RED and external audio

To the guys who frequently work with RED and external audio, is it possible to send timecode to the external audio recorder? Also, what are the advantages of recording to an external device, aside from multi track recording?



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Typically what people do is jam-sync both the recorder and the camera to the same portable timecode generator.

And the virtue is that if you're shooting on Steadicam, say, you really don't want to have to deal with extra cables or radio gear to pump your location sound into your camera.

Doesn't the RED send TC out? Can that be used with a TASCAM recorder?

I understand those reasons, what I didn't understand is why some guys record two tracks to an external recorder (without timecode) when you can send audio through AES/EBU (or balanced analog signal) and have everything synced up and recorded as PCM 48/24. Any issues with RED audio recording?



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I imagine it probably does, but I'm not positive. The bottom line is that Red cameras are usually dropped into existing film production infrastructures, and obviously you shoot dual-system sound when you're shooting film.

Well, the case I saw was that the RED wasn't dropped into any sort of infrastructure, and I asked around, and I was surprised at the lack of automation- the logging guy will jot down the RED clip number, and they will name the audio clip accordingly, and everything will be manually lined up to a clapper slate in post. I mean, this is 2010, right? Am I missing anything? Isn't the clapper supposed to be back up for dual system sound?



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Just the other way around. The timecode tracks and a guide track (if present) are backups for the clapper slate.

Pragmatically speaking, what director shoots at standard frame rates anyway these days if he doesn't have to? They're all going off-speed at every opportunity. It tends to make audiosynch a moot point because precious little of the audio recorded on set actually gets into the final tracks. All of the atmos or specific sounds are recorded off-set anyway, away from the walkie and crew chatter. Even then, how much gets re-done in sound design, Foley or archive? At the end of the day, a whole lot of the on-set audio simply gets tossed.

Which just leaves the Dials. On RED I ask them to put a mic on the camera to grab guide tracks, shoot slates more for script dept. reasons, and then synch up the external audio with Plural Eyes. At least for TVC's or higher end corporates shot on RED, (anything from around 1 to 10 shoot days), PluralEyes is a fast and easy way to do your synch without ever having to deal with TC.

Thanks, Clay. Yea, I was thinking that Plural Eyes would have been my route if they sent a courtesy audio feed to the camera, and I would line up and sync by timecode if timecode was recorded. But as I mentioned, that shoot was RED that fell into a lack of infrastructure.

I am just wondering if sending timecode out to the audio recorder (for sync), and storing the audio in the RED mags (to avoid dual system where possible) would have been better alternatives.



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Just as an aside. for those who don't know, the other reason to shoot double system sound with the RED One is that the RED One has really crappy audio quality. Early builds had basically unusable sound quality with lots of hiss, low dynamic range, etc. They have improved and mitigated some of the noise issues but every RED shoot I have shot as a DP and crewed on has used double system sound.

Dan Brockett

On RED shows I've done we went the jam sync route. And yes slates are still used. The external TC allows you to merge by TC which will help. But even then there will be a bit of drift you'll want to correct via slates. Another workflow is to have the mixer also send a mix to the camera. But at some point this will require an audio conform.

REDCINE-X now has an auto-sync to broadcast wave files. So theoretically you could "bake in" audio to the offline dailies. In reality I haven't been able to get it to work reliably. But maybe more recent builds work more smoothly.

Basically, as people have pointed out, RED is really an alternative to film, not HD. If you're looking for plug-and-play, this is not the camera system for you.

- Justin Barham -

My 2 cents:
Use audio harddiskrecorders like sounddevices 744T/788T they have built in TC generators. Sync it to an ambient lockit and connect that little device to the TC in of your camera and TC slate. Also works fine in multicamera workflows.

>Basically, as people have pointed out, RED is really an alternative to film, not HD. If you're looking for
>plug-and-play, this is not the camera system for you.

It isn't about who RED is for. The point of the discussion is to look at what makes sense. Slate, is definitely required, because there will be occasions when you have to fix sync issues, but as the main way of syncing up footage. Today, there are better and much faster options than having to manually sync hours of footage to slate. As Clay mentioned, there is Plural Eyes, which beats manually syncing an hour of footage. And of course, there is timecode sync.



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