Ed Novick and the SX-ST8D

We had the pleasure to welcome Ed Novick here at our SONOSAX company in Switzerland the other day. He was in Europe for the shooting of Ang Lee’s “Gemini Man” with Will Smith.

He made a detour to Switzerland to come and see us and review his console: SX-ST12D.

Ed lives in Los Angeles, and has been doing motion picture sound for 37 years. He has been nominated 13 times for his work, and has won 6 awards including an Oscar and a BAFTA. Let’s have a quick look at his career…

Ed has worked on more than 70 films, including Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan” (1998), David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” (2001), Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, and “Inception”, for which he won both a BAFTA and an Academy award. Other credits include Bennet Miller’s “Moneyball”, Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent 7”, and the upcoming “Cheney”, directed by Adam McKay.

Ed has been a loyal customer for nearly as long as we’ve been in business, and may, in fact, be our longest continuous customer. He started his career in 1982, using a SELA mixer (a mono mixer w/ 4 microphone inputs) and a mono Nagra 4.2 recorder.

He met Jaques Sax, the founder of SONOSAX, at the AES convention in New York City in 1983, where Jaques was exhibiting the SX-S mixer. Convinced of the integrity and quality, Ed ordered a mixer the following year. He has been working with SONOSAX mixers ever since. 

After making many films with 2 different SX-S8 mixers, Ed bought a new console in 2008: the SX-ST8D with the integrated 8-channel digital recorder. Ed uses the recorder as an 8-channel back-up.

Ed agrees that the mixer provides the flexibility to accommodate the different needs of different shows. However, more recently, he found he needed more inputs for many shows, and in 2017 purchased an SX-ST12D, which better suited his needs (11 inputs, 8 digital outputs, 4 AUX sends, 2 PL communication lines, and (again) an integrated 8-channel digital recorder.

Working with our engineers and developers, Ed was able to customize the PL section of his mixer to accommodate his unique communications setup, as well as allowing for remote stop/roll of the integrated SONOSAX recorder. 

After 33 years working with SONSAX mixers, Ed is still convinced of the expert quality and craftsmanship of our products (his old SX-S is still working!) He told us the only thing he would like to see evolve is… more input channels to the mixer.

Selected extracts:

“If you want a bulletproof 12v mixer, with a lot of inputs and outputs, call SONOSAX!!! »

“My Modus Operandi: Make it sound like what it looks like”

On the left, Ed Novick, on the right, Théo Viroton (Sonosax)

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Marc is a Swiss sound recordist

Passionate by sounds since his childhood, he discovers the magic of sound recording at the age of 8 thanks to a Telefunken’s magnetic recorder. Few years later, the radio show «  Magnetic’s night », aired by France Culture, makes him perceive the world of sound and all the potentials offered by the editing.

Rapidly, he created sound edits for non-professional theatrical troupes later followed with internships at the Radio and TV in Geneva.

Meeting Luc Yersin in the 80’s was major mile stone for Marc as Luc brought him first on the sets then showed him post-production and sound editing for movies.

Luc also helped Marc integrating the DAVI (audiovisual department of the Lausanne Art School), the only school at that time giving technical education for Cinema in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

After succeeding at the DAVI, he moved to Berlin where he began working on documentaries. He started recording with hired equipments, then he acquired a Stellavox and his own microphones with which he enjoy recording ambiances and “wild” sounds. Step by Step, film by film, he mostly involved in feature films, shorts films and  TV series.

Back to Switzerland

When he returned to Switzerland in the early 2000’s, he discovered the SX-R4 and fell under its charm.

The extreme compactness and light weight of this recorder appeared to be an huge advantage for him and he bought one rapidly. Then the SX-M32 , perfect companion to the SX-R4 came to complete Marc’s setup, giving him an extra light and very compact recording set: « very small but very powerful setup ! » said Marc.

Often his atypical setup astonished the production teams, but it always gave full satisfaction thanks to the remarkable quality of sounds Marc was recording.

The transition to SX-R4+

During the development of the SX-R4+, Marc and other Swiss sound mixer’s advises and feedbacks were taken into account by the SONOSAX development team to improve the new recorder. One of the most important aspect for Marc was to improve the ergonomic of the recorder (at that time he didn’t believe yet in using a touchscreen) and to ease seizing metadata. Thus he generously spent a substantial amount of time with our development team. Marc logically became one of the SX-R4+ beta testers. His valuable feedback from the field allowed us not only to improve the firmware, but also to evolve it to meet the users expectations.

