Topic: More Soundfield Fun!

[boojum]

This SoundField gear is just like the old Jaguars.  When they ran right they were wonderful.  They just did not run right very often. Ford bought the company, switched SU to Bosch and Lucas to Bosch and the damned cars were great.  Every time you would turn the key they would start and run right.

SoundField needs the project taken from them and sent to Germany.  You can believe I would not touch their gear with, as the Brits say, a bargepole.  Their gear is a heart breaker, and the company support is not good.  All around bummer.  How far would you walk with a stone in your shoe???

[F0CKER]

If this is a battery and voltage supply type issue, I think what I need is for someone with soldering skills to build me a battery pack to test against the SF one.  I can't solder to save my life...

Ideally I'd like to use a different external battery with a 2 pin lemo connection.

Who's up for it?

What voltage does the pre run on?...... any chance of posting a pic of the SF batt pack? I could probably put one together but I do not have any materials at the moment. I may suggest some high quality R/C cells in whatever arrangement needed to get proper voltage. I can build batt. packs no problem just nee some more info. BTW the R/C cells can get pretty pricy so it just depends on how much you want to spend on this thing. Of corse you could always get some cheap cells just to test it out I guess.....

-Kiel

Anything between 9V - 12V.  It uses the same battery as the SD 7xx series.  They have a special adapter that goes with it and goes 2 pin lemo into the pre.

Actually I may take you up on that...building a battery pack. The product I've gotten from them is faulty for sure. 

But I did get a complete recording last night, overload and error free.  Listening to this is what prevents me from going back to schoeps.  I think it sounds pretty damn good, that's why I'm dealing with this...and have been as long as I have.

http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=519169&uploaded=1

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Band: Dead Confederate
Date: October 8, 2008
Venue: The Khyber
City, State: Philadelphia, PA

SETLIST & TRACKING INFORMATION
01. Intro>
02. [Unknown]
03. [Unknown]
04. [Unknown]
05. [Unknown]
06. [Unknown]
07. [Unknown]
08. [Unknown]

PERFORMANCE NOTES
Shared bill with Mean Street, Catfish Haven, and The Swimmers.
Dead Confederate played third.

RECORDING INFOMATION
Location: DFC/FOB
Microphone: Soundfield ST-350
Microphone Configuration: XY
Preamp: Soundfield ST-350 Controller Box
A/D Conversion and Recording Deck: Edirol R44 (Oade Concert Mod)
Recording Format: 4 Channel Wav File in B Format, 24 Bits @ 48 kHz Sample Rate

CONVERSION INFORMATION
Transfer: Edirol R44-> USB-> PC
Post-Production Steps:
[1] Polar Pattern, Width, and B Format to Stereo Decoding with Nuendo 3 using the Soundfield Surround Zone Plugin
[2] Song Tracking with CD Wave
[3] Resample, Dither, and Levels Normalized with Wavelab 5
[4] File Compression with FLAC Frontend (Level 6)
[5] FLAC File Tagging with Foobar 2000 Live Show Tagger Plugin
[6] Album Art tagging with Media Monkey
Final Microphone Configuration: Cardioid XY @ 90 Degrees
Final File Format: 2 Channel Stereo FLAC File, 16 Bits @ 44.1 kHz Sample Rate

FLAC FINGERPRINT INFORMATION
deadconfederate2008-10-08t08.flac:6809a57fb09ebc5bd83092c7c98192c0
deadconfederate2008-10-08t01.flac:96a07385f7ff02287523567225192a01
deadconfederate2008-10-08t02.flac:dfe93b03456b0c790e1f3518d32db25d
deadconfederate2008-10-08t03.flac:8dc9648b1d4e0682d4ade04dd68b1ab3
deadconfederate2008-10-08t04.flac:c03dacdbee04d627ad4c03ba9359c1a5
deadconfederate2008-10-08t05.flac:3feee9ba429341ed550a1af2fc5809bf
deadconfederate2008-10-08t06.flac:cdc7389bf5ccbd37f8785081ac378c29
deadconfederate2008-10-08t07.flac:83839b75f512b56a46e841e7e9f59990

