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Re: Sound Devices 744T

Subject: Re: Sound Devices 744T
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 00:37:13 -0500
>  From: Rob Danielson <>

> Mine is a very early production unit. I'm sure SD will facilitate 
> easy drive changes any way they can.

There is a standardized connection at both ends of the ribbon cable for 
these drives. That's what they should standardize on. Someone will have 
to check in the production units.

> The colorations all mic pres exhibit, to my ears, is a "tuning," but 
> also a difference in harmonic distortion. I have no way of 
> measuring/comparing the two pres, but the difference between the MP-2 
> ant eh 744's  pres shows up best in the 744's ability to portray 
> local reverberations. I'm not saying the MP-2 is bad. I don't mean 
> "grunge" as negative, just descriptive. .

The usual word used is coloration. I was assuming that's what you were 
talking about, but the description you give sounds too extreme. As I 
say, does not fit my experience any way I think about it.

I was recording tonight, early frogs (with unwanted extras). With 
SASS/MKH-20 on tall tripod, MP2 & Portadisc. I listened particularly for 
what you describe, just not there as far as I can hear. And there were 
plenty of local reverberations.

>>>You might want to take Juerg Jecklin's comments concerning adding on to
>>>the main stereo mic to heart. His opinion was if you were having to do
>>>this, you were using the wrong stereo main, or setting it up wrong.
> 
> 
> "..wrong..." ?  I'm still testing and barriers will be included. 
> Based on what I heard with your mkh 20 SASS rig when you were here 
> last Fall, SASS is another direction to go with my portability 
> priorities. My mbho's should fit into a SASS. They have 14dBA noise. 
> What is Crown asking for their SASS housing?

My SASS building page has the price list for the parts as of the last 
time someone reported them to me. I've built several SASS for folks 
since and no comments about a price change:
http://frogrecordist.home.mindspring.com/docs/making_modified_sass-1.html

Wrong is how Jecklin viewed it. I tend to agree, though maybe with a 
less strong word, the use of outliers to adjust the soundfield is a 
indication of a problem with the main mic setup. This could be a design 
problem, or in something as simple as where the mic is located.

Note that does not necessarily mean that there is another mic that will 
solve the problem, just that it says where you should look first to fix 
it. Especially for portable use outliers are a problem.

> With the very long recordings I generate, the files are moved to my 
> hard drive while I cook dinner or sleep. The next morning, as I read 
> naturerecordist etc,.., I play the recordings stopping to extract or 
> mark something when I want to.  Listening is one of the best 
> accompaniment activities I know of.  Rob D.

I have this problem that if I listen when I can stop and jump around, 
I'll end up doing that. As I noted the transfer keeps me listening.

I agree, I don't make long recordings, but targeted shorter recordings. 
It might be different for me dealing with very long recordings. Longest 
I deal with is maybe a half hour. Of course the longest I could have to 
deal with is 80 minutes. Only time I had that I was investigating if I 
had apnea, and had the Portadisc recording all noises above a threshold 
through the night. Often it would use up a disk. I did that every night 
for a full month. And listen the next day. Try listening to 80 minutes 
of snoring for a single break in breathing if you want a chore.

Walt




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