Anyone shooting on the BMCC? More importantly, anyone have suggestions for a preamp? Looking for a balance between affordability and quality...who isnt?
Blackmagic Cinema Camera Preamp
- Thread starter pictureplanet
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I am. I was using a JuicedLink but it caused a lot of problems on my production so I sold it.
There's the Beachtek BMD, which is designed for the BMCC.
Though you are probably better off with a dual system, recording sound separate from the picture. Lots of people like the Zoom H4 for that, I just picked up a Tascam DR-60D on sale from B&H for $199 with a free copy of pluraleyes ($179 on its own)... hard to beat that deal, really.
It can be used with the BMCC, but since it only has an unbalanced 1/8" stereo output, it's not ideal for feeding the dual balanced 1/4" jacks on the BMCC. I'd actually be interested in hearing from APE or AA on how they would wire that to not cause issues.
But really, since the BMCC has no audio meters, and is known for being pretty poor with regard to audio your best bet is to probably keep it separate, and maybe use audio captured by the internal mic for reference...
Though you are probably better off with a dual system, recording sound separate from the picture. Lots of people like the Zoom H4 for that, I just picked up a Tascam DR-60D on sale from B&H for $199 with a free copy of pluraleyes ($179 on its own)... hard to beat that deal, really.
It can be used with the BMCC, but since it only has an unbalanced 1/8" stereo output, it's not ideal for feeding the dual balanced 1/4" jacks on the BMCC. I'd actually be interested in hearing from APE or AA on how they would wire that to not cause issues.
But really, since the BMCC has no audio meters, and is known for being pretty poor with regard to audio your best bet is to probably keep it separate, and maybe use audio captured by the internal mic for reference...
Absolutely, much of the audio equipment on the market provides a good balance between quality and price, and that's still true even at the very high priced levels. There are some exceptions though, some designer or "named" headphones spring to mind, where you're paying more for the name than the sound quality. Ignoring these few exceptions though, it comes down to how you define "affordable" and what level of quality you can expect for your budget. I would agree with others though that your first and most important step should to get your audio off your camera and use a dedicated external audio recorder.
Hmm, that might not be trivial. The stereo 1/8" output is probably designed as a headphone output and may well have a different impedance/level relative to the inputs in the BMCC, not to mention of course that one is unbalanced and the other is balanced. The BMCC having 1/4" balanced jack inputs (instead of XLRs) is a little bizarre, maybe it expects a line level input signal rather than a mic level input? If this is the case, you would need a powered commercial unbalanced to balanced converter box (like this one), which would most likely have XLR outputs, and then 2 cables with a female XLR on one end and a 1/4" TRS jack on the other (which are easy to make yourself).
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Apparently the 1/8" stereo output works splendidly with the Black Magic pocket camera, as that's the kind of input it has. I figured something along these lines (and yes I know most pro audio guys hate Behringer) would do the trick: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...g&matchtype=&gclid=CIiSieWg4LwCFYVDMgodKl0AHQ
Of course that's an extra chunk of gear to haul around on your camera rig.. and it would necessitate XLR to TRS adapters or cables
Of course that's an extra chunk of gear to haul around on your camera rig.. and it would necessitate XLR to TRS adapters or cables
Fairly certain it was a space consideration. They might accept mic or line, but I know it's able to accept mic level.
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That Behringer does not appear have any gain controls (although some gain is usually part of the unbalanced to balanced conversion), so it might or might not work, depending on the output level of your 60D and the input level your BMCC is expecting. You have obviously got some gain in the BMCC so you should be OK but I would still check to be sure before you buy the Behringer. Your gain staging will be to add gain from the mic-preamps in the 60D to bring the mic level signal up to line level and if the output level of the 60D is quite low, you're going to have to add gain again in your BMCC, which is not exactly ideal gain staging! Ideally, you would have a field mixer feeding both your 60D and your BMCC.
