Setting up HPX170 and Sound Devices Mixpre for recording audio?

[Filmkid2003]

Hey everyone. I will be shooting a narrative with my HPX170, Sound Devices Mixpre, and a Rode NTG-3 shotgun microphone with K-Tek boompole, zeppelin, shock mount, and wombat. How should I set everything up and connect to my camcorder to get the cleanest sound possible? The boompole operator will be monitoring the sound and so will I as I work the camcorder (I will just have a pair of headphones on to make sure the dialog is coming through nice and clean). I will be using the microphone mainly for recording dialog outside. Thanks.

 

[ggrantly]

Do a search for this here as someone outlined this in detail a few weeks ago for the 302 + Panna-something, which should be similar. The 302 documentation outlines the same procedure and you can download that from the Sound Devices site.

Grant

 

[Gohanto]

The 302 thread deals with full-scale tone, which the MixPre can't do.

I own it though and it's pretty simple. Run an XLR to camera, click the front panel display to "1 kHz" which should light up 3 LEDs. Use this tone to calibrate the camera from. Adjust the audio input at the camera so that the tone read at -20dBFS on the camera (not sure if that's labeled on the HPX, but it should be in the manual. And worse case just connect the camera to FCP and it'll give you a live reading of what the levels are)

Once the level is adjusted, it should be more or less clip-proof, so put gaff tape over the camera audio controls to prevent the DP from thinking "the audio is too low" and uncalibrated everything.
Run the headphone jack from the camera into the "TAPE RTN" in the MixPre, this lets you listen to what the camera records instead of what the mixer hears. Monitoring this feed is the only way to know the camera is hearing the audio. Otherwise if a cable gets snagged between you and the camera, you won't know it and you will almost certainly be blamed for it later.

Watch the levels on the MixPre to make sure you're sending a good signal to the camera. The yellow light means you're hitting the MixPre's limiters. Okay occasionally, but you shouldn't be running into it constantly.

Rule #1 with that setup though? Get the boom as close to the actor's mouth as possible, in every shot.

 

[gco]

When setting tone on the Mixpre, let it stay on for a minute or two before you adjust your cam inputs for -20dbfs. The level of tone creeps up a bit as it warms up.