What went wrong?

S

scottfs

Well-known member
I use a Marantz pmd661 in recording production sound for independent films here in the wastelands of Northern California. I've generally really happy with the sound I get out of it, but this past Friday, what color I had left in my hair quickly vanished.

I was asked to record both from a boom, which I almost always do. This time, for some odd reason, they wanted me to record one actor, by himself, both with the 4053b on a boom AND on a lab on the same actor. There was no one else in the room, or in the scene.

Fine. I was hired to do a job, they are the boss. So I hooked up the lab to the actor, and set up the boom.

For some reason, I could not record both at the same time. I could get one or the other working, but not both at the same time. It wasn't that the second channel wasn't working, because I switched channels. Ut wasn't the cables, because I switched them. It wasn't the headphones (I could only hear one of the channels) because I switched headphones.

I cannot understand why I could not get both to work at the same time. They would work fine separately, but not at the same time.

The lav was a wired Countryman B3.

Is this something I'm doing wrong? Shouldn't I be able to take two inputs in a 2 channel recorder and record at the same time?

(BTW I just recorded from the boom and the sound was very good.)
 
The 660 would, but the menu had to be set for stereo else only the left input would function. Not real sure about the 661 though.
 
The Marantz PMD 661 can be set to mono, and only the left channel will be recorded. Did you have one of your Presets set to Mono?
 
scottfs said:
Is this something I'm doing wrong? Shouldn't I be able to take two inputs in a 2 channel recorder and record at the same time
Click to expand...
Yes, you can record both inputs to separate tracks. The Marantz PMD 660 (I used to have one) has a single-channel 'mono' mode, whereas only the left channel input is active, on either the 1/8" line in or the mic level XLR and records a single channel file. I would assume the 661 to be similar.
If you heard both inputs in the headphones whilst monitoring, I don't think it could be the mono/stereo mode issue.
 
Yes, it was set to stereo. Both mics were phantom power. Levels were markedly different, for sure. The pmd661 records in mono, d.mono, and stereo. It may be that the converter for the headphones from 3.5 mm to 1/4 inch was bad, but that seems unlikely. Ordered a new one just in case.
 
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