Scarlet Audio?

[Gareth Gerrard]

Just wanted to say I'm getting really excited about all things Scarlet... as I'm sure everyone else is, can't wait till NAB!

I'm just wondering about what the possible audio set-up will be like... fixed mics? due to 'pocket cam' or mic ports at all like the RED ONE.

I know its all speculative at this point... just wondering is all.

Also, taking into account the speculative 'price' and 'features' do you think it will would be good enough to shoot short films on etc, as I'm saving my ass off for a new camera at the moment and I'd love to shoot using RED...

[Bruce Allen]

As always (I asked for this a long time before Red One came out too), I vote for:

1. two audio inputs with excellent DAC, pots, limiters, etc. Red should contract this out to someone with experience. I'd suggest Sound Devices of course, or... well, anyone good. Give us timecode out and then anyone wanting more channels can just record dual-system.

OR

2. Don't bother with analog inputs, but give us a great digital input so we can feed it with a pristine digital signal from a Sound Devices recorder. Nobody took this idea seriously a year ago when we were discussing it for the Red One, but now people are talking about how they can add this to Red One (current suggestions have been a USBpre attached to the USB input of the Red).

For another (far worthier) perspective, I reprint Ty Ford's post (in response to my soliciting his advice) from 7/21/2007:

Hello Bruce and thanks for the flowers!

I would enjoy the opportunity to check out the Red audio. If anyone knows how to get me one here in Baltimore, please let me know.

Camera audio is usually low on the budget. When I first started sending audio to Sony Betacam SP and Digibeta cameras I almost had a heart attack. What was this crap coming back from the camera to my mixer!!?? How can I tell if it's good or bad?

I talked to the Sony camera guys at NAB on several occasions about the quality of the headphone output. They listened very politely but sort of shrugged their shoulders. Some soundies have been using the 5-pin XLR audio out on the Digibeta. Some say it's better than the headphone out. I haven't checked it.

If anyone at RED is interested, here are my thoughts on camera audio.

1a. Really good mic preamps are not that tough or expensive to design. If you can't do it yourself, hire George Massenburg to design one for you. He's got the street cred to sell a lot of cameras for you. He's in Nashville a lot these days. If you can't find him, let me know.

1b. Make the line input separate so that it bypasses the mic preamp. (Let George do that.)

2a. DO include a pad, phantom power. Don't bury the audio parameters in the menus (as the Sony ZU1 does).

2b. DO put some decent scales up for the audio metering. These will be rms/peak meters, showing both simultaneously as the Sound Devices 442 display does. Use real numbers and change colors. I'd love to know where -60 is. I HAVE to know where -20 is. I also want to know where -12, -10, -6, and -3 are. Make everything between the lowest point and -12 dB green, between -11 and -6 yellow and -5 and above red. Put the display somewhere I can see it during the shoot and illuminate it (as an option) so I can see it if I'm on a darkened set.

3a. Engineer in enough gain in the headphone amp so we can actually hear what's going on.

3b. Find a place for the headphone circuitry that doesn't pickup a lot of electronic noise. Put the headphone jack where you can easily plug in without breaking the camera return/headphone plug or jack.

4. If you DO decide to put AGC in, make it defeatable.

5. Feeling brave? Here's a tough one; confidence recording without much latency. It's a huge challenge (and headache) to mix properly with 40 mSec of delay.

6. Blow my skirt up, record at 24-bit, 48 kHz as a minimum. Anything over 24/96 is pretty much a waste, AFAIC. Have a 5.1 surround option.

7. If the camera will be file based rather than tape based, consider a 4 channel input that creates timecode stamped poly-wav files.

8. Digital input? Hmm, Well that would let you feed from the new-ish Sony field mixer (I think I saw another location mixer with digital out at NAB this year. Don't remember the make. Cantar?) Certainly a workable thing for studio shoots with house consoles have digital outs. BUT!! Can you get by with just AES/EBU or do you need word clock as well? I don't know the answer to that question at the moment.

Thanks for the opportunity.

See you on the set.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Original thread:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2204&page=3&highlight=ty+ford+preamp

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com