Solution for backup audio, easy double system syncing, additional headphone monitor?

Q

qwerty123

Well-known member
Forgive me if this has been adequately addressed before (and mods feel free to delete this thread if you can point me to the relevant one). So here's what I'm wondering about. I want a way to achieve the following things:

(1) While I'm going to be recording double system to a good quality recorder with possible mixer, I also want to have solid reference audio recorded onto dslr footage (gh2 here). This will help ease the syncing process; and...

(2) enable directors to be able to have a headphone signal without being tethered to boom op / sound mixer... next to camera is ok.


So, what about something like the following solution:

(a) connect an RCA line out (or digital line out or ?) signal to the xlr input of a sennheiser wireless transmitter
(b) send the signal from the transmitter to a receiver that is tethered to the dp's dslr cage
(c) connect the transmitter to something like a tascam dr-05, dr-100, or h2n (also tethetred to cage) in continuous stand-by or record mode
(d) use a headphone splitter to send the half the signal to the camera's mic input and the other to headphones for the director or dp to monitor.

Whew... that seems pretty convoluted, and I'm sure there are simpler solutions. But I think it's a potentially nice way to achieve a backup audio recording, enable easier syncing for double system, and have the a nice headphone monitoring option for the director or dp.

What am I missing / what's wrong with this plan?
 
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How many channels of audio are you running? If it were me, and say I was just using two microphones, I would use a Sound Devices MixPreD. You can take mic level out of that and run that into your DSLR. I would take the main outputs and run those into a recorder, and then you can take the "tape out" and run that to a wireless IFB transmitter, like Comteks, and give IFB receivers to whoever wants them. You'll still have the main headphone out available for the sound mixer. This way, reference audio gets to your camera, you can monitor the audio going to your camera (but you won't be able to monitor the audio on the camera), and anyone who wants to listen in can, and they aren't tethered to anyone.
 
Thanks for the response!

I was just on a shoot where we had often had two booms and two lavs going on two separate recorders. I'm looking to get a multi-channel recorder like the Tascam dr-680 to streamline this a bit. So, let's just say I'm going to be using anywhere from 3 to 6 channels. I'm completely happy though to have only two tracks recorded to the dslr footage, and only be able to monitor two tracks on the headphones. But yes, ultimately, I'm often going to be recording more than 2 channels.

The MixPre seems a bit overkill for simple reference audio, no?
 
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I use the Mix-Pre-D and do exactly like Dave mentioned above... except I use the mic out to my H4N and send a wireless feed to camera via tape out. The Mix Pre-D has an unbelievable feature set for it's price. Plus SD's customer support has been great for me!
 
Ideally, this is where you'd have every audio channel run into a mixer first, the direct outs of each channel routed to a multi-track recorder, and then you'd be able to send the audio anywhere else you wanted as well. A common headphones mix is panning all the lav's left, and the boom right. Or sometimes a mixer makes one "mix" track, which is mixing all the channels on the fly down to one track. Then the multi-track recording serves as a safety if they need to re-mix the original tracks in post, but it can be a huge time saver (generally only done when you have separate boom op and sound mixer with a cart setup though)

Might be overkill for what you're wanting, but it may not.

Dave's suggestion is based on you needing several things...
- Route all mics into preamps (either ones in a mixer or in a recorder)
- Record all the mics into a multitrack recorder
- Send a mic-level mix signal to camera
- Send a line-level mix to IFB (to the director)
- Headphone output for the sound mixer / boom op

To do that with only 2 mics requires every input, output, and control function in the MixPre. So it's not really overkill, it's exactly the setup it was designed to handle. That process with more mics would require the SD 302 (3 mics), discontinued SD442 (4 mics), or SD 552 (5 mics). Or on Mythbusters they actually gang 2, SD 302 mixers together for 6-inputs total.

There are a 100 cheaper workarounds (example: put a splitter on the headphone output, and send one feed to IFB and one feed for boom op headphones), however from experience trying a lot of these workarounds, they're a pain and slow down a film shoot. It can always be done cheaply, but there's really no substitue for having the proper tools for what you're trying to do. It just takes more time to get the cheaper methods working right, and definitely more frustrating in the long run.
 
Gohanto said:
Ideally, this is where you'd have every audio channel run into a mixer first, the direct outs of each channel routed to a multi-track recorder, and then you'd be able to send the audio anywhere else you wanted as well. ....Dave's suggestion is based on you needing several things...
- Route all mics into preamps (either ones in a mixer or in a recorder)
- Record all the mics into a multitrack recorder
- Send a mic-level mix signal to camera
- Send a line-level mix to IFB (to the director)
- Headphone output for the sound mixer / boom op
Click to expand...

I didn't want to complicate things too much in my question asking. But I'll almost surely have at least two booms coming in via a mixer, while the lavs will often just be going straight in to the recorder as back-ups.

So, let's say that I'll have a SD 302, with two booms going into that, and then into the DR-680. Then, I'll have two back-up lavs also going directly into the 680. Four tracks total. The tascam can record 6 (or 8) total tracks, with the ability to mix to one of those tracks. So let's say that I just (stereo?) mix the booms to one track, the fifth track. That's the one I want to send to the camera. I don't necessarily need all the mics going to preamps, or even to have *all* the recorded mics sent via a mix to the the camera. Just the main two or, hell, even just one. The boom-op will be operating the 302 and dr680, and monitoring that way.

So my main objectives are:
- record at least 3 discrete tracks to multi channel recorder as main audio recorder (boom op will operate and monitor these devices)
- wirelessly feed at least 1 or 2 of these tracks to the dslr camera
- (in addition to the boom ops monitoring,) allow the director to wirelessly monitor at least one or two tracks

I don't necessarily need another recorder to as a go between in this process. It's just something I thought might help facilitate it.

If I were to go with Dave's suggestion, that would seem to imply that the Mix-Pre be tethered to dslr! Is that right? How else would I get a mic out to the dslr? If that's what it would require, it's a deal-breaker, since I want my mixer to be tethered to my recorder and boom op. I know next to nothing about IFB transmission, so please forgive me if I'm missing something here.

And I very much appreciate the responses! Hopefully, they will help others in the future too.
 
Mix all the desired iso tracks together to one of the 680's tracks, send that track's audio to a Comtek (or other IFB transmitter) feed the DSLR with a IFB receiver and hand out other IFB receivers to the producer and others. You would need the pad the input on the DSLR down to mic level.
 
Thanks for the response Rick! I just had a quick gander at some of the Comtek stuff and I'm wondering if there's a more budget solution. Let's say I wouldn't mind having the second director's headphones tethered to the camera.

Would it then be possible to go with my initial idea of using the Sennheiser g3 wireless system (which I have free access to) and send a line out signal to a cheap recorder like the dr-40 or h2n. Then use a splitter on the headphone jack of the recorder, sending one signal into the dslr and the other for the director to listen?
 
I sent the tape out of my mix pre d into a G3 tx using the 1/8" line cable that comes with the G3 set. Hooked the G3 rx to the (Red One) camera mic input. Set levels so there wasn't any clipping...Worked fine for scratch track. You could also use the TA3 mic level out on the mix pre-d wirelessly to the camera via G3 system. And get a few G3 in ear receivers in the same band/block/freq and that way all the rx would get the same mix. (I think it should work that way)
 
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