#9 - Some impressions of a Production Sound Mixer!

In my career, I've worked a fair amount as a production sound mixer (PSM) on feature films. In the process, I have used quite a few portable audio recorders, like the Deva 5.8, sound devices 788, 664, MixPre 10T and recently, the Scorpio. 

Here are some thoughts that I have. 

I hardly did any location work on the Nagra. And very little work on DAT recorders when they started replacing the Nagra. 

The earliest DAT recorder that I worked on was the Fostex PD4. It was a professional, 3 channel, timecode capable DAT recorder. 

Fostex PD4

It was soon superseded by the DVD-RAM based machine, the Fostex PD6 shown below. 

The Fostex PD6

All these Fostex machines were very rugged, built for professional work and had many features, hence they were full of knobs and buttons. Each knob or button generally controlled one function. 

I then moved on to the Deva 4, and the Deva 5.8 and did quite a few projects on them.

Then came along the Sound Devices recorders. The DVD-RAM was replaced by HDD / CF / SD cards and everything by now had become file based. 

So the last few years, I’ve spent a good deal of time on the Sound Devices 788T, 664, MixPre10T and recently, on the Sound Devices Scorpio. 

With every recorder, I have my list of features which I like, and a ‘wish list’ which I hope would be fulfilled in the next model.  

One of the things on my WISH LIST is the monitor DIM function - Most big music recording mixing consoles have a DIM switch in the monitoring section. I’ve always wanted a headphone monitor DIM switch on my portable location recorder. I’ve noticed that every time there is a rehearsal on set, I set my faders to what I feel is a good mix. But as soon as the rehearsal is over, the noise floor on the set increases so drastically, that one is forced to pull down the faders. I wish we had a DIM switch which would bring down the levels in the headphones by about 6 to 8 dB, so that the fader settings can be kept untouched before we roll again. A big DIM readout should show up on the screen so that the PSM knows that what he is listening to on his headphones is an attenuated signal. This feature, I believe could be added by a software update. And one of the shortcut keys could be assigned to it! 

Another thing on my wish list was DANTE: I’ve found the 788T to be a great recording device, but the track count was low. On most shoots, I've always wanted more inputs, more channels and hence, more ISO tracks. So when the Sound Devices 664 and the 688 were launched, I welcomed the addition to the Sound Devices family. I spent a good deal of time on the 664 with a CL6 fader pack attached to it. I love that machine. But now, in addition to the DIM switch, I wished for a DANTE input and some more BUS outputs. Having worked with Dante on many television shoots, I was pretty impatient for Dante to make an appearance on location sound recording equipment. 

The 888 and the Scorpio seemed to be the answer to my prayers.

Very recently, (Oct 2021) I had the chance to work on the Sound Devices Scorpio. Without reading the manual, I tried to work on it, thinking it would be very similar to the 664 or the 688. But a few things stumped me. I could not find the familiar folder structure of the 664 - top level, mid level, bottom level. I was stumped for a while, till I figured things out. 

Going back a few years, the Fostex PD-6 was a very good sounding machine. By today's standards, it has too many buttons (see the photographs above). But sometimes, I feel that reducing the number of physical buttons in favour of a touch screen is not the best move. A fine balance of what needs to be on physical buttons and what needs to be on the touch screen should be maintained. Soloing (or PFL) a track with dedicated buttons (or switches) is far easier than trying to do the same with a stylus under bright sunlight with the recorder in a bag on your shoulder in a moving car! 

There are a few things I love about the Scorpio.

The SD remote app is superb. The ability to arm and disarm tracks during recording is superb. The ability to select and playback recorded files from the app is very useful. Also, when looking at the info about a file, all the metadata is clearly shown, which is very useful. The preamps sound nice. The feel of the faders is nice. I love the ring LEDs which show signal strength. I always wanted compressors in the Bus outs. That is now taken care of. Overall, in the few days that I got to use the Scorpio, I liked it. 

