ax100s and G7s
Nice music and images. Can you inform please which images are the G7s. Also which lenses used in them? Thanks.
This was very good and professional. Nice jumping of views - appropriate to what was going on and kept interest without being annoying. My quibbles (because this was generally so good): 1. Skin tones not good - pasty, not flesh, with some facial hot spots, particularly the wide shots. 2. There was one sudden pan, just one - kind of jarring. And one little zoom, also out of place (zooming is ok, just odd there was one, with no purpose and very short). 3. The sound: I thought the bass was artificially pumped up, it was flabby and unrealistic (I listened on Sennheiser 650's and then on B&W 801's (monitoring speakers)). Also the reverb was too much, and sounded artificial. Maybe these were not pumped up in post, but it does not matter. Clean, tight bass is really important to these pieces, and it was not. But, again, this was very nice - and good performances too. I record some concerts (and prefer fewer mics).
@Mark041 after shooting a few test scenes with the CineD I thought I would give it a try in a concert. I have to say, the results were not what I expected, and I never got the color zeroed in the way I wanted for the skin tones, so I just went for an overall look that filtered out some of the weird green and orangey spikes from the CineD. In the studio, ETTR worked fine, but in "spotlight" situation, it seriously messes with the color. Having said that, I'm OK with the final result. For me, all Panasonic m4/3 cams have slightly off color anyway, especially skin tones. Looking at stuff from a few years ago, with Canon 1080p all around, the color is always better, even if not dialed in just right. But no real easy 4K solution, so we switched over the Panasonic/Sony. I can run all the cams all day on a $20 battery pack with no overheating.
Also, on the subject of CineD, I carefully used the Zebras to go"under", but the final product had some blowouts, which theoretically can't happen. But, there is is.... so, again, some strange issues with CineD+spotlights. Different story in the studio, and I'm not sure I will ever try CineD again in a live concert. Maybe technically it isn't "over" but it looks over, it's a rolloff issue, I guess. Even tried ProcAmp to pull in the superwhites. I'm guessing the superwhites get truncated somehow in CineD under certain situations, but that's just a guess. Probably a strong edge differential sets something off in the cameras.
I actually like the sound, there's no Bass boosting of any kind: there's certainly some woofing going on, but that's the way it sounded in the hall, and it sounds fine on my system--oddly enough, the 600s, 650s and the 801s. I'll listen again on the 650s. Neither the 801s nor the 650s are linear, and emphasize certain parts of the bass frequency, --may some sort of YouTube thing? I have a pretty neutral DAC but I imagine you do, as well. On a side note, the Schoeps 21's and 2H have a slightly unfocused bass, compared to, for example, the DPA omnis. However, this more accurately reflects the sound in the room.
I thought the ambient ratio was about right--after a few years of using standard recording techniques for these shows, we opted for what it sounds like in the first two rows. To me, if it's miked closer it sounds like a CD is playing alongside the video. But, I can see it both ways. As far as the number of mics, I think six is a decent number certainly better than the 36 I used to use for orchestras (I guess I should sell a few dozen....)
@Apefos--gosh, I can't remember what was what but the closeups from the Left balcony are ax100. The lenses I always use are the Olympus 12mm, the Panasonic 14mm pancake (which is sharper than the Olympus), a box of the latest 14-42 kit lenses, which are nice and sharp, the Olly 45 and Panny 45 and 42.5 primes, the Sigma 60 and the Olly 75 which are equally sharp, go figure. Surprisingly, the 14-42 latest version, with IS, gives pretty good results. I have a bunch of other lenses, but I never use them. If I could figure out a way to use the 20mm (First version) Panny, I would, but ut never seems to work out--but it's a very good lens. As I said before, not happy with CineD. Makes the weird color even weirder.
DrDave, Thanks for the detailed reply. Good work.
I just plugged in a very linear converter that is also "dry", the Monitor 01 USB, it's so neutral I don't use it on the main computer. Plugged in the 650s--my impression is that there are a few spots where the bass pops out (pizzicato) but overall it sounds OK to my warped ears, for example at 2:18-2:25.....interesting, not sure why the same headphones would sound so different. Maybe I plugged this custom cable I made in the wrong way :) Also, the big drum is too far away, that sometimes adds to the boom.
Panasonic color. Not my fave. Hey, cheap 4K and doesn't overheat.
@mark041 I moved the speakers into a non-treated room and the bass is a bit boomy. I guess most people will not have a bass trap unless they have a really bug couch. This has bass rolloff eq added. it's less warm, but more clear.
Yes, the bass is tighter. I think now the bass is just mixed too hot, way too much, and it is not helped by the very resonant hall. No performance of ensembles like this I have ever recorded or listened to has this much bass sound. It is much more subtle in reality. And I have heard these exact pieces played, although in less resonant halls.
I do have a prejudice against multi-mic mixes, in part precisely because the mixes reflect the taste of engineers about balance based on what they think sounds good, and it is usually very unnatural. It is here with respect to the bass foundation. (yay, ORTF). It could be the hall acoustics too producing the excessive bass.
I think a lot of the "boom" in the mix is the frame drum. The parts with tambo sound very different. But if the frame drum was positioned closer, it would be seriously loud. The MKH 40s are ruler flat, and now the bass is EQd down 6dB, so it has to do with the hall acoustics.
Comparing the main pair with the mix, the main pair for sure has has more bass, and the bass is more diffuse, owing to the percentage of room reflections. The flanker mics are only ~8 percent of the sound. Anything with a frame drum in the mix I think I would definitely move the main pair in closer. There's no spot mics, just the flankers, so no proximity effect and the MK21's are also flat.
The reason we use the flankers is because in a concert, we really don't know how many people will show up, or where they will sit. So the main pair is a tiny bit farther back than ideal for "half full". If there's a small audience, you can use more of the flankers, if there's a full house, you
can just use the main pair. It's not a perfect system but it allows the maximum flexibility.
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