Recording sound

[Blue Audio Visual]

Besides, a Nagra would attract serious attention from bored security guards who equate fancy equipment with terrorist inclinations.

That seems like a compelling reason to buy yourself a Nagra SN...

[reflex]

That seems like a compelling reason to buy yourself a Nagra SN...

Ohh, that's nice.

[Blue Audio Visual]

A friend of mine had one a few years ago. It came with impeccable motion picture industry provenance complete with paperwork to back the story up. It had been used to record location sound (obviously not as the only recorder!) for Barbara Streisand's directorial debut Yentl. It was also used on an unfinished film starring Marlon Brando, though my friend cannot recall what it was called. He bought it from a well-respected electronic engineer who works in the film industry here in the UK. The paperwork backed everything up, with original sales invoices with the correct serial numbers made out to Streisand's production company etc. The Brando connection was undocumented, but he had no good reason to disbelieve the story.

I had the opportunity to play around with it for a while as we were working from the same building at the time. Beautifully made machine, the chassis is milled from a solid piece of metal, and even though it is tiny everything operated with the satisfying controlled clunkiness that is the hallmark of Nagra products.

I offered him a pretty low price for it not because I in any way needed it, rather that it was such a lovely object that I just wanted to own it. He wisely turned me down and put it up on ebay, bigging up the Streisand connection. It sold for some fabulous amount of money (about £2300 as far as my friend recalls) to a very enthusiastic gay Streisand fan in -surprise surprise- San Francisco! He was so happy that he called my friend up personally after he received it, gushingly saying how honoured he was to own something that Babs herself might have touched... or something along those lines anyway.

True story...

[ccortez]

We have an m-audio. I don't like it.

Seems to be a "get what you pay for" field, so we got one of these:

http://www.sounddevices.com/products/702t.htm

(not sure if that's the model we have, but it's close)

[ccortez]

Reflex --

I care nothing about the rest of this thread. I only want to know how much you're going to give me for my nagra. You know you want it. :mrgreen:

Hey ccortez .Selling your nagra on this forum may cause reflex to look elsewhere .Suggest you try ebay and not po anybody
kindest regards

It's all about context, dave --

I've been offering my useless and distracting commentary for years here, so Mr. Reflex knows what to expect. Besides which, I know a few things about him (also known to many others on the board) that made my prodding relevant --

1. He's an audio professional; he makes this kind of stuff for a living.
2. He's a vintage gear geek; "retrothing" is his blog/brand for all your old gear geek needs.
3. He happens not to be reactionary and is generally considered sane and sensible, at least in comparison to me. So when he chides, you should listen. :mrgreen:

My $.02

[dave]

NOTE TO ALL
ccortez seems to be a nice guy.However, not to toot my horn, but i've been shooting super 8 sound film since 197? and have probably shot more kma 594 and kma288 (200footers)then any body on this board.Needless to say i guess i apologize to anyone i may have offended in my attempt to sell what i believe is the last batch tested ela594

[Videogriff]

Wow. A lot of posts on here.

Good luck selling the film Dave. why not just put it on Ebay a roll at a time?

So what are you asking for that Nagra again? It looks beautiful.

Wanting more input I emailed an audio engineer friend who has done horror movie soundtracks and loads of TV work. I figured I'd cut paste it here for anyone else who is wanting to do something similar.

My inquiry:

I want to record some really small sounds. Fabric rubbing together. Stomach gurgles. The sound of hands rubbing together. A pencil writing. Sort of like micro foley work.

What can I use to get this? Do you have any gear that can get this? How much
extreme groveling and abasement do I need to perform to get advice and or a
couple loaner items?

His reply to my initial email:

When Bob Drake and I were creating the sounds of tormented flesh for our Three B-Movie Horror flicks we called on Crown PZM technology. I think I still have a Radio Shack version that is High Z but runs off AA batteries. R-Shack still carries (I think) a version they call the sound grabber. It goes for $40 or so.
I also have 2 PCC-160 mikes. They are directional PZMs. They require phantom power.

I looked at the above email and said to myself, gee what a nice list of product numbers, tell me more.

Next reply:

O-Tay, Good old American-Mennonite technology is what you need. Either go to/call your local Radio Shack, ask for a "Sound Grabber" mike and expect to pay $40-50 or coax me into digging out my 20 year old version of the same idea. I don't know if my R-Shack PZM still works and it may be too noisey for close up work. The third option would be to borrow my PCC-160 mikes. Still PZM (Pressure Zone Mike) technology but they require a phantom power supply so I'm guessing you can't use them.

He pretty much repeated himself, but you never know what someone will add to a reply.

I am thinking I will just use a digital video camera for the recording as it is easy to fire wire it into my mac for editing. The other advantage to a barrowing a digital video camera, is that it would have low impedance inputs for XLR as well as a phantom power supply.

Thanks for all the info everyone. Nice to know a newbie can get good info on this forum.

[Blue Audio Visual]

Don't underestimate the great quality and versatility that you can get from the comparatively inexpensive Shure SM57.

[Will2]

Don't underestimate the great quality and versatility that you can get from the comparatively inexpensive Shure SM57

The classic snare drum and guitar cabinet mic. Also nearly indestructible.

The magic of mic placement is what really can make a difference. A little hidden mic in a plant or well placed overhead can make things sound much better. Dialog replacement exists for a reason, you can't get mics close enough in many scenes.

Going back to basics and just recording background noise for mixing in later is great, then you can replace the voices and dial-in ambient noise as needed.

I am thinking I will just use a digital video camera for the recording as it is easy to fire wire it into my mac for editing

Great idea, and just set it up on a tripod and point it generally at the scene then you'll have visual cues for syncing as well. If you get decent pre-amps you may not even need XLR ins, although you'll need to be able to set levels manually and turn off the compression since most will compress the signal massively and you'll hear the "breathing" of the compressor.

[Blue Audio Visual]

The classic snare drum and guitar cabinet mic. Also nearly indestructible.

My main point in the context of this thread with regard to the SM57 is that it performs a wide variety of tasks pretty damn well, as well as being truly excellent at some. Also pretty good for acoustic instruments, percussion, and in this context perfectly serviceable and a lot easy to handle (in the most literal of senses) than a PZM for gathering spot sound effects!

I don't think that there is a more versatile microphone for the money. As a bonus you can hammer nails into walls with it and it will probably still work OK.

[fogo]

.
Google DIgidesign Mbox and then find one on ebay USA. Mac compatible and amazingly cheap these days, its a hardware unit designed for ProTools LE software, which should be included with the unit, ie you're getting a pretty good audio software package too. Power and signal is carried by USB to ur laptop...The first version is able to run even the latest incarnation of ProTools LE (7.4?), but not on Leopard.

This unit gives a couple of mic, line or instruments inputs (48v phantom power too, although thats really gonna strain ur laptop) and to my ear, some pleasant sounding Focusrite branded preamps..so plug lof Barts SMs into this, plug this into ur laptop and away u go...for short recording sessions outdoors, where youve got access to recharge ur laptop batteries or run it off an inverter, its a useable proposition.

The unit itself may not have the latest gazillion bit depth etc etc and the software can be a bit temperamental on some systems...but for the prices these units are available today and the quality of some of the plugins sold with many of them, it might be what u need...

Hope this helps
ade