who are y’all’s favorite b-stock/used “hidden gem” sources?

Thomann in Europe - True Heart Sound in Florida but most bigger dealers have B-stock, and will let you have photos if you ask.

Cool. Any for video gear as opposed to sound?

Here in the UK we have a dealer called H Preston who I've bought my cameras from. I NEVER bought an expensive brand new camera either. They always have last years flavour of the month with a few hours on the clock at good discounts. I rarely follow the 'must have' trends, so I've always bought for years now JVC cameras. 500,5000,100,200,700 series.They're now on 800 series, so pre-corona, I was thinking about which 800 to buy when the next series arrives. Staying one behind has saved me so much money over the years.

Thanks. I will definitely not buy another cam anytime soon (maybe ever?) but have always gone with what's popular/requested by clients, as there's a 50% chance they'll request one of several cameras vs don't know/don't care. Here in Houston Texas that's Canon C-series cams or FS7s. I myself got a C100 back in 2016.

I've got three 'goodwill and be nice' projects on the go and am flipping between them as the contributions arrive. I asked for 1980x1080 mp4 and 44.1K 16 bit .wav audio, 25fps for everything.

Thank God for media encoder.

Quick question. Anybody know how to make the network sharing on Windows 10 work properly? I need to save files on the left computer to the right one - and all my attempts fail. I'm currently saving to USB drive then moving it to the other one. Drop box takes longer. I'd just love for a computer saying Audio appear on the video one, and vice versa.

I've used a USB computer-to-computer transfer cable long ago. Just a cable with two USB-A male connectors, and a lump of firmware in the middle. IIRC, each computer sees it as a device in "My Computer" and you can drag and drop back and forth from either machine's screen.

It's been a few years and I don't remember whether it will actually network drives in real time. i.e. if you're running recording software on machine #1, I don't know whether you can -- at that time -- be saving the data on machine #2. But that's apparently not what you're asking, if you're presently using a USB stick for transfer.

Of course I did this years ago, probably two XP machines. But I'm pretty sure I've seen these advertised quite recently. Note that what you want is not simply a "data transfer cable" with two USB-A connectors ... those are for data transfer between a computer and a peripheral with an unusual connector. You need to be sure the description says "computer to computer" to be safe.

Now that you mention it, I think I'll look to buying a new one that works with current OS machines. You can never have too many toys ... or at least I can't.

I'll have as look, that would do exactly what I need! Cheers

If you google how to network windows 10 you’ll find the answer. I used to know but I’ve forgotten

Quick question. Anybody know how to make the network sharing on Windows 10 work properly? .
"I used to know but I’ve forgotten" - Basically the same here

I have my PCs set to show in the (My) "Computer" window as drives X, Y, Z.
Assuming your LAN 'Network Discovery' is on in the 'Network and Sharing Center' settings. Browse for the computer in 'Map Network Drive'. I have the 'User name' folder set to 'Share' as well.
At least this what I recall and may hold clues.

Given Ryan's lack of knowledge about audio, I doubt that he would know a bargain if one bit him. And he doesn't seem to like spending money for anything. I recall an earlier thread when he was asking about a wonky AC adapter. Several of us advised him to spend ~$20 and buy a new one from the factory. He evaded discussion about it. Then one day he announced he had gotten one (not knowing whether it was appropriate) from a friend, and plugged it in, and it seemed to work. Weeks of time wasted on discussion and helpful answers, and instead he risked blowing up what was allegedly his perfectly good recorder. His logic does not match my logic.

A few months ago I spotted a "refurbished like new" handheld dictation recorder, normal price $80, being sold for $9. Being always curious about bargains, I bought one, and it was as advertised! It makes surprisingly good voice recordings. So I bought another. They are now loaned out, recording COVID-home-studio voice tracks for some local music shows. Of course I had to buy a third one; it arrived with leaky AAA cells well-crusted in place. So much for "refurbished like new." Oh, well, I got my money back. I'd be tempted to place another order, but they're finally sold out.

Let me know if you see any more good deals!

