Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1257029
27 Every first-season series I have mixed, always screens a rough cut of Episode 1, to show studio executives and producers. The first time I was invited to one of these screenings, I realized that they used my raw mix track, sweetened with the minimal tools available in Avid, along with temporary music and sound effects. I have been very fortunate to work with incredible editors who were able to make this sound surprisingly good when screened in a studio theater. However, I wanted to make the production tracks used for Hollywood's inevitable Episode 1 screening to sound even better. I decided to upgrade from the Zaxcom Deva 5 and Yamaha 01V96i to the Deva 24 and the Zaxcom Mix 16 Control Surface. The 01V96i was not able to sync word clock with my Zaxcom receivers, so I was relegated to having an analog step in my signal chain. I'd run my wireless transmitters as loud as possible to avoid having to turn up the 01V. Hollywood was my first show using a completely digital signal chain (starting at the Zaxcom transmitter). The change in audio quality was startling at first. The lack of system noise was so profound, I was initially unable to tell the difference between the boom being on and off. Bypassing the 01V's analog preamp stage, I was able to run the wireless transmitters at a lower gain, which when added to Zaxcom's Neverclip feature, meant distortion was practically nonexistent. The dynamic range was remarkable. I added a second Zaxcom RX12 and changed my video monitoring to a single 17" HD monitor (Datavideo TLM-170P), with a quad splitter (Decimator DMON Quad). These changes saved in both overall cart size and more substantially in weight. I kept the PSC Powerstar LiFE for DC distribution and a Furman PL- PRO C for circuit breaking between the cart and the generator. Video Village gets PR-216's and my boom ops have been using the Shure PSM 900 system. But the real game changer was adding the Cedar DNS 2. I assumed that we'd encounter the common problem faced by production sound everywhere of not being able to stop ambient noise, especially on location, due to either time or budget constraints. Hollywood had some exceptionally difficult situations for sound. On one occasion, we used the Paramount lot for some Ace Pictures exteriors. One scene took place on a section of road surrounded by four-story office buildings. Every office had a window AC unit and by noon, every one of them was on. Production was not permitted to request any of them to be turned off. With no other option, the scene was shot while thirty individual units were running. Incidents of ambient noise happened on stage as well. We often ran into issues with dimmer packs, ballasts, smoke machines, and the now ubiquitous "Vornado" fans, along with the current crop of HD cameras whose fans would occasionally kick on during a take. The Cedar did an excellent job minimizing virtually all of these. I provided a standard composite mix, as well as two additional mix tracks with different degrees of noise reduction. Monitoring these tracks was easy with the Mix-16's PFL and headphone-listening options. The Cedar is no match for the tools available to re-recording mixers on the dub stage, but it provided a nice option to our picture editors who used them extensively throughout the season.