Picking up the rest of my kit tommorow, what do you guys think?

F

fleaguit

Active member
Hey guys,

Starting shooting on my feature in the next couple of weeks. I have done some sound work before for TV, (got roped into it while i was interning) and have always been conscious of audio design. I know that realistically, we're going to make some mistakes, but however I do have a pretty good grounding in the principles of audio. So, here's what I'm ordering for my kit.

Already picked up an Oktava MK012 with hyper cardioid (thanks to all the posts on this forum recommending it.) It actually drove me nuts, because I used to have two of them that had been left at my house by a brothers friend, and I had never bothered to use them for film work. Don't think I had the hyper cardioid though.

From B&H, I'm going to go tommorow and pick up:

Rode NTG-1Kit - Includes: NTG-1 Shotgun Microphone, SM3 Shock Mount and 1.5 Foot Right Angled XLR

Shure A81WS windscreen (for Oktava)

K-Tek KE89CC - Aluminum boom pole with internal coiled cable.

Yamaha MG102 - I know it's not a field mixer, but all of our production is going to be shot inside a school and we will have setup areas and a cart for it. Also, for the price it'll be nice to have.

M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 - Planning on recording uncompressed wav files at 24 bits, 48k. All to compact flash media which will be dumped to hard disk.

I also have plenty of boom stands, xlr cables, etc from my band's equipment.

I was able to keep the total price for this kit under 1200, which was the upper limit of my budget. It also allows me to have the Oktava for interiors, and the Rode for exteriors, as well as the mixer and a seperate recorder so I don't have to go straight into the camera. I think I have just about everything I need, but I wanted to ask you guys what you all thought of this rig so far, and if there's anything that's truly missing (beyond just buying better mics, lavs, etc.) that we should really pick up.

Thanks again and this forum has been a huge help in putting together a cost effective kit for our film.
 
If you are going outside you should have a full zepplin for shotgun.

The mixer is liable to slow you down but if you don't have battery power for it make sure you have enough extention cable to get you power.

Also, I would not get the Microtrack. The Edirol R9 is $400 and runs on double AA instead of a unremoval rechargable. Also it's meters look to be much better. They are flying off the shelves but I have an order in for one.

I would also suggest a couple of wireless. There has not been a movie I have done that didn't need them at one point or another. You could go cabled lavs but of course that will be much more complicated and impossible on very wide shots. Conside renting wireless if you can't afford to buy.

Cheers
 
We'll have plenty of extension cable for the mixer. The auxilliary table we'll have set up will hold the mixer, the recorder, and the laptop we're using for both audio and video dumps. I'll run all these off of a surge strip, none of them draw too much. At most we have two location setups per day on our schedule, so moving this stuff around shouldn't slow us down too much. I'll definetely get the zepellin for the NG1, any recommendations?

I'll have to see what we can do about the wireless. 90% of our shots are interiors, and all of us coming from a student film background, we've never used them before. I might have access to 4 wireless lavs from a company I do some work for, I might be able to borrow them if they're really needed.

I looked into the edirol, the one thing that's got me leaning toward the microtrack is that it uses compact flash whereas the edirol uses SD (which is a bit more expensive for extra cards, especially in the 1gb+ range) I'll do some more reading on it and try to figure it out. Anyone here have any suggestions on the Edirol R9 vs. the Microtrack?

Thanks again.

-Steve
 
fleaguit said:
We'll have plenty of extension cable for the mixer. The auxilliary table we'll have set up will hold the mixer, the recorder, and the laptop we're using for both audio and video dumps. I'll run all these off of a surge strip, none of them draw too much.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are begging for a ground loop problem. Get yourself the Hum X to avoid this.

Ktek has a new cheap zeppelin which I keep forgetting the name of it. Go to their website and it is the only one there.

You are unlikely to find much feedback on the R9 as it literally just came out and from my understanding it was a pretty small initial release. I guess that precludes it for you since you are starting soon. If you can even find one in the next month you are a lucky boy.

While I love compactflash compared to SD, I think that is trumped by the other losing features of the Microtrack. They did it 90 percent right but that last 10 percent is just too bad to make it something I would consider getting.

Cheers
 
I wouldn't think ground loop would be a problem, everything is running on the same circuit. I also have a bunch of ground lifts I use for gigging with my band if need be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top