And *why* did you spend £14,000 on equipment you have no work for? That must have been one heck of a bargain.

Yeah I try to look for bargains. It's just when I buy used equipment, if there is something wrong with it, you are stuck with it, so if I buy from more B & H, if something is wrong with something, you can at least return it then, unless I should just by used for cheaper?

You need to toughen up a bit Ryan. Over the years, the number of bad buys I've had has been minimal. If you buy on ebay, you have PayPal protection. If you buy from a stranger direct - then is there a risk?

I've been scanning ebay to see if people were selling off excess kit due to no work, and I've bought all kinds of stuff, taking advantage of the terrible situation. An HD camera, five years old. Really silly money. I've bought a wide angle for it, some extra batteries and a power supply as a spare. I've bought a shotgun, and a replacement basket windshield to replace the one I wrecked. I've bought a Sennheiser receiver and some other odds and ends. I don't need any of it now - but I think it will all come in handy.

If the camera doesn't work I'll return it - but modern kit really is not a reliability thing Ryan. Movie making is a gamble - if you're willing to accept that, then if you're eeking out a meagre budget, second hand must be a winner.

Okay thanks. I've made mistakes on some equipment before, so I want to be careful. But I can take a risk and see. I didn't think it was a lack of me being tough, I was just trying to be smart, in case something was wrong with the equipment.

No you were lacking guts Ryan.

If you see a bargain, you need to always ask yourself a question. Can I afford to lose this money? If you see something for $400 and you have $500 sitting there for a rainy day. Could you live with losing that $400, worst case. If you need it for food, bills, or paying off debts, then it's silly to risk it - but if you can just be angry, grumpy and cross with yourself, but not suffer - then the risk was to me, acceptable. Sure, there's a chance you could be scammed, but if you pay by PayPal, there's an element of security.

If like me, you spend serious money buying from dealers in the US, Mexico and China in the best deal search, then sometimes you have to take big chances. I lost just one payment to china - when the deal really was too good to be true. I think I wasted around £500, and it wasn't terminal - just too greedy to see the scam. That was maybe five years back now and the only loss.

The movie and entertainment world is full of risk. If you want to be safe, it's not the business to dabble in.

Lots of your issues come from trying to be 100% certain, or totally convinced, or absolutely certain on a course or outcomes and when they go wrong - you kind of collapse.

If you want to be a producer, it's always a gamble based on experience and accurate info, vs your best guess, and you hate guessing.

Surely, if you see something you want on ebay, at a great price, it's actually foolish to NOT buy it if you can afford it. Buying new, at a distance, is also a risk. Smaller, but still a risk.

Lots of people in the UK bought from a well known long history audio dealer who has been wiped out by the virus loss of business. I expect lots of people have paid for kit they won't get. Nothing is ever certain.

when I buy used equipment, if there is something wrong with it, you are stuck with it,

Not true, unless you buy it from a guy in a covered wagon selling snake oil. Over the years, I've bought a number of items on eBay that were not as described ... usually in worse condition than promised. In every case I can remember I've gotten my money back, either from the seller, from eBay, or from PayPal. I can't recall problems with any reputable dealer, and of course they'd want to keep their good reputation because that affects their bottom line. I'm retired now and a small player compared to these other guys, but based on my experience I imagine they are right.

You seem to get in trouble with absolutes. "You might be stuck with it" can't be denied, even if the probability is slim. "You are stuck with it" is logically insupportable. The same is true about your black/white beliefs about lav mics on a busy street. Sometimes they'll be the best option, sometimes they won't; spend a few bucks and buy a mic (nobody said "used" so buy a new one with a warranty) and have yourself a learning experience.

And of course your expressed concerns about used equipment don't explain why you dithered for weeks, and risked blowing up your recorder, rather than spending $20 to buy a new guaranteed AC adapter. What that boils down to is that you love to ask for advice and debate about it ad nauseum, but you dig in your heels like a team of mules against ever following it.

Oh okay thanks. Well I can keep a loot out for lavs on ebay then.

