EPIC FAN NOISE - HEARTBREAKING DURING INTERVIEW

[Max M.]

I think to put it simply, Scarlet and Epic are the greatest fiction cameras ever made. The best to have on set, where no one actually cares about the standby fan noise. They are also good for some documentary work, but they aren't good when you need that more intimate interview. Maybe at this very moment, the RED team are busy trying to design an ingenious way to keep stand-by noise to a minimum, if required.

Not true, on a fiction set it's also really annoying to have so much loud sound when in standby, its not unworkable, totally not, but still is just plain annoying. In small locations with intimate scenes, it's annoying, because it a distractionfactor.

I just hope that red after reading this thread works on a possible solution.

[Lee Dashiell]

Hey Mike! If you really need some help fixing the piece I could help you. I'm pretty certain that I could remove the fan noise at 100% with Pro Tools. Someone in your area should be able to, but if you can't find anyone, I wouldn't mind. It's really not that much trouble.

[Dave Winder]

If any of your cameras are going to full speed fan automatically at 42C that is not correct. Please contact your rep, file a ticket and submit a log.

[Patrick Tresch]

If any of your cameras are going to full speed fan automatically at 42C that is not correct. Please contact your rep, file a ticket and submit a log.

Do you mean 42C for Core temp or Sensor temp?

If you mean sensor temp you'll have all your Epic customer filing a ticket ;-)

Pat

[Daniel Kunz]

Had a similar situation with the scarlet. The way this fan works is just wrong. I bet that the blades are really quiet, but they are just in front of a heatsink with very sharp edges , which makes the air whistle around and produces noise.
How about a liquid cooling upgrade, or even one where you can separate the Cooler from the body and have the pipes go to another room where sound isn't important?

I always prefer the Sony FS100 for interviews, because there is absolutely NO issue with sound whatsoever, even in a sauna :-)

[Peter Stelzhammer]

Right now I'm in the situation where we often "fall back" to our RED One M on site for smaller Studio/Interview-stuff where we need good audio quality (with the EPIC ready but just not being used)... the RED One recording mode is silent enough (no fan running under normal temperature circumstances), I don't have to worry about the Mic's I use (phantom power available, line level available), I can use more Mic's without a dedicated mixer... to put it short it's just better suited for audio out of the box. And with studio setups and proper lighting (HMI) the picture still holds up to be used with a mixed timeline with EPIC footage (all 4K HD to Full HD downconvert).

I hope we'll get access to the pro audio module or at least a firmware with phantom power enabled pretty soon...
As of now in my opinion the DSMC system is better suited for scratch audio then for clean audio without external mixers.
(talking about "out of box" and with no real audio-experience, so maybe I'm wrong... that's just my conclusion from a few shoots without an dedicated sound guy)

[Marc Wielage]

Hey Mike! If you really need some help fixing the piece I could help you. I'm pretty certain that I could remove the fan noise at 100% with Pro Tools.

Pro Tools alone will not do it, but high-end plug-ins like iZotope, Cedar, and Waves DNS can help a great deal using a "fingerprint" of the noise pattern and then trying to surgically slice it out of the dialog.

The problem is, removing fan noise will inevitably cause artifacts. It's not a perfect solution. Often, a combination of processes has to be used, rather than trying to do it in one fell swoop.

Ironically, all the noise reduction processes work best when there's only a little noise to get rid of. The more noise there is... the more artifacts you wind up with. There's a lot of this that goes on in American TV shows these days -- tons of background noise that comes and goes with dialog, the result of last-minute fixes when there's no time to do ADR.

[Lee Dashiell]

I use Izotope inside Pro Tools and it's very effective. I don't need to explain the entire process, just making a free offer to help another RED user that could use some help.

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Just a note.

"Fix it in post" is a means to salvage what was recorded, but for those of us in the field, the distraction can "kill a moment in time" - as is referenced in the title of this thread.

What has yet to be mentioned is those shoots when you may have 3 or more cameras up in an intimate setting.
Think of an interview with a "presidential level individual" discussing a sensitive topic. Quiet room, pin-drop acoustics to start with (not your choice, but you didn't have one to start with). Even a sideways glance on a CU when an unexpected fan kicks on can give a new visual meaning to the clip.
Not going to fix that in post.

We know that someone from RED has contributed to this thread - so they are aware. The post solution is one to keep in mind - let's see what can be developed to avoid the problem to start with.

[Patrick Tresch]

I think they've worked on a lot of different fan solutions over the months...

from
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread....l=1#post645730

in 09.2010