Now for a few things that I personally don’t like about the Scorpio. 

JOYSTICK: I wish the Scorpio did not have the flimsy joystick to start rec and stop record. It does not have a good tactile feel. Something like the Cantar or the Fostex PD6 way of going into record, would be preferable. 

The joystick is an ideal thing to have to access the menu, and then navigate in the menu by using UP, DOWN, ENTER, BACK and FORWARD switches. In fact, trying to do things in the menu by using the headphone knob and the select knob is, in my opinion, not very intuitive. 

Display of numeric Fader levels on the SD remote app: The display of fader levels on the SD remote app home screen, is in my opinion, not something that is required. I wonder how many PSM will actually be looking at the figures, every time they move faders. When these fader levels show up on the SD remote app, the track name disappears for a while. I would prefer the track names to stay on permanently, irrespective of the corresponding fader level.  

TC - Once, on set, my 664 was switched off for a pretty long time and the TC which was set to run TOD was reset to 00:00:00:00, and I did not notice this. If the TC clock has for some reason lost the jam value, then the screen should show a warning and the warning should clear off the screen, only after the PSM has acknowledged the message. The blinking BLUE LED shows if TC value is lost, but it's very easy to miss this indicator. 

HEADPHONE MONITORING - On set, my LR tracks are often a Boom mix and Lav mix. Quite often, on set, I need to change my headphone monitoring from Stereo to Mono, to check if things are OK in the mono feed going to the Director and to the Cameras. To change the headphone monitor from Stereo to Mono, one has to press the headphone knob and scroll down from Stereo to Mono in the list. This takes time and causes me to look at the screen, when I would have perhaps preferred to look at my video monitor or keep my eyes elsewhere. I wish the headphone monitoring had a switch which we could flip from Stereo to Mono very easily. With a turn of a rotary switch, we should be able to monitor Stereo L R, Mono L+R, L-R (to check phase issues), L mono, R mono. For the other multiple headphone monitoring options, a drop down list is fine. 

In fact, I would prefer a recessed headphone volume control. So that I can set it and not accidentally change the headphone volume level. I have accidentally done this a couple of times when I'm trying to change some settings in the menu.  (The Fostex PD6 had something like that).  

FADERS - I also don't like the small faders (for Ch 7 to 12) on the Scorpio. I find them pretty difficult to operate with my fingers. Hence, I wish the Scorpio was designed with a larger and  bigger front panel. Something like the CL6 fader attached to it permanently. In trying to make things compact, it has made it difficult for the PSM to operate the faders. Also, having 12 faders of the same size and with the same position of pfl and trim pots on every channel will make the machine very intuitive and easy to operate. 

A PSM relies a lot on muscle memory. His hands and fingers move automatically to buttons and faders. So if the front panel was bigger with 12 faders of the same size, then we could have a bigger screen too, which is my next grouse about the Scorpio. 

SCREEN - The Scorpio screen shows a lot more information compared to the 664. But because of that, it now feels too small. The Scorpio needs a bigger screen for the PSM to be able to see all the information displayed on it easily. (Cantar has a nice big screen).

I also want to be able to see LF cut, compressor threshold, limiter (if enabled) on each channel meter. And gain reduction too. Now that's a lot to display on a small screen, but that is where I feel, a machine like the Scorpio should have come with a bigger screen. 

I would love to be able to see how much limiting or compression is happening on the ch and bus ….like a gain reduction meter? Right now, all we see is a yellow box indicating that the limiter is acting….but how much is it limiting? Some kind of a scale to show mild and heavy limiting would be helpful. 

When we enable a compressor in a channel or a bus, it will be really lovely if we are able to see the threshold level on the home screen. 

USER settings: I want to be able to change all system based settings from the iPad or Tab (like tc frame rate, tc user bit settings, recording sampling freq and bit depth). 