His setup rapidly evolved with the acquisition of the SX-RC8+, the SX-R4+ extension with its 8 dedicated faders, 4 AES inputs splitter and the ability to power 4 HF wireless devices.

Small setup

Marc’s setup is based on a SX-SR4+, coupled to a SX-RC8+, both in a Ktek Stingray bag.

An MS boom and a wireless boom with a Lectrosonic receiver UCR420 and two double receivers Lectrosonics SRb and SRc (AES relinked) with SSM transmitters chosen for their small size take the sounds and transit it to the recorder. Two Sennheiser G3 transmitters send then the out signal to the camera and the direction team. All this, powered by the recorder through a big RRC 2054-2 (99Wh) battery, allows him to work a full day.

The entire equipment weighing « only » 6 kg (13,2 lbs)

For him, the SX-RC8+ is very useful, enabling a much more precise Mix-Down, it is an “all in one” with three functions:

• • ability to enter eight AES channels
  • ability to freely assign the eight faders to any AES channels
  • Distribute 4 DC OUT on Hirose 4p, which avoids a Distro

Today he would no longer consider doing without it.

Selected excerpt

“The ease of use of the SX-R4+, thanks to its touch screen that I couldn’t do without today, allows me to be very efficient on the set, the SX-RC8+ is a little magic box that saves me a lot of space, simplify my setup and perfectly complements the recorder. Its 4 AES splitter and its integrated power distribution offer real advantages”.

“The reliability of the machine never fails me and allows me to be always very reactive to the complex situations on set”.

“The eight rotating pots fall perfectly under the hand and the high quality of the pre-amps with the huge dynamics range of the SX-R4+ allows me to concentrate on the capturing the sound rather than on the recording levels”.

“The ability to adjust the ballistic range of VU meters is very useful for me, I lowered the threshold of the red zone to -12dB to avoid overloading the tape,” he says.

“Moreover the many possibilities of customization of the user interface make the recorder very easy and intuitive to use, I change configurations in a few seconds”.

“Etienne Curchod, who often does the sound editing and the mixing of the movies I’m recording, always tells me that it’s a pleasure to work with sound material of this quality”.

For the Future

For Marc, a control surface would be a great evolution, basically an RC8+ but with linear faders, a more stationary configuration such as used on the set for feature films, however not too bulky to keep the advantages of lightness and ultra mobility.

In a Peugeot 206 car trunk, on “La Vallée” by J.-S. Bron (2017)

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Small but strong!

I chose the SONOSAX SX-R4+ for the sound recording on the film “Gueule d’Ange”, first feature film of Vanessa Filho, with Marion Cotillard and Alban Lenoir, which was shot in Marseille, France, this autumn.

Being a SX62R’s enthusiast user for several years for the quality of its preamplifiers (I use it in documentary and fiction shootings since 2011), the choice of the more recent and more powerful SX-R4+ was an natural evolution of my way of working.

Gueule d’Ange
UN CERTAIN REGARD
CANNES 2018

Available 12th of May 2018 (Cannes Festival), 23th of May 2018 (France)

Written by Vanessa Filho
Produced by Carole Lambert et Marc Missonnier
With Marion Cotillard, Alban Lenoir, Ayline Aksoy-Etaix

Sound recording Xavier Dreyfuss
Boom operator Guillaume Hurmic

Audio Equipment

• SONOSAX SX-R4+ and SX62R
• CMIT 5U/ M160 / MKH40
• HF Zaxcom QRX100 /TRX900LA
• HF Lectrosonics SSM / SRC

Xavier Dreyfuss has been working in sound recording and mixing for over 20 years. He has collaborated on numerous documentaries as well as many independant feature films.

During his early days, he worked a lot and forget his sharp ear. He discovered the SONOSAX SX-PR while shooting a short film as an assistant. Since then, he has never left the SONOSAX brand by following and accompanying its evolution.

facebook.com/XavierDreyfussPro

The choice

In order to take advantage of the new SONOSAX SX-R4+ 16 tracks recorder, its interface and its new functions while increasing the number of its inputs, we decided, with Michel Pierre from Areitec, to connect the 2 machines with a digital link. We have equipped the SX62R with a digital output option card, connected to the SX-R4+ 3M MDR 26-pin digital inputs connector.