So in the past when I have boomed for two other filmmakers, and they said that the lav sound was not near as good quality as the boom, because they said they were picking up sound from every which direction, were the lavs just not being applied right then?

Vaguely pertinent to this and related to my thread, I got a used (barely) ultrastudio mini monitor for $80 plus tax. A steal if it works right.

Just dropped in from a busy schedule and this thread about …. well, at least it started out as being about, … using a lavaliere outside in a city due to the noisy environment. Appears to have morphed a bit into buying kit at a good deal of a price. In Paul’s case its slightly different because it is about buying a good deal of kit at a good deal of a price. (Paul must have bigger closets, or more spare bedrooms, than the rest of us). I like his style!

Anyway, maybe there is going to be some good lav kit going for good prices in the not so distant future because of Nvidia’s noise-cancellation technology. This is mind-numbing fantastic!

First it’ll be on their graphics cards but once miniaturized a bit it’ll be used on ENG mics and lavs. (Edit: Is my guess)

RTX Voice: Noise-destroying tech put to the test
Graphics card-maker Nvidia is developing noise-cancellation technology that can eliminate nuisance sounds from video calls and livestreams.
The first version of its technology uses spare capacity on its high-end graphics cards.
BBC Click's Chris Fox put the system through a series of increasingly complex challenges, alongside existing noise-cancelling software Krisp.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-52572382/rtx-voice-noise-destroying-tech-put-to-the-test

Well another thing is, is that would a lot of actors mind having wires taped their chests, compared to a boom?

What is your pretend function here? Are you the imagined sound man? If so, you don't have to worry about that, that decision is beyond your pay grade. Or are you now the imagined director, fighting with the imagined temperamental cast?

Nvidia’s noise-cancellation technology. This is mind-numbing fantastic.

Amazingly effective, although the voice is obviously processed. Still, for run & gun ENG, miraculous.

What is your pretend function here? Are you the imagined sound man? If so, you don't have to worry about that, that decision is beyond your pay grade. Or are you now the imagined director, fighting with the imagined temperamental cast?

Oh I meant for my own projects. I've used only boom on my projects so far, but wonder if I should get lavs as well. But on other projects I was the boom operator on, I was told the boom audio was good, but not the lavs.

So I wonder if lavs will be that useful, if the boom audio was better on other projects, and they just ended up going with that instead.

Well another thing is, is that would a lot of actors mind having wires taped their chests, compared to a boom?

I've never come across any actors complaining, it comes with the job, although care is required with cheat hair. .

However, you need develop a technique with female actors/presenters that's practical yet doesn't imply any thing other than being totally professional. Experienced presenters can usually do the cabling themselves, with actors wardrobe can assist with this, although if you explain the route, they can do the cabling themselves. The latter approach also works with members of the public.

This all comes with the sound department

If you can't get the boom in because the shot is too wide, you won't have much choice. So far, you've given one example and that seems to be a rule for you. Do you think professional sound recordists would waste money on kit they don't need? I hope this thread isn''t going to expand because you cant accept that for some situations you'll use a boom, while for others you'll need to use lav mics.

For many years, I put wavs on female actors, singers, dancers and presenters. If you behave professionally, and put them at their ease, you do the job effectively - usually talking about absolutely nothing while you do it. They respond equally inanely, and after a few months they will have wiped it from memory. In fact, for me, the mic has never been the issue, it's the pack that takes effort to hide in many costumes, and feeding the cable, and securing a pack is the hard part. very often, small of the back, or sitting on their bum cheeks is something you have to get used to doing - and even with all the Harvey Weinstein stuff, it can be done professionally and trouble free - IF - you have the people skills. I've had one sound guy bottle out - totally freeze. I sent him to a group of dancers with 2 minutes to get four mics on, and they were doing a quick change - at the appropriate moment when they are er, unencumbered by clothing, you attach the pack, clothes get added and you feed the wire up, then grab from the top and attach to their face. This is why I find A2 roles difficult to cover. A female is best, but failing that a non-problematic male can be fine. First rehearsal, this guy proved to be hopeless because HE couldn't cope, not the girls. In all my years doing radio mics myself - probably 20+ I've never had one issue of awkwardness. It's a bit like being a doctor. Act professionally, do the right things and all is well.

