Is hard drive recording the answer for location sound? Bryant Falk weighs the pros and cons of recording audio to hard drives and how to avoid trouble.
I title this article with a question for many reasons.
The first is the ingrained brainwashing that anything new or more technically advanced is always better.
Well is it? The second is my inner pessimism not for things new, which can be wonderful, but for things immediately accepted as a solution. Like the genie out of the bottle who grants you three wishes, there can be a price to pay for digitally recorded hard disk audio.
In my many years as an audio production person, I’ve come up with my own equivalent of Maslow’s Hierarchy, (if not familiar with Mr. Maslow, it’s about satisfying the basics, and working up from there). First, or at the bottom, is capturing sound whatever it may be for the project you’re working on. Next is capturing quality audio that will represent your movie with as little adjusting as possible. Third up the scale is audio that is properly labeled and backed up for safety. And finally, (yes, I have less levels than Mr. Maslow), having your audio whisked into your post system totally locked and labeled with the video footage.
A lot of us tend to achieve up to level three quite well on our own. These new hard drive recording systems are supposed to deliver the top tier with elegance and alacrity. I’ll tell you now, if I’m using the word alacrity, it’s a problem. Ok, not a problem – more like a concern.
Now that I’ve dropped my sledgehammer, let’s talk icing on the cake. These systems can be fabulous, amazing and incredibly efficient. In fact, when run properly, it’s like magic the way they organize and save your material. Notice I say “properly”.
There are some important new rules to keep in mind when working with these new multi-track digital recorders. The first and foremost is knowing your machine. Unlike tape systems, just hitting record can lead to a nightmare of problems on the back end. For example, most of these systems will time stamp your files so you conveniently know when that specific file was recorded. Did you set the date and time correctly on the machine? Little things like incorrect dates or improperly labeled tape numbers can lead to some serious confusion on the post side.
I speak from experience on this, as I am commonly the “fixer” of these audio pile-ups. On one project, the location mixer accidentally backed up the same day twice onto two DVD’s. Luckily the rental house hadn’t deleted the hard drive off the deck, and I was able to retrieve the missing day! Very hard to make that kind of mistake with tape stock. Another job had none of the Reel/Tape info typed into the system before rolling, so all the data connected with the files meant absolutely nothing!
The next flair I want to send up is be cognizant of where your audio is going. What system? Final Cut, Avid Media Composer, an Adrenalin system? Some of these systems are not friendly to certain machines and will either not recognize the data or refuse to allow full track importing. On the real basic side, check connectors to see if the deck you will transfer from can even plug into your video edit station!
As you are learning how your digital hard drive multi-track recorder ticks, make sure you have storage issues figured out. In the old days when I would head out for a day of location recording, I’d try to have double or triple the tape stock prepped. So if I had a talking head interview scheduled for one hour, I’d have three one-hour DAT tapes printed with time code and ready to go. If I was shooting for a full day, I’d bring twenty tapes. This also left room for bad tape stock or special shoot needs that would go on its own tape, (like collecting location sound effects). An equivalent system with equal capability should be in place for your hard drive system, (ex. additional hard drives, FTP remote storage).
Some new digital recorders are allowing for flash storage which means you can pull out a flash card and replace it with a fresh one when it’s full. Make sure you factor in the costs of these additional cards, as it can be equivalent to the cost of the machine! If your system records onto an internal disk, check to see if there is an interface to allow for an additional hard drive. The usual response I get to this is, “I’ll just back it up at lunch time or when they are on a break”. Ok, where you going to back up to? And you’re really going to delete your original files having full confidence in that flimsy recordable DVD you just made?
I’ve had too many computer crashes in my time to feel comfortable with that. My digital rig would have to include an additional back up hard drive on top of the DVD. How many times have you recorded on that internal hard drive? Once, a hundred, a thousand? Hard drives are still magnetic recording devices. When I think how I use a new tape every time I record, the thought of using a drive that has over 100 recording hours can raise some red flags. At the very least, make sure you re-format your drive before any big project.
Even flash media, although more solid, just gets old after a while; the putting in and taking out of flash cards can loosen the connectors and fatigue the case.
Yes, tape heads get old as well, but you can at least clean a tape head and put in brand new stock for every project. I laugh at the thought of using a digital audiotape that had recorded 30 or 40 other movies on it, yet that’s just what we’re doing when we use that internal hard drive over and over again! As the rule says, you either have a hard drive that has crashed, or you have one that will crash – it’s just a matter of when. The word of the day with these systems is backup, backup, and backup! All it takes is one crashed drive to lose days worth of work. How deep you back up is your call, (two layers or three).
So as we thunder forward into the great big digital divide, let us take heed and keep our eyes open to the truth of our technology. Digital won’t just inherit the earth because it already has. Now we have to decide how to use it in a way that still maintains the safe guards of our earlier systems. At some point in the near future, I see it all going wireless and full interface. Just imagine… As the camera person is prepping his systems, all relevant data is being wirelessly sent to the multi-track digital audio deck. Time code lock is automatic between equipment. Once you’ve finished a scene, you’ll press a button and send the audio through the air into a backup deck sitting in the edit suite where dailies are being chopped up as fast as you can transmit the footage. Oh, what a grand day out that will be, but today is not yet that day. Leave yourself that pre-production time, or find an audio engineer really familiar with the digital multi-track system, and you’ll be real happy you did.
Bryant Falk has been a producer and engineer for over 12 years working with such clients as The Ricki Lake Show, Coca-Cola, Sport Illustrated and Valley National Bank. He recently completed mixing for The Shop, a new show airing on MTV. His company Abacus Audio handles many aspects of the audio production field from creative and production to mixing and final output. http://www.abacusaudio.com/
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