Unhappy purchases

sfoster · Mar 13, 2015

I got two pieces of equipment in the mail and it's been disappointing with both of them.

The first is this tascam dr-100, I'm less than a foot away from it and it barely picks up my voice at all unless it's on medium gain. Is that usual? What is low gain for if it can't hear anything.

#2 someone had suggested a 24mm ef-s lens as a cheap, usable wide angle lens. But I tried this out and when I am focusing manually with my hand it is still making mechanical noises. I expected that with autofocus but it threw me off with the manual stuff.

$500 and I'm not confident about either of them.

Before that I bought an external hard drive advertised as USB3 .. only to find out it doesn't work with usb3 on a mac. only on pc.

ugh trials and tribulations

Alcove Audio · Mar 15, 2015

sfoster said:
... a capable operator and mixer will give me theatrical quality dialogue recording?

That's the key right there. And that person/crew will already have all the proper gear that they need and won't be needing any of yours, so why buy a lot of expensive gear the first place?

AudioPostExpert · Mar 15, 2015

sfoster said:
In all seriousness though, you think I could use the NTG-3 professionally? Say if I have lofty ambitions of getting a film into sundance someday, the NTG-3 in the hands of a capable operator and mixer will give me theatrical quality dialogue recording?

Yes, or rather a qualified "yes". I'm not saying there are not better mics out there, there are, but in the hands of a skilled operator and given reasonable filming conditions then yes, an NTG-3 can get you to or close to theatrical standards. There's no exact answer to this question though, it all about probabilities. I very much doubt you'd find any respected pro PSMs who would use an NTG-3 on a Hollywood production but if/when you're working at that level you wouldn't be using your own mic anyway. Another way to think of it; an NTG-3 is at the low end of the professional range of equipment, whereas everything else which has been mentioned is well within the consumer range of equipment.

G

sfoster · Mar 15, 2015

Alcove Audio said:
That's they key right there. And that person/crew will already have all the proper gear that they need and won't be needing any of yours, so why buy a lot of expensive gear the first place?

That was my initial impulse.. I just wanted something really cheap so that I can play around on a day to day basis but still have something watchable on youtube. Not necessarily really expensive stuff premium stuff.

But this bare bones recorder isn't doing the trick. I need to replace it with a 70d and plug in some type of microphone.

AudioPostExpert said:
Yes, or rather a qualified "yes". I'm not saying there are not better mics out there, there are, but in the hands of a skilled operator and given reasonable filming conditions then yes, an NTG-3 can get you to or close to theatrical standards. There's no exact answer to this question though, it all about probabilities. I very much doubt you'd find any respected pro PSMs who would use an NTG-3 on a Hollywood production but if/when you're working at that level you wouldn't be using your own mic anyway. Another way to think of it; an NTG-3 is at the low end of the professional range of equipment, whereas everything else which has been mentioned is well within the consumer range of equipment.

G

What would you say is a low-end professional hypercardoid.

The AT4053B?

sfoster · May 15, 2015

I ended up getting the SCX-1

But i'm increasingly frustrated that I cannot seem to purchase anything that just works for me.

Over $300 on a stupid boom pole, the k-tek ke-144ccr, and I twisted the joint in either direction for over a minute and nothing locks.

and now it won't collapse like the internal cord is all tangled or something. wth man.
it didn't come with any set of instructions