One thing you can do is buy a couple of the really, really dirt cheap Chinese lav mics on Ali express or ebay. You can pick them up for less than $10. They are surprisingly useful things. Audio quality with a little EQ is fine for many uses, and if you drop one in the mud, throw it away.

You mention that omni pick up everything, don't they? This means you read up on omni and jumped to the wrong conclusion. They do indeed pick up all around, but they are CLOSEST to the wanted sound source, and it's their method of operation that is important - they are pressure operated, not pressure gradient, like cardioids. The opening does NOT need to be aimed, so can be dressed to be away from prevailing wind direction. You can shield them in other words. You've mentioned noise before from clothing. Most of what appears to be clothing noise comes up the cable. It's thin, but tough, so tapping the cable a foot away from the mic can transfer noise, if the cable is taut. You build in loops, or sags. You thread the cable through the clips, or you pop through button holes and then bend back. All these things reduce cable noise.

Buy the cheap ones and experiment - you will find the audio surprisingly good, and you can use yourself as the test subject and learn good and bad fitting practice.

With my store full, my space at home has filled up badly. So you can laugh and joke about the obvious care I take with looking after kit, I just took some pictures. I work from home in a space at the rear and the edit suite has become a store room, and editing moved in with the audio stuff. I cannot of course find anything. The corridor leading to the edit suite is also full of flight cases, and my wife is getting justifiably annoyed with me. My green screen space now has a PA system living in it, so it's getting tight!

Oh okay, But there are movies you see from the 40s and 50s for example, where lavs are not used, so I thought I perhaps could get by with not using them. I can buy them, just making sure I need them first for wide shots, when some older movies, didn't seem to use them.

For many years, I put wavs on female actors, singers, dancers and presenters. If you behave professionally, and put them at their ease, you do the job effectively - usually talking about absolutely nothing while you do it. They respond equally inanely, and after a few months they will have wiped it from memory. In fact, for me, the mic has never been the issue, it's the pack that takes effort to hide in many costumes, and feeding the cable, and securing a pack is the hard part. very often, small of the back, or sitting on their bum cheeks is something you have to get used to doing - and even with all the Harvey Weinstein stuff, it can be done professionally and trouble free - IF - you have the people skills. I've had one sound guy bottle out - totally freeze. I sent him to a group of dancers with 2 minutes to get four mics on, and they were doing a quick change - at the appropriate moment when they are er, unencumbered by clothing, you attach the pack, clothes get added and you feed the wire up, then grab from the top and attach to their face. This is why I find A2 roles difficult to cover. A female is best, but failing that a non-problematic male can be fine. First rehearsal, this guy proved to be hopeless because HE couldn't cope, not the girls. In all my years doing radio mics myself - probably 20+ I've never had one issue of awkwardness. It's a bit like being a doctor. Act professionally, do the right things and all is well.

One thing you can do is buy a couple of the really, really dirt cheap Chinese lav mics on Ali express or ebay. You can pick them up for less than $10. They are surprisingly useful things. Audio quality with a little EQ is fine for many uses, and if you drop one in the mud, throw it away.

You mention that omni pick up everything, don't they? This means you read up on omni and jumped to the wrong conclusion. They do indeed pick up all around, but they are CLOSEST to the wanted sound source, and it's their method of operation that is important - they are pressure operated, not pressure gradient, like cardioids. The opening does NOT need to be aimed, so can be dressed to be away from prevailing wind direction. You can shield them in other words. You've mentioned noise before from clothing. Most of what appears to be clothing noise comes up the cable. It's thin, but tough, so tapping the cable a foot away from the mic can transfer noise, if the cable is taut. You build in loops, or sags. You thread the cable through the clips, or you pop through button holes and then bend back. All these things reduce cable noise.

Buy the cheap ones and experiment - you will find the audio surprisingly good, and you can use yourself as the test subject and learn good and bad fitting practice.