And when I save user settings for recall later, I should be able to see on the iPad or Tab, all settings that have been changed from the factory default. And I should be able to download the USER setting in a pdf.

ROUTING: With the 788, we could do input routing on the CL wifi. I wish we could do that on the Wingman and the SD remote. 

COMBO INPUTS: I also wish the Scorpio had XLR / phono combo inputs, like the MixPre.

I also don't see the need for those multi-pin output connectors - those days are gone when you were tethered to a camcorder. Everything is wireless now. Free up some real estate for more useful connectors. 

I keep referring to the Fostex machines a lot in this article. Those machines were designed during the days, when color touch screens were not mainstream, and when there were no apps, no iPads, no android cell phones. They were superb recorders, and very advanced for their time. 

If one were to look at the Fostex PD6, the things that I like from that machine are the REC and STOP buttons, the monitoring headphone recessed volume control knob, and the various monitoring options which can be easily accessed using muscle memory! 

I wish Sound Devices gets inspired from this and that their newer models take cues from this dated but very lovely recorder! 

I have not had the opportunity to work on the Cantar, or the newer Zaxcom devices, and so I am not talking about them. I understand that they are very capable devices and those who use them regularly, love them and talk very highly about them. 

Moving on to Wireless microphone systems. 

A piece of gear that I loved a lot was the Lectrosonics VR field receiver. 

It was a DC operated device with a single screen and it housed 6 receivers. On one screen, you could visually see the status of all 6 receivers. It was so convenient. I loved it. It was a little bulky and not very good for bag work, but on a cart, it was super convenient to use. I'd wish for a similar product but with some additions - at least 8 receivers, Dante IO and a two channel IFB tx also built into it. 

I work on the Lectro, Sennheiser, Deity and the A10 wireless system quite regularly. But if I have an issue, for example, with a microphone connected to my A10 system, I am forced to use a replacement microphone which has the same connector type which will match the Tx.  

Why don’t more manufacturers adopt the microdot system (or a universally adopted system) on the Tx body itself? There is no connector which is so good that the PSM does not face malfunction and breakage. Every connector, be it locking EP, 5 pin Lemo, 4 pin mini XLR that we see on tx such as Lectro, Audio Limited, Sennheiser, Deity will eventually give a problem. The mic will start crackling etc… If all wireless Tx manufacturers adopt one connector, it will make life easy for PSM to switch mics when a fault develops. Right now, I cannot use a mic which is in my Lectro ecosystem with my A10’s. 

The last thing a PSM wants to do on location is to open a connector to repair it. An easily replaceable RJ45 type of connector, adopted by all TX manufacturers, would make life easy for all of us. We should be able to simply cut a cable, remove the sleeve, put three wires in an RJ45 type of connector and crimp the cables in the connector. It should be that simple. This idea came to me when I watched this video:

https://youtu.be/NWhoJp8UQpo

MORE ON MY WISH LIST: I want to see remote production….the PSM sits in a van, and sends out only 2 CAT6 cables on location. We need a stage box and audio video receivers on set. All the control of the RX should be over the Dante cable. It's been a long time since all mics have gone wireless, lavs as well as boom mics. And all video on set is also wireless. So everything can travel to the PSM sitting in the van on a Dante network. 

C2C: Sound Devices and Frame IO have come up with C2C, a fantastic way to make your footage as rushes, easily viewable on a device, be it on set or on a remote location. As a shot is captured on camera and the corresponding audio on an audio recorder, the files are uploaded to a cloud, where it is automatically synced, and then available for viewing by the producers (or anyone authorised) in any location in the world. But all of this relies on a good internet connection. 

Can this same thing be done on set using a standard WiFi network - make the footage nearly instantly available for reviewing, with the sound files synced?

Comments are welcome! 

Disclaimer:  Opinions and observations in the above article are totally my own. The photographs used in this write-up are only for representative purposes.  They are sourced from the internet and are not being used for any commercial purpose.