Is Red Audio safe for a Feature?

[Tommy]

I've been reading over the threads on the Red's ability to record audio and I feel a little uncomfortable about it at best. I love the idea of recording picture and sound IN SYNCH but having to get specially rigged cables to avoid the hiss makes me nervous. If the problem is only the phantom power then it wouldn't be too big a deal but I'm not sure if that has been resolved either. We're shooting in September so maybe there will be a build that guarantees a safer situation but until then I thought I would ask if there has been any kind of consensus from up top or down low. Thanks for making me feel like I'm not alone in this crazy Red world.

[Craig Bowman]

The cable issue had nothing to do with the phantom power hiss issue. We have the cables and use line level via our field mixer. No problems at all since. When doing audio for a feature I would always do double system recording. Same reason as booming and still using wireless for backup.

[Andrew M.]

If your image is safe, your audio is safe as well.

[Nick Gallegos]

Always use a separate field recorder for backup as well. You never know when a cable might come unplugged from the camera when you least expect it and have no audio.

[Sam Roberts]

Hiss? I'll be shooting docs as a one man band. I need to mount a phantom powered shotgun on the camera...no line level no mixers. Could someone explain this hiss problem or point me to the thread where it is discussed? Thanks.

[jbeale]

Phantom power may be better in the future, but for right now, you want to use a mic that has built-in power, such as the Sennheiser ME66/K6 combo. That mic also has a pretty hot output, which makes any in-camera preamp noise less of an issue.

[Mark Pugh]

If your image is safe, your audio is safe as well.

Extracting audio from a 4k 16x9 proxy is iffy - forget audio for this size file.

[Craig Bowman]

Extracting audio from a 4k 16x9 proxy is iffy - forget audio for this size file.

Gee, that's too bad if you're having problems. We've never had this problem and nor is there any technical reason we should. We're doing the bulk of our shooting in 4K 16:9 at the moment. Even working mainly on PCs recently. Zero problems. With all the compositing we're doing there is little need for us to straight into an NLE at the beginning. Visuals go into Redcine for initial prep for AE and audio is all extracted from the QuickTime proxies. Again, not even the slightest hiccup.

[Costelloe Michael]

We just shot a feature and the soundguy put a feed/mic on the camera to go straight into it as a guidetrack and recorded to DAT. He says the sound wasn't 100% on the RED but it was great to have it as a guide and sometimes use it to drop some of the on camera stuff in!

Mike C

[Philippe Vandendriessche]

For a feature film, just ask the Location Sound mixer to record on a separate recorder with timecode and fit a timecode jam-synced generator on the RED (I use Aaton Cantar and I put aaton GMT-S generator on the camera).
The Sennheiser ME66 is a cheap electret microphone with a poor sound compared to Neumann kmr81i or Schoeps CMIT or Sennheiser MKH 416 or MKH 60. I have a Neumann kmr81i in my microphones kit since 1985. The original cost of that microphone was 1000 USD. That microphone is in use since 23 years and could be sold now for 500 USD. If you are professional, think at professional equipment! There is no comparison.

[Noah Kadner]

Just wanted to concur with others that going double system sound is incredibly wise for a feature. RED's onboard is fine when it's working and noise free but that's not always possible. And this is not limited to RED. I shot a feature a few years back on an SDX900 and had the exact same problem- too much hiss going through the camera recording. Solution was going double-system with DAT.

Oh and really- hire a good sound mixer and boom operator. Those are far and away the most important jobs on the show. And listen to them- if they say wait for a plane to pass wait. Trust me you'll be thanking them in post.

Noah

[Mark Pugh]

Gee, that's too bad if you're having problems. We've never had this problem and nor is there any technical reason we should. We're doing the bulk of our shooting in 4K 16:9 at the moment. Even working mainly on PCs recently. Zero problems. With all the compositing we're doing there is little need for us to straight into an NLE at the beginning. Visuals go into Redcine for initial prep for AE and audio is all extracted from the QuickTime proxies. Again, not even the slightest hiccup.

Just did a shoot where 3/4 of the shot's proxys (all 4k 16x9) could be opened in quicktime to extract audio to AIFF, or be dragged into a FCP timeline... the other quarter crashed quictime, FCP, and even finder when the curser is just waved over the file... same results for the same files on two computers. Recording was only done to camera, so I had to extract audio from the camera via the five-pin output jack. On balance it was a fairly efficient sound synching excercise, even with the hiccups, but on a feature, it'd be a real PITA/ disaster.

[Ty Ford]

Phantom power may be better in the future, but for right now, you want to use a mic that has built-in power, such as the Sennheiser ME66/K6 combo. That mic also has a pretty hot output, which makes any in-camera preamp noise less of an issue.

Not a great sounding mic, though. Better to use an external, battery-powered Phantom Supply and a better mic.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Andrew M.]

See this:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=222946&postcount=6