if you cannot quickly and immediately solve them, you will be let go. How do you deal with making your wireless lavs work when the camera
departments Teradeks are stepping all over your wireless? How do you tactfully suggest to the ACs and director that shooting a dialog scene next to a fountain in a concrete courtyard may not be a good idea? Mixing sound is all about the gear but it's so much more, especially on a
feature, assuming this is a low budget feature?
 
Oh okay thanks. Yes it's a low budget feature. I thought that the reason to use omni lavs over cardioid, was that omni ones have less of a change of of the pick pattern moving out of place, since it's an omni pick up pattern? Or is there a different reason why omni mics are preferred?

I've been on sets before, but of course they were microbudget indie type sets, if that makes any difference? But this one will be too I think.

As for using timecode to sync to the camera, I've always synced in the past by using a clapperboard only on other productions, but is a clapperboard only with no syncing time code, too 'old school', nowadays?
 
JimS2 said:
Oh okay thanks. Yes it's a low budget feature. I thought that the reason to use omni lavs over cardioid, was that omni ones have less of a change of of the pick pattern moving out of place, since it's an omni pick up pattern? Or is there a different reason why omni mics are preferred?

I've been on sets before, but of course they were microbudget indie type sets, if that makes any difference? But this one will be too I think.

As for using timecode to sync to the camera, I've always synced in the past by using a clapperboard only on other productions, but is a clapperboard only with no syncing time code, too 'old school', nowadays?
Click to expand...

Yes. On a feature, editorial will expect to have synced dailies, your Mix Pre files will need to have the same TC as the camera(s). If they don't, once again, you will be blamed.

"I've been on sets before" and you are the sound mixer for this feature? That in itself sounds terrifying. Are you sure you want to take the risk for the filmmakers and your own
reputation to be THE sound mixer that the sound for this feature all hinges on? Based on what you have written, I would bow out and suggest the film hire an experienced sound
team. No offense but it sounds like this is way over your experience and skill level.
 
JimS2 said:
Oh okay thanks. Yes it's a low budget feature. I thought that the reason to use omni lavs over cardioid, was that omni ones have less of a change of of the pick pattern moving out of place, since it's an omni pick up pattern? Or is there a different reason why omni mics are preferred?
Click to expand...

The pickup pattern doesn’t move unless the mic capsule moves. It’s a matter of the actor’s head turning that moves the actor’s voice in and out of the pickup pattern, which is countered by using an omni.

JimS2 said:
I've been on sets before, but of course they were microbudget indie type sets, if that makes any difference? But this one will be too I think.
Click to expand...

You think, or you know? Awareness of the level and type of production you’re walking into is absolutely crucial. Walking onto set with this in question is a recipe for disaster... both for you and for the film.

Just having been on sets before does not qualify you. And “microbudget indie type sets” can mean a lot of things, especially that you haven’t been exposed to a true, proper film set environment. If this set works as it should, even on a tight budget, will you be able to navigate it?

Having been a boom op once or twice does not prepare you as a sound mixer. There are lots of things you’ll be responsible for as a sound mixer, and if you cannot do them, the film will suffer.

JimS2 said:
As for using timecode to sync to the camera, I've always synced in the past by using a clapperboard only on other productions, but is a clapperboard only with no syncing time code, too 'old school', nowadays?
Click to expand...

It depends on the production... but that is something you need to clear with the production. You need to know this going in. It’s not a “one size fits all” topic. Most low-budget sets I’ve been on still expect TC sync and TC slate. It’s your job to know that, and to be prepared to supply it. Or, if they’re providing gear, to know how to operate it. And, as Dan pointed out, how to troubleshoot it.

Technically, a dumb slate is enough to sync clips in post. It’s worked since the “talkies” began, and it’s good to have one on hand even just as a last-resort backup. BUT you have to know what the post-production team’s workflow is, and deliver things to their specs. If that includes TC sync and slate, then that’s what you have to do. Generally, if the camera utilizes TC sync and the sound recorder utilizes TC sync, there’s an expectation that they will be jammed to the same TC source and that there will be a TC slate to match.

This isn’t a paint-by-numbers industry. Too many variables, too many possibilities. You have to know how to roll with the punches and fix things when they go wrong. Dan brought up a few of those things, but there are many more. Too many to list, too many to discuss. And we cannot cover all the possibilities in a forum thread.
 
What Ryan/Jim considers professional most of us would think of amateur level. That lav pickup pattern gets ask so much by beginners there should be a FAQ section that you point them to.
 
Oh okay, yes I see what you mean by the heads turning. Well I got an email from someone who saw my short films before and liked my audio that I recorded for them so that is how I was picked. I decided to take it because I want to get on projects and do more. They are letting me get use to the knew mixer ahead of time though.
 
puredrifting said:
Yes. On a feature, editorial will expect to have synced dailies, your Mix Pre files will need to have the same TC as the camera(s). If they don't, once again, you will be blamed.

"I've been on sets before" and you are the sound mixer for this feature? That in itself sounds terrifying. Are you sure you want to take the risk for the filmmakers and your own
reputation to be THE sound mixer that the sound for this feature all hinges on? Based on what you have written, I would bow out and suggest the film hire an experienced sound
team. No offense but it sounds like this is way over your experience and skill level.
Click to expand...

Some I was the sound mixer, some I was an actor, some I was a PA. On the ones where I was a sound mixer, I was never asked to do the same time code as the camera, and they always used a clapperboard to sync before. This one seems to be the same thing. But I was honest about my experience level when they asked me, and I told them what I have done on previous projects, workflow wise.
 
JimS2 said:
Some I was the sound mixer, some I was an actor, some I was a PA. On the ones where I was a sound mixer, I was never asked to do the same time code as the camera, and they always used a clapperboard to sync before. This one seems to be the same thing. But I was honest about my experience level when they asked me, and I told them what I have done on previous projects, workflow wise.
Click to expand...

All I can say is if their expectations for things like sync sound, usable sound and good microphone placement aren't met by you, do you think the producer will say, "Well we knew going in that Jim wasn't an experienced sound mixer so all of this mess is just our own fault" or do you think the conversation will go more like, "Wow, that Jim guy really didn't know WTH he was doing and
now all of our days we shot with him are reshoots. Should we blame ourselves for hiring a non pro sound mixer or should we blame Jim because he willingly took the job knowing it was above his experience level and skill level?"

Bet it will go more like option 2.
 
Its a safe bet this is low budget production. I think it's going to be ok. On the one hand you hate to see someone get in over their head and ruin a production. On the other hand, simple shoot with a clap board, we should encourage him to push through and hope for the best. They're probably hiring him on the cheap and are getting what they pay for. Either way no point in getting too invested.
 
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puredrifting said:
... do you think the producer will say, "Well we knew going in that Ryan wasn't an experienced sound mixer so all of this mess is just our own fault"...
Click to expand...

Fixed it for ya.

Ryan, I know we can’t make it make sense to you. And I know you’re going to go ahead and do it no matter what, which makes me wonder why we have these conversations. But again, mixing a feature is absolutely a different beast from recording a lav or a boom on one of your short films. Perhaps they’re aware of what they’re paying and are afraid to ask a knowledgeable sound mixer to work at that rate, but whatever it is... choose wisely.

If sound is something you seriously want to pursue, first get the two books I linked earlier in the thread.

Second, you will be much better off learning as a utility or boom op under an experienced sound mixer on a couple of features before you try this on your own. That’s the best way to work yourself up the ladder.
 
Oh well I asked to do it from mixing my own features, so I thought they seemed satisfied with my performance, since they asked me. But they said to just use my own equipment now, if that is what I am comfortable with, so I could do that then, if that's better. But I don't like dropping out and leaving people in the lurch though at this point. I will check out the books, thanks.

What about the short films I posted before was the dialog recorded well in those?
 
Alex H. said:
Fixed it for ya.

Ryan, I know we can’t make it make sense to you. And I know you’re going to go ahead and do it no matter what, which makes me wonder why we have these conversations. But again, mixing a feature is absolutely a different beast from recording a lav or a boom on one of your short films. Perhaps they’re aware of what they’re paying and are afraid to ask a knowledgeable sound mixer to work at that rate, but whatever it is... choose wisely.

If sound is something you seriously want to pursue, first get the two books I linked earlier in the thread.

Second, you will be much better off learning as a utility or boom op under an experienced sound mixer on a couple of features before you try this on your own. That’s the best way to work yourself up the ladder.
Click to expand...


Ryan is Jim? My world is topsy turvy
 
Alex H. said:
... Ryan, I know we can’t make it make sense to you. And I know you’re going to go ahead and do it no matter what, which makes me wonder why we have these conversations.
Click to expand...

That's easy. Y'all keep posting. Y'all know it's futile, yet y'all keep coming back for more. A most interesting phenomenon. I keep wondering who is fooling who?
 
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