Behringer have been around a long time and basically produce the cheapest pro spec audio equipment on the market, so they have a reputation in the industry for being relatively poor quality (both build quality and audio quality) and are therefore usually shunned by the more discerning audio pros. However we do occasionally turn to Behringer gear if it's for some non critical application. As you'll just be using it to feed effectively backup/guide audio to the camera, Behringer is probably a sensible choice.
BTW, XLR on one end of the cable and TRS is easy to DIY if you've got a soldering iron handy. Have a look at this page, scroll down to "TRS Cable Wiring" for one end of the cable and scroll down to "XLR Female Wiring" for the connector on the other end.
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Behringer have been around a long time and basically produce the cheapest pro spec audio equipment on the market, so they have a reputation in the industry for being relatively poor quality (both build quality and audio quality) and are therefore usually shunned by the more discerning audio pros. However we do occasionally turn to Behringer gear if it's for some non critical application. As you'll just be using it to feed effectively backup/guide audio to the camera, Behringer is probably a sensible choice.
BTW, XLR on one end of the cable and TRS is easy to DIY if you've got a soldering iron handy. Have a look at this page, scroll down to "TRS Cable Wiring" for one end of the cable and scroll down to "XLR Female Wiring" for the connector on the other end.
G
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Given the poor preamps and lack of audio level metering (on the BMCC), I still think skipping feeding audio into the BMCC altogether is probably the better option.. at least until a firmware update provides audio metering -- if that ever occurs.
That depends, as you won't be using time-code to sync your audio/picture, you'll have to sync manually without the benefit of guide audio from your camera, which as far as I'm aware renders software like PluralEyes useless. It doesn't need to be good quality audio on your BMCC, just good enough to act as a guide to facilitate sync'ing in post. Of course, this depends on your post-production workflow, the type (and duration) of the projects you're working on and therefore whether or not the time saved in post is going to be significant enough to bother recording the audio to your BMCC. I'm not a picture editor but if I were, I doubt I'd be too enthused about manually sync'ing a dialogue heavy 70+ min feature!
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The BMCC has a (crappy) internal mic, so you can still get guide audio for syncing with it.
The other interesting bit I just read about the other day.. apparently you can feed timecode audio into the bmcc and record the same timecode audio signal on one channel on your recorder, davinci resolve is apparently able to decode that and sync the clips on ingest.
The other interesting bit I just read about the other day.. apparently you can feed timecode audio into the bmcc and record the same timecode audio signal on one channel on your recorder, davinci resolve is apparently able to decode that and sync the clips on ingest.
Providing it can pick up the dialogue at sufficiently quality to be used as a guide then I'd agree that it seems like a waste of time/money to jump through the hoops required to feed your BMCC with your audio recorder's audio. It might still be worth the $40 or so it would cost to buy the Behringer and cables though, for those occasions where the BMCC's internal mic would struggle to capture even guide quality dialogue, say outdoor windy conditions for example. That's obviously a judgement call on your part though.
That's effectively how it used to be done in the old days with analogue tape and film, not too sure how it would work today though, where the timecode written into the metadata of the audio file is used rather than a separate timecode track. I'm not saying it couldn't work but most NLE or DAW software I know wouldn't be able to do this or would require some jerry-rigging and some specialist sync hardware (ProTools for example).
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On another forum there is a 3 page thread of people discussing success feeding LTC into their black magic on one of the audio tracks, which is then extracted from that audio track by Resolve. There's also AuxTC for Windows & Mac to extract the timecode from camera and audio and then sync & merge the files for editing.
Or, if someone wanted to write their own plugin, there's an open source libraries available to decode LTC data, libltc. I wonder what kind of market there would be for a plugin for Premiere and/or FCP to use that. Hmmmm...
Whenever my Black Magic 4k camera arrives I'm planning to feed timecode from the movie slate ipad app into it and my DR 60D. Looking at getting a wireless lav setup that'll let me transmit from the ipad's headphone jack to two (or more) receivers, one for the camera, one for the tascam. So then there won't be a need for wires tethering them together.