With my store full, my space at home has filled up badly. So you can laugh and joke about the obvious care I take with looking after kit, I just took some pictures. I work from home in a space at the rear and the edit suite has become a store room, and editing moved in with the audio stuff. I cannot of course find anything. The corridor leading to the edit suite is also full of flight cases, and my wife is getting justifiably annoyed with me. My green screen space now has a PA system living in it, so it's getting tight!

Oh well I am was going by what the sound mixers I worked with before told me, that they had trouble with background noise, with the lavs. Even though the lavs are closer, they still had trouble, but this was in outdoor situations, where there is more noise around, like on the streets. Indoors they work fine it seems. I'm just going by what they say. But I can get them still, if it's worth it, and if I can find deals for a good price, when it comes to needing a few of them if there are few actors in the scene.

In the 1940s and 50s they didn't have the choice of small lav mics. Then they would dub the lines (ADR basically with it being done manually) or they would use back projection and shoot the dialogue in the studio or even build the exterior in the studio as a set. If you look closely you can see it's a set.

They also used a fisher boom

Fisher Boom Introduction - YouTube

So far, you used one example of the lavs v boom, without any details of he shots. The scenario has a the feel of the director wanting to use lavs and the sound man wanting to use the boom, possibly in a situation that suited the latter.

Like all these situations you use the tools that's suitable for the job in hand, there are no rules, only what works. If you just turn up with boom and you can't do something you may not be around in a day or two.

Oh okay, thanks. Well for other people's projects, I was the boom operator, and that is what they wanted me for, so I wasn't expected to show up with lavs, when I was the boom operator, was I? Or should I have had lavs as well instead of PSM providing them?

But for my own I can use lavs, especially in the wide shots.

If you're just the boom operator, coming with just your own boom (I'd assume a 15 ft job) and associated accessories would be fine, since the sound recordist/mixer should be providing the microphones.

Dam these Ryan threads they get big. Just wanted to stop by and say hi to everyone. Ok have a good day and keep going.

Pete - I think Ryan's topics really don't need a title because wherever we start we end up somewhere else!


Ryan - running one radio channel is tricky - multiple ones are really going to push your skill set. As soon as we go to two channels, we start with intermod, and this means retuning, and this means band plans, channel sets and most critically, recognising interference and determining what it is. Many systems have empty channel search features, and they're really rubbish, because they rely on an empty channel staying empty. Radio systems are location sensitive and it only takes the local hotel to power up their DJ system to wreck your planning. It means the person running your system must be the one who hears problems before recording, not discovering them in the edit when it's too late. You need to be able to distinguish between AF issues, RF issues - so that's generally signal strength, intermod and interference. They have characteristic sounds that you need to be familiar with to solve issues. I've said it numerous times, but buying a couple of radio mic systems does not guarantee decent audio in the same way that buying a boom and shotgun doesn't. BIG learning curve Ryan.

Ryan, If you actually wish to learn sound recording for film, there are courses that specialise in the subject. At the moment this. like everything else, is all hit or miss or what someone told you.

For the inexperienced radio mic user, the newer GHz frequency systems are usually better since choosing frequencies are not necessary. Pro and cons to all though.. be it VHF, UHF or the GHz systems. No wireless is gonna be perfect 100% of the time no matter how much the cost.

Okay sure, I'm much more use to booming then lavs of course, but I can learn the lavs then too. Since I was told that on other projects involving lavs, that the background sound is loud compared to the boom, it was said before on here, that shouldn't since the lavs are much closer. However, could they have been talking about the room tone tracks, and the room tone was picking up too much background noise, compared to the boom room tone track, perhaps?

I think you should test lav mics compared to a boom mic. Room tone isn't something I would associate with lavs because they are usually so close to the mouth and can have more bass from the chest. I know one sound recordist who records both.

You still seem to talking about that one scene and treating it as a rule and endlessly repeating it. Test mics for yourself, see what they do, what works and doesn't work, otherwise you're just wasting other people's time.

Okay sure. It's hard to test them without purchasing them first because of covid and all the rental houses here are closed, so I thought I would have to purchase them first.

