In the field recording

Big ScareCrow

Big ScareCrow

Well-known member
To my understanding, people are using digital multitrack equipment for their field recorders. As long as power isn't an issue. It makes sense price wise, being you have several tracks to record on at the same time. My question is, should I record keeping my eq flat, or try to eq the sound in the headphones. My music production experience says not to eq or mix in the head phone, but what's your take. Feel free not to hold back.
 
most post houses/ editors can do a much better job EQing in studio than you can in field( more time, quiet environment, and different equipment)
 
The only kind of eq normally done in the field is a low cut at 80hz to remove wind/handling noise (for dialogue, not music). Record flat
 
As TVSound pointed out, production sound is typically recorded with a flat EQ. An 80 Hz or 120 Hz high-pass filter is often useful for keeping unneccessary low frequency rumble off the tracks, and is available on most production sound mixers.

Some film mixers will EQ their lav mics to better match their boom mics. If you opt for this strategy, you should probably callibrate the EQ on your lav channels the night before. This strategy is better suited to stereo recorders rather than multitracks, and demands a great deal of experience and familiarity with the mics in question.

On a side note, power is almost always an issue on film shoots.
 
You speak of power, would you know anything about creating portable power. I've read somewhere else, that you can use a car battery with a dc/ac convertor. Do you know anything about that? How long it would last, etc?
 
depends on your battery and your equipment power consumption , minus what you are loosing in convertion ( about 15%)
so if you have equip that need 40 w and you use 33 amp battery 12 v
for less then 20 % per hour ( 6.5 amp)
thats about 45-50w = 4 amp,12 v
the total would be around 8 hours
the time your batery would last quit depends on amperag you are pulling and tempetature you are working and the % you loosing doing inverting the signal
very simple :-)
of course different chemistry bateries acting different , we are talking here about sla bateries which are the cheapest
 
I've used car batteries and inverters in the past, with good results. However, you're usually better off working with equipment designed to run on battery power. A 2-track field recorder (eg. Fostex FR-2 or Tascam HD-P2) is a good thing to bring along, in case you have problems getting enough power for your cart. If, for whatever reason, you're unable to opperate your mixer or multitrack, a 2-track field recorder with built-in preamps will let you keep on recording. Otherwise, it can serve as a stereo backup, providing peace of mind as well as a stereo mix for the picture editor.
 
Question. Every one has been answering for production recording, but my initial take on your post was that you were doing FX recording in the field. If that is the case then most of the advice stays the same but depending on how well you know what the desired sound is from the FX recording you might well alter the EQ a bit. Usually I wouldn't for all the reasons above but if I know that I'm after a certain kind of sound I'll modify placement eq etc to get closer to that sound. And for FX power is always a problem. Usually car batteries are not an option because you need to be a lot more mobile than that allows so lots of AA's and a recharger that will work in a car are a good start.
 
Noiz2 brings up another good point regarding effects recording. In that situation, I would tend to stick with flat EQs, for much the same reason. Again, high-pass filters will help keep rumble under control, although I avoid discarding that bass information as much as possible.

Be careful using standard car batteries to power you're cart; most car batteries are designed for shallow discharge/recharge cycles only, and regular deep discharges can damage them. There are a number of multi-purpose emergency battery packs on the market that are rather well suited to this sort of use. A quick trip down to the local "Canadian Tire" store will get you something like this:
http://www.canadiantire.com/browse/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396672502&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524443249994&bmUID=1177301194489&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true

They're pretty darn heavy, but they work. Back in the day, I hauled one around for days to power an old Teac DAT recorder (the batteries were long-dead, and replacements were no longer available). Since then, I've used it to jump-start my car on a handful of bitterly cold nights. Make sure that the inverter you're using is cranking out enough wattage to keep you're gear happy.

For my own effects kit, I've modified everything to run on NP-1 batteries. 2 NP-1's will usually cover me for the day, but I always have an emergency supply of charged NiHM AA's (as well as a trunk full of AA alkalines).
 
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11179219&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=

Fellow mixer bought one of these a few months back and is getting over 7 hours out of it. Not sure of the how many charging cycles it takes to loses it's capacity but he charges $20 a day for two if the production won't provide power. Assume its got at least 20 semi-fully discharges to make his money back. Just gotta make sure G&E doesn't try to hook into your power.

As to mixing in the field; you got two major issues. First, even good headphones have response curves bumpier then a teenager's face. Second, you will over-compensate for the audio leaking into your headphones. What it boils down to is what you are hearing in the phones is not an accurate representation of what you are recording.

Cheers
 
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