Of course, the movie-slate app is $25, and it's an extra $50 for the timecode plugin that lets you send/receive timecode via headphone jack, wifi and/or bluetooth.. but even combined, that's cheaper than a dedicated TC generator, and apparently the app is accurate to about 1 frame of drift per 24hrs.. that ought to be good enough for most people.
Or, if someone wanted to write their own plugin, there's an open source libraries available to decode LTC data, libltc. I wonder what kind of market there would be for a plugin for Premiere and/or FCP to use that. Hmmmm...
Whenever my Black Magic 4k camera arrives I'm planning to feed timecode from the movie slate ipad app into it and my DR 60D. Looking at getting a wireless lav setup that'll let me transmit from the ipad's headphone jack to two (or more) receivers, one for the camera, one for the tascam. So then there won't be a need for wires tethering them together.
Of course, the movie-slate app is $25, and it's an extra $50 for the timecode plugin that lets you send/receive timecode via headphone jack, wifi and/or bluetooth.. but even combined, that's cheaper than a dedicated TC generator, and apparently the app is accurate to about 1 frame of drift per 24hrs.. that ought to be good enough for most people.
Mmm, again, I can see how that could work with the visuals, as each frame has it's own metadata. But, this is not the case with audio files, there is just TC metadata for the file itself, not per sample or per frame, continuous timecode is NOT recorded with digital audio. Timing reference is by means of an internal clock which in a TC compatible recording device can be modified or bypassed to lock the recorder to the incoming TC and therefore with other devices locked to the same TC.
So, I can see how a plugin could take the recorded LTC, write to the metadata of the audio file and use that as a sync point for the audio and picture but it would not sync-lock the picture to the audio as would distributing LTC to actual timecode enabled devices. In other words, I can see how Resolve or one of these plugins could use this audio LTC to speed up the import/lining-up process but I don't see how it could avoid any subsequent drift caused by the camera and audio recorder's different and unsync'ed clocks during filming, and avoiding this type of drift is of course the main reason why TC was invented in the first place.
Do you have a link to that thread you mentioned? It would be interesting to see if there is in fact some way to compensate for drift (which I can't see) or if the drift issue is being ignored and if everyone in the thread realises they are not actually getting TC locked picture/audio.
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So, I can see how a plugin could take the recorded LTC, write to the metadata of the audio file and use that as a sync point for the audio and picture but it would not sync-lock the picture to the audio as would distributing LTC to actual timecode enabled devices. In other words, I can see how Resolve or one of these plugins could use this audio LTC to speed up the import/lining-up process but I don't see how it could avoid any subsequent drift caused by the camera and audio recorder's different and unsync'ed clocks during filming, and avoiding this type of drift is of course the main reason why TC was invented in the first place.
Do you have a link to that thread you mentioned? It would be interesting to see if there is in fact some way to compensate for drift (which I can't see) or if the drift issue is being ignored and if everyone in the thread realises they are not actually getting TC locked picture/audio.
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I do, but it's against forum rules to post links to other forums.. 
Please do PM me the link. As I said, I'm interested to see if:
1. There is in fact a way around the inherent problem of multiple internal clocks drifting or
2. The forum users realise that this implementation of timecode is only giving them a sync point rather than actual sync-locked picture/audio or
3. They are deluding themselves (or being deluded by product vendors) and believe they are in fact getting full timecode functionality even without a timecode enabled camera and recorder.
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1. There is in fact a way around the inherent problem of multiple internal clocks drifting or
2. The forum users realise that this implementation of timecode is only giving them a sync point rather than actual sync-locked picture/audio or
3. They are deluding themselves (or being deluded by product vendors) and believe they are in fact getting full timecode functionality even without a timecode enabled camera and recorder.
G
Fairly certain everyone is aware that it's just giving them a means of aligning the image and audio, not an actual clock sync.
Excellent deal. I had the Xoom h4n and Tascam DR100 and find this 60d far superior. I like it a lot. I paid about $500 for the recorder and software and still feel good about it. So at this price? Grab it. Plural Eyes is great, I use it as a Vegas plugin.