Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Re: [Avid-L2] Sony FS7 and FS6 in camera audio quality?

The older/discontinued FS7 and FS7mkII record 24bit 48kHz audio and the preamps are OKish for ENG and basic dialog. Though like Mark says, going through an external mixer and using line-levels from a mixer and into the camera does sound better. I probably hate those preamps less than Mark; i.e., I'm not praising them. And the audio limiters are pretty harsh. 

The newer FX9 and FX6 are also record 24bit 48kHz, and the preamps are better and limiter is less bad (though that's anecdotal; I haven't carefully tested the preamps and limiters). But still not what you get with a Sound Devices or Zaxcom audio recorder (or line-level out of those and into the camera). 

I've worked will all of the above cameras as a location and post sound guy, and as a producer, though not as a camop. If this is something where a single person will be operating the camera and capturing audio via good lavs and radio systems (e.g., Lectro, Wisycom, Zaxcom, etc.) and then maybe you'll have OK audio most of the time.

But more typical in my world is a location-sound person recording and sending only a scratch track and/or timecode to the camera… Do you know what the production plans to do? 



On May 24, 2022, at 6:01 PM, Mark Spano <cutandcover@gmail.com> wrote:

Capabilities are there: these cameras can record 48k uncompressed audio. But I would not rely on their preamps. As line inputs, they should be OK, but directly connecting mics to the cameras is never great. I don't know any camera manufacturer that puts decent (non-noisy, high headroom) mic preamps in their cameras. Probably for the best - lots of other things in those cameras that make noise…

On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 8:28 PM John Moore <bigfish@pacbell.net> wrote:
I'm going to be starting a project in a few weeks.  They are shooting on Sony FS7 and FS6 cameras.  Not sure if it will be double system sound or not.  I never deal with the offline side of the equation so I'm wondering is the onboard audio on the FS7 and FS6 decent quality.  IIRC there were various SLR formats where the audio wasn't so great and also out of sync.  I haven't heard any complaints from FS7 material but again I'm not usually in the loop on the audio track sources.  I'd prefer to not have to deal with dual system audio if possible.

John Moore Barking Trout Productions Studio City, CA bigfish@pacbell.net

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