EPIC FAN NOISE - HEARTBREAKING DURING INTERVIEW

[Ryan Lalonde]

I am a Soundman. Hath not a Soundman eyes? Hath not a Soundman hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a DP is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

hehe good stuff

[Rob Ruffo]

Have the team at RED acknowledged the fan noise issue at all?

Just wondering what can be done technically to improve this issue - apart from the fan noise we love the Epic but for long interviews which can often be about personal and sensitive issues, the fan noise during and between takes kills the moment and for now is making us consider alternative cameras for interviews.

Scott

To me a One MX with hard drives is still the interview king.

That said a steady noise is extremely easy to remove in post. Just record a room-tone.

[Patrick Tresch]

Hello,

I did a non scientific test...

At 21 Celsius room temp

Fan @ 25% = 8-9 min
Fan @ 28% = 9-10 min
Fan @ 30% = 12 min

recording before 100% fan kiks in.


Pat

[Antonio Ribeiro]

Hello,

I did a non scientific test...

At 21 Celsius room temp

Fan @ 25% = 8-9 min
Fan @ 28% = 9-10 min
Fan @ 30% = 12 min

recording before 100% fan kiks in.


Pat

What power source were you using?

What recording setting were you in (18:1 > 6:1

Cheers
Antonio

[Vico Martin]

Wich Sr. number do you have? Is it an X?


Pat

(Snr. Epic-X2013 delivered 02.2012 is subjectively ok)

An X, #1646, 01/2012, no more than 10 min in single shoot, really unusable with direct sound.

sorry for the late.

[John Marchant]

To be a little more scientific, here are a couple of scenarios.

35% fan speed at room temperature. It just can't quite avoid the temps peaking. I often use 38% on long takes - I'll graph this when I get more time




And at 25% (on a scarlet, as our EPIC-M is limited to 35%) things get ugly fast. 25% is for short takes only, without a doubt.




What's worth noting is that reducing fan speed to reduce noise is marginally a game of diminishing returns. There's a smaller noise difference between 35% and 25% than there is between 60% and 50% for example. Compromising to 30% not 25% could double your safe record time for very little harm to the sound dept.




Just as significantly we should all bear in mind that sound dissipates on an inverse square rule.
ie. its possible in an intimate scenario that moving the camera position only a very small amount relative to mics will make a disproportionate improvement to the intrusion. Getting the mic 15 inches away rather than 18 and the camera 7 feet away not 6 could just make all the difference.


On another note, I learned today that 'auto' doesn't ride the fan setting up and down during record. I thought it did, but it appears only to 'thermostat' the camera in standby mode. Is that right? When I've another spare second I need to rtfm on that one.

[Scott Crawley]

John Merchant, you are one rockin' geek! Love it! Thanks.

[Josh Beadle]

@John Merchant
would love for RED engineering to provide us this quality of data on all things Epic. Start with Black Shading: Signal to Noise at different temps and hard science on the topic - not fuzzy guidelines. Move onto a Compression matrix: data on a standardized/repeatable test scenario running from 3:1 up to 18:1 so we can see where the point of diminishing returns is: data rate/file size vs image quality. Heck, even a list of Tested & Approved 3rd Party Products would be a bit helpful. Someone has it at HQ . . . why not post it??

There's always time for this type of support since it dramatically reduces user guess work, on-set failures and warranty issues. "We're too busy inventing cool new stuff" doesn't cut it. I'm sure John and the OP are busy too.

That's the camera tests/results I would like to see - not some contrived Zacuto death match

[Adam Palmer]

Are you doing this because the weathers so bad outside John lol?

[John Marchant]

Updated my post with a wedge more geektastic graphs. You know you all love it.