SECTOR BOUNDARY CONFIRMATION
 length     expanded size   cdr  WAVE problems filename
     0:14.19        2514332    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t01.flac
    10:12.63      108105020    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t02.flac
     5:55.37       62709068    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t03.flac
     6:02.41       63953276    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t04.flac
     5:33.58       58877660    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t05.flac
     4:46.55       50579804    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t06.flac
     6:03.39       64124972    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t07.flac
     4:35.46       48618236    ---   --   ---xx   deadconfederate2008-10-08t08.flac
    43:24.58      459482368 B                     (totals for 8 files, 0.5837 overall compression ratio)

[F0CKER]

How far would you walk with a stone in your shoe???

I hear ya, I'm almost ready to throw in the towel.

[mmedley.]

Yep, getcha some 4V's and some 22's and call it a day. I would love for you to keep this, but it appears it will never work right no matter.

Sorry to hear of the troubles. I personally would sell all that gear and get a Nagra VI and be a patcher. 

[Əkoostikal]

Anything between 9V - 12V.  It uses the same battery as the SD 7xx series.  They have a special adapter that goes with it and goes 2 pin lemo into the pre.

Actually I may take you up on that...building a battery pack. The product I've gotten from them is faulty for sure. 

ok cool..... that should not be too much trouble to throw together......

you just really need something like this: https://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=776


we could parallel 2 of them for 44mAh then make up a special connector for connection to the pre.

[F0CKER]

Well, I thought about my issue and I proposed the following solution to SF.  Swap out the 350 with the newer model SPS 200 and refund the difference in price  The SPS200 runs off 48V phantom power and would ease my powering concerns a bit.  Any pre would work, but I'd need 4 channels with 48V power so I can run into the R44 straight, or if I don't prefer that sound try and get two preamps and use those. Would be pretty sweet to run a soundfield directly into a pair of 148's.  Now....where do I find a pair of 148's?

I think this is a fair resolution since I've tried multiple ways to resolve this with them.

At the end of the day, I really like the sound of this mic and the flexibility in post it offers.  That's why I keep going back to try and resolve it.  Hopefullly the SPS200 is comparable in sound as the 350.  I'd think it is.  I dont know if there are significant differences in the electronics or caps used between the two so I need to inquire about that.

[TNJazz]

This SoundField gear is just like the old Jaguars.  When they ran right they were wonderful.  They just did not run right very often. Ford bought the company, switched SU to Bosch and Lucas to Bosch and the damned cars were great.  Every time you would turn the key they would start and run right.

SoundField needs the project taken from them and sent to Germany.  You can believe I would not touch their gear with, as the Brits say, a bargepole.  Their gear is a heart breaker, and the company support is not good.  All around bummer.  How far would you walk with a stone in your shoe???

You're basing all of this on one person's experience?   

The Soundfield/Jaguar analogy is way off.  Folks have issues with German mics too, you know.  In fact I know of more problems people have had with Neumanns than I do people who've had problems with Soundfield.

I would have no problem buying Soundfield now or in the future, if the project I was working on called for it.

I think there must be an issue with the mic and a potential swap with SPS200 is a good option.  Good luck!

[F0CKER]

FYI, Soundfield has yet to respond to, or acknowledge receipt of the email I sent yesterday am and the second I sent this am.

That's what upsets me most about them.  It takes a week for them to resopnd. 

[jimmyrow]

FYI, Soundfield has yet to respond to, or acknowledge receipt of the email I sent yesterday am and the second I sent this am.

That's what upsets me most about them.  It takes a week for them to resopnd. 

Only if you have problems - if you want to send them money, they respond right away 

[F0CKER]

Latest news for those following the "day of our lives"

Soundfield is going to replace the whoel setup, mic, preamp, cables, battery, everything in the hopes it resolves the issue.  I should have a