Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1122919
26 Think about what kind of equipment you're going to buy when setting up your cart. First, rent one of each possibility and play with them for a week or so. Which unit feels "right"? In the good old (analog) days, there was basically only one recorder (Nagra), just a few mix panels (Cooper, SELA, Sonosax, Stellavox), and a few radio mikes (Audio Limited, Micron, Swintek, Vega). They were simple, and similar enough that if I got a last- minute call to replace someone, I didn't have to HOW I GOT MY GODLIKE REPUTATION PART 1 think twice about using their gear. (Though I did make up and carry adapter cables so I could use my favorite lavs with their transmitters for actors or plant-mike situations.) Now, I have to ask what's in their package—I would be hopelessly lost with a Cantar. Sound Devices and Zaxcom both make top-notch recorders. I prefer Zaxcom's touch-screen Fusion-12 and Deva-24 to any of the scroll-menu CF/SD-card flash-memory recorders by Sound Devices or even Zaxcom's Nomad and Maxx, but other first-rate mixers feel just the opposite. My brain's wiring finds the touch screen's layout more intuitive, and helpful if I suddenly need to do something I don't do often (or ever). After you've acquired all your gear, you need to spend a great deal of time familiarizing yourself with it. Your hands need to learn how to operate everything without your head having to think about it. Likewise, the connection between your ears and your fingers needs to work without conscious intervention (most of the time). You need to calibrate your ears so you don't have to watch the level meters constantly because with the new digital or digital- hybrid radio mikes, you can't tell just by listening when the transmitter battery is getting low, or an actor is getting almost out of range. You have to scan all the receivers' displays instead, to see the transmitter-battery-life remaining or the RF signal strength. You also need to keep an eye on your video monitors to warn your boom op when he or she is getting too close to the frame line. Speaking (or writing, in this case) of your ears, you need to protect them—you can't do good work without them. For most of my career, I used the old Koss PRO-4A and then PRO-4AA headphones because of their superior isolation of outside noises, so I know if something is on the track or just bleeding through the cups, without having to raise the headphone volume. You should lock off that control at a fixed level, and only change it under by Jim Tanenbaum CAS is (or should be) obvious: EQUIPMENT WHAT I HAVE IN COMMON WITH OTHER GOOD MIXERS There is more than one way to record good production sound, but there are millions of ways not to. Over the years, many fine production mixers have written articles about their guiding philosophies and recording methods. After rereading mixer Bruce Bisenz's story in the 695 Quarterly Winter 2015 Issue, now Production Sound & Video, I finally decided to add my 2 dB's worth. Many good production mixers have elements of their modus operandi in common, and others that are unique to the particular individual. So do I. Whatever I'm recording: dialog, effects, music, ambience, wild lines—I consider them all just noise. Different kinds of noise to be sure, but when all is said and done, just noise. When I started out back in the late '60s, I thought my job was to record these noises as accurately as I could so that their playback would sound exactly like the original. Do you remember: "Is it real or is it Memorex?" I soon learned that that wasn't such a good idea. (A tutorial for those without half a century in the business, and a few with)