Guide to the Nagra 4.2 Production Sound Recording
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Guide to the Nagra 4.2 and Production Sound Recording 2nd Edition Written by Fred Ginsburg, Ph.D. C.A.S. Price: © Copyright 1994, 2003 by Fred Ginsburg. All rights reserved. It is illegal to make copies of this publication and its contents by any means mechanical, photographic, or electronic without express written consent of the copyright owner. ISBN 0-9713941-0-5 Guide to the Nagra 4.2 and Production Sound Recording EQUIPMENT EMPORIUM INC Education & Training Division Published and distributed by Equipment Emporium Inc. Read more articles about Education & Training Division Production Sound at 15235 Brand Blvd, Ste A-110 www.equipmentemporium.com Mission Hills CA 91345 (800) 473-4554 www.equipmentemporium.com ISBN 0-9713941-0-5 2nd Edition printed October 2003. © Copyright 1994, 2003 by Fred Ginsburg. All rights reserved. It is illegal to make copies of this publication and its contents by any means mechanical, photographic, or electronic without express written consent of the copyright owner. Preface This publication is a compilation of articles dealing with Production Sound Recording for Motion Pictures and Video. It includes the popular "Guide to the Nagra 4.2" operations manual along with an assortment of short pieces covering various aspects of sound recording for film and video. Many of these articles were originally published indepen- dent of each other in trade magazines, so it is not unusual to find some redundancy. I have opted not to include operating guides for recent digital recorders since PDF versions of the original manuals can be downloaded from the manufacturers websites. Manufacturers' brand names and model numbers are the registered trademarks of those respective companies. Contents: Guide to the Nagra 4.2.......................................................................................................... page 3 Simple Instructions for the Nagra IV-STC .......................................................................... page 27 The Soundtrack: aesthetic elements ..................................................................................... page 28 Pre-production Planning ....................................................................................................... page 39 Production Sound: An Introduction...................................................................................... page 57 Hierarchy of Microphone Techniques .................................................................................. page 63 Selection and Application of Shotgun Microphones............................................................ page 66 Tips on using your boompole ............................................................................................... page 71 Shockmounts and Windscreens ............................................................................................ page 74 Red Dotting and Microphone Powering ............................................................................... page 79 Selection and Use of Lavalier Microphones ........................................................................ page 82 Using Wireless Microphones ............................................................................................... page 88 Introduction to Mixing Panels .............................................................................................. page 96 Consistency in Production Sound Recording ....................................................................... page 100 Recording Audio for miniDV ............................................................................................... page 102 Step-by-step Audio for the Canon XL1 (courtesy of Canon) ............................................... page 105 Introduction to SMPTE Timecode ....................................................................................... page 112 Is Timecode Always Necessary ............................................................................................ page 114 Formatting for Sync Playback .............................................................................................. page 116 What Your Crew Expects ..................................................................................................... page 118 Before You Sign that Deal Memo ........................................................................................ page 123 FAQ: Basic Audio Packages ................................................................................................ page 125 Digital Recording ................................................................................................................. page 127 Tape Boxes and Professional Labels .................................................................................... page 129 Guide to Microphones for Film / TV ................................................................................... page 130 Production Forms: Production Timesheet & Sound Report (okay to reproduce!)............... page 132 From Audio Technica US (courtesy of Audio Technica) .................................................... page 134 The Nagra V Recorder (courtesy of Nagra USA) ............................................................... page 136 About the Author; Acknowledgements ................................................................................ page 139 Page 2 © Copyright 2003 by Fred Ginsburg. All Rights Reserved. Guide to the Nagra 4.2 and EQUIPMENT EMPORIUM INC Production Sound Recording Education & Training Division UNDERSTANDING AND OPERATING THE NAGRA 4.2 SYNC RECORDER written by Fred Ginsburg, C.A.S. The Standard for Film Production The Nagra audio recorder has been and still continues to be a world- wide standard for use as a portable tape recorder for sync dialogue. Since the early sixties, the Nagra has been the recorder of choice for motion picture production, and has been unchallenged until recently with the introduction of timecode DAT record- ers. In 2002, Nagra recaptured a portion of the digital audio market with its introduction of the Nagra 5 digital timecode recorder with removable hard-drive. Although DAT recorders have better audio recording specs than the basic Nagra, the current crop of DAT’s are nowhere near as dependable under diverse conditions and lack many of the convenient features that the Nagra offers, such as confidence head monitoring (you can listen off of the tape that was just recorded a moment before to insure that what you heard is what you got); excellent microphone preamps (the mic pots on a Nagra are as good as any found on a mixing panel; something that cannot be said for DAT recorders); and long play battery life (days on one set of D batteries as opposed to an hour or so offered by DAT recorders). Despite the Nagra’s compactness, it rivals full blown studio machines for recording quality. More importantly, the Nagra recorder is extremely rugged and continues to operate in perfect spec even under arduous location conditions! (Something that cannot be said for most DAT recorders.) Unlike studio recorders that require daily adjustment, the Nagra is able to maintain its high quality of recording with but minimal maintenance once or twice a year. Nagras have been known to go for several years without any maintenance and still function almost perfectly, although it is a poor professional practice to be so negligent in the care of one’s equipment. The Nagra is so much the industry standard for motion picture production that the brand name has literally become synonymous with the term “portable sync recorder”. It is not uncommon to be asked, “What are you using for a Nagra?” Which means, what type of Nagra are you going to use for sync sound, or are you going to use a sync cassette recorder, etc. Nagra, by the way, literally means record in Polish. Stephan Kudelski, the inventor of the Nagra, is Polish. The Kudelski/Nagra factory is located in Switzerland. As an aside, during the preparations of the 1984 Olympic Games, when it seemed like every company under the sun was the official this or that sponsor, we used to kid the local Nagra staff that they should commission a poster proclaiming “Nagra, the official Nagra of the 1984 Olympics!” © Copyright 2003 by Fred Ginsburg. All Rights Reserved. Page 3 Guide to the Nagra 4.2 and Production Sound Recording EQUIPMENT EMPORIUM INC Education & Training Division Various models of the Nagra Historically there have been three significant models of monaural machines, and two models of stereo recorders. The first practical Nagra was the model III. The Nagra III was very reliable, and to this day is still found in many sound studios as a transfer deck to sprocketed mag film. The III relied upon external sync reference (umbilical cords from the film cameras), but most machines have long since been modified with crystal sync. In the early days of Eclair NPR and Arriflex 16BL film cameras, sync between the camera and recorder was maintained by a “sync cable” that linked the two together. A 60 cycle sync pulse was generated by the camera motor, and this signal was recorded on the Nagra as an indicator of the exact film speed. Due to motor and battery variances, the film speed tended to vary slightly, and the 60 cycle sync pulse would reflect these speed changes. The eventual advent of crystal controlled camera motors eliminated any film speed variance, and so the physical linking of camera and sound recorder became unnecessary. The Nagra took its sync reference from its own crystal regulated