Digital link

Thanks to this completely transparent link between the 2 machines, I benefit from 10 preamplifier inputs with the same sound color on SX-R4+ recorder. I also keep 2 analog line inputs on SX-R4+ and an additional AES input. This configuration does not change the number of outputs of both machines: 10 analog channels, 4 of them are AES switchable.

Security

With this configuration and thanks to the internal routing of the SX-R4+, I was able to record 2 boom poles, 6 HF inputs, a MS couple and 2 additional inputs for extra microphones. All these sources have been pre-mixed internally to set up a mixdown on 2 tracks. That’s a total of 14 channels (from 16 available).

The easy switch from analog inputs to AES allowed me to use a SuperCMIT without changing my basic configuration.

The mixdown was fed back into the line input of the SX62R via the line output of the SX-R4+ and recorded on 2 tracks to maximize safety. Both machines were synchronized with the same TC. My emergency recorder was then the same quality as my main recorder!

Routing

The very intuitive routing grid allowed me to switch easily my sources to the SX62R’s inputs, which benefit from a rotary low frequency cut and additional limiters. The possibility of adding delays on all inputs of the SX-R4+ allows a perfect alignment of the digital HF (8 ms delay) with wired mics. The dynamic range of the analog inputs is so high that it is almost impossible to saturate them during difficult moments of sound recording. The compactness of the 2 machines allowed me to pack them in the same bag in order to always keep my full setup even in field recording.

Conclusion

The choice and use of that unconventional setup really paid off in terms of ergonomics, reliability and above all sound quality. A perfect match with Schoeps and Beyerdynamic M160 microphones achieve a clean and precise soft sound, in perfect harmony with the idea of the film.

I look forward to the launch of the SX-R4+ mixing control surface to finalize that setup in a cart version.

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“Just returned from Kenya where I was recording elephants in Amboseli with my SX-R4+ The recorder performed really very well in the harsh 35°C environment”

Chris Watson is a Sheffield-born musician and sound recordist specializing in natural history. Chris has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world and is now one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena.

More at: chriswatson.net

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Just a note to thank you for getting my SONOSAX SX-ST mixer through the works so quickly! I started production on a new film (Bright) here in Los Angeles and the mixer feels like new!!

Also, I’ve already put my SX-R4+ to use on my cart as a recorder which I can easily pull out and use as a very light and powerful “over-the-shoulder” recorder when I need one. The interface is very simple to learn and use. The build and sound quality is amazing as always.

Warmest regards,

Lisa Pinero

Freelance sound engineer and proud owner of a SONOSAX SX-ST mixer with which she completed dozens a feature films and countless episodes of TV Series since it was acquired in 2005.

After 11 years of intensive use, Lisa shipped it back to factory for a full revision; the SX-ST is back to work in “like new” condition, ready for the next 10 years!

Lisa recently added the new SONOSAX SX-R4+ recorder to her sound cart.

More at:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0684101

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“The SX-R4+ is awesome, whether at 4200m on the Bishorn by -10 degrees or on South China Sea entering Singapore harbor with 98% humidity, or even as the main recorder on my sound cart.”

Jürg Lempen is a freelance sound engineer in constant search of the highest sound quality and efficient setups. Jürg has grown an impressive list of credits on feature films, documentaries, and TV series.

More about Jürg Lempen:

www.imdb.com/name/nm1806464
www.ssfv.ch/profil/juerg-lempen

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“The SONOSAX SX-R4 + is the Swiss Army knife of portable recorders. This little Swiss-made wonder concocted by Sonosax team meets all my requirements even when shooting in solo.”

“Its ability to connect a MS microphone and 4 wirelesses with direct control of the channels and thanks to its intuitive user interface, recording takes with a sound quality the closest to reality while filming over the shoulder becomes a breeze.”

Fernand Melgar is an autodidact filmmaker, awarded many time for his remarkable documentaries, and co-founder of Climage association.

More at climage.ch/en/filmmakers

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Baylon Fonseca, production sound mixer and sound designer in India has grown an impressive filmography; he was laureate at the 10th Indian Recording Arts Academy Awards for Excellence in Recording Art on the last Zoya Akhtar’s movie “Dil Dhadakne Do”.

“I am using a SONOSAX SX ST/8D mixer, which I love. I feel that the Sonosax mixer, along with my wireless equipments, is the powerhouse of my arsenal. I can’t work without them, and I wouldn’t trade either of them for anything in the world.”

Thank you Baylon for using the SX-ST8D mixer and for the trust you place in our products and our company.

More info at www.imdb.com/name/nm1598555

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