I was told that on other projects involving lavs, that the background sound is loud compared to the boom
It depends.. Most pros use both (on separate ISO tracks of coarse). It is usually one or the other on a mix track.

Okay sure. It's hard to test them without purchasing them first because of covid and all the rental houses here are closed, so I thought I would have to purchase them first.

If you know any sound people or others that own their own lav mics, you could hire or borrow one from them. There's hardly a rush of productions at the moment.

Oh okay thanks, I don't know anyone who has their own, the other productions I helped on, all rented before.

It depends.. Most pros use both (on separate ISO tracks of coarse). It is usually one or the other on a mix track.

Yeah, and if it's the lav on a mix track, does that mean that they would use the room tone track from the lav, in which case maybe the background sound was too loud on the room tone track for them?

You've got confused again. If you have a static, and stand mounted mic - then the atmos it captures is usable. It's VERY different with a person mounted mic. How much will you record that doesn't have rustles, sniffs and worse - a change in the audio perspective as they move around. Room tone (and I hate that term) is no good if it's not continuous - and what exactly are you planning to do with it?

Given a boom feed and a radio mic feed, I doubt you'd get much useful audio that would be handy for the editor?

If you want to specifically record room sound for filler, this takes planning. Can be easily done but perspectives have to match.

Those booms were the mainstay of TV and movies for a very long time - and everything was recorded at a distance, and because of proper aiming, the sound was amazingly good!

Oh yes, I know you wouldn't record room tone, while the lav was on a person. But wouldn't you to take the mic and record the room tone with it, off the person and static, so you have room tone for the scene though, for editing and mixing later?

If you are going to use the lavs in post, then you will have to record the room tone with the lav as well to match, since room tone recorded with a lav, sounds different than room tone recorded with a directional boom mic, doesn't it?

Usually they use a stereo mic for room tone.

it was said before on here,
This is the hallmark of any of Ryan's threads.

Let the potential participant beware!

But if you use a different mic for the room tone, than the mic that was used for recording the voices, then the room tone will be picked up with a different pick up pattern than the mics used for dialog. Wouldn't that change the sound of the room tone? Plus, why a stereo mic, as oppose to mono, like the dialog was recorded in?

You use a stereo mic because the film is in stereo, it creates the sound space where you can place the mono sound from the other mics using the pan pots during the audio mix.

Oh okay, thanks. But just so I understand, in a stereo mic, what are the pick up patterns of each mic in it?

Is this the pick up pattern?

https://www.google.ca/search?q=stereo+mic+pick+up+pattern&sxsrf=ALeKk00WeEtZZ3jZZSQN1G0s4gSHfrCJKQ:1589317181186&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=-yFbpDbslUUCLM%253A%252CM81kNYZFLPH8TM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kR6AZGZTj392sQfKlX4GE2v-J_CeA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwie_ZPwm6_pAhVQrp4KHWVzA9IQ9QEwAHoECAYQAw#imgrc=-yFbpDbslUUCLM:

Because if that's the pick up pattern, it is different than the pick up pattern of a shotgun mic for booming, and the room tone will sound different, if the pick up pattern doesn't match. So wouldn't you hear the difference in room tone in the dialog editing, if the room tone track does not much the room tone in the dialogue tracks?

They usually use a Mid/Side set up.

No, if you haven't noticed any difference with room tone in any films it's not an issue.

Everything else is usually recorded mono, so that it can be placed anywhere in the stereo image, with the dialogue in the middle.

Oh okay, but what do you mean by mid/side in this context?

Well I've never recorded room tone with a mic with a different pic up pattern before, because I always wanted the room tone to match, So I would record room tone with the same boom mic, used for booming on my projects, and I would just put that mono room tone track on all the channels on the mix, in post.

Ryan, come on now. Googling “mid side recording” would have taken less time than waiting for a response here and literally takes the exact same amount of time and effort on your part. Ditto how and why to use it in a film mix.

But Ryan loves to waste time here. He has a bunch of friends to shoot the breeze endlessly.