Field mixer recommendations

suprmatch

suprmatch

Active member
Any recommendations for a field mixer $500 or less? What are your field experiences with what you have?
 
The Sound Devices MixPre is very good. It only has line outputs, but they can be padded to mic level.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
How about $1,000 or less? Is a Microphone Preamp needed for good sound if you have good quality mics?
 
suprmatch said:
How about $1,000 or less? Is a Microphone Preamp needed for good sound if you have good quality mics?
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A preamp is not intended to make a poor mic sound better - nothing can do that - so one could say it's irreleveant whether your mics are of good quality or not in terms whether a preamp is advisable. What it will do is raise the mic level signal to line level, allowing you to feed your camera or recorder through its line level inputs thus bypassing marginal mic level inputs. In effect you're substituting a high quality external mic preamp in place of a lower quality built-in mic preamp. Other places a mic preamp is useful is boosting a low level mic signal such as from a dynamic mic to a higher level one that the recorder can accept. And of course a preamp built-in to a mixer would give the other goodies of input routing, finer gain controls, limiters, high-pass filtering, etc.
 
Steve House said:
A preamp is not intended to make a poor mic sound better - nothing can do that - so one could say it's irreleveant whether your mics are of good quality or not in terms whether a preamp is advisable. What it will do is raise the mic level signal to line level, allowing you to feed your camera or recorder through its line level inputs thus bypassing marginal mic level inputs. In effect you're substituting a high quality external mic preamp in place of a lower quality built-in mic preamp. Other places a mic preamp is useful is boosting a low level mic signal such as from a dynamic mic to a higher level one that the recorder can accept. And of course a preamp built-in to a mixer would give the other goodies of input routing, finer gain controls, limiters, high-pass filtering, etc.
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Any place I could learn about all this stuff for sound with film. It's my weak area and I know if the sound sucks on a film its a total loss.
 
Edirol R44

Edirol R44

The Edirol R44 is proving to be an excellent and economical choice for field recording / mixing.
 
puredrifting said:
These will get you started...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/location_sound.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/right_mic_brockett.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/lavs_brockett.html

I have not yet written a mixer-specific paper but I will.
Dan
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Thanks for the links. I've read the shotgun mic and lav reviews, great job on them they have help greatly. I'm glad some people really love what they do. The sound links is helpful, it gives me a breif overview of everything with sound. I would like a 4 channel mixer but the wallet tells me to get a 2 channel. But again your write up said you won't have to update the equipment for years, unlike my camera that was outdated in six months. So if anyone has a rec for a quality 4 channel under $1,000 that you would use as your go to mixer let me know. :undecided Or would a 2 channel do?
 
I`m making a film and just invested in a sound devices 702 2 channel recorder. It´s just great. 2 channels ( my budget stopped at 2 channels) IS a bit limiting sometimes, but it depends on what you are recording. Recording dialogue alone you really, really want SILENCE around the dialogue you record, as you are going to want to turn the dialogue up when you edit and turning up dialogue includes turning up the noise on the recording too and there is allways some noise.
There`s no need for a mixer with this unit, and the pre-amps in it are the best. Also the headphone amp in it is the best I`ve ever heard in a mobile recorder. The only thing with it is the high price (1800 dollars or more) but if you have the bread this gives you the best.
 
Get the ROLLS MX422 for under 500, it has everything you want and need. 4 channel, clean, 1 k tone, phantom, 100hz roll off, compressor, dual monitoring, etc... I've used an MX422 on all sorts of shoots: HVX, RED, Film, etc... they're not as nice as SD, but you're not paying $2500 and the results come out nearly the same.
 
saneproductions said:
I have to say, do it right the first time... bit the bullet and get an SD302!!!!

You will never look back!
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........your right. There is an old saying that someone once told me. "Spend the money and get the right gear the first time and it will only hurt once, spend the money on the wrong gear and it will hurt everytime you use it." Now I need a crowbar to get my wallet open.
 
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I think the phrase you're looking for may be "I can't afford to buy cheap."

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
saneproductions said:
I have to say, do it right the first time... bit the bullet and get an SD302!!!!

You will never look back!
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AND buying good gear holds its value much much better.
If you bought a 302 and used it for 2 years, you could probably sell it on
ebay for 150-200 dollar loss.
Not bad for 2 years old use with it.
 
It's not my line, so I have no permission to give, but when I heard it, it rang true.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
i was yesterday in professional sound service and they have a used sd 302 for sale. i didn't look at it, but probably is what you are looking for. btw, it's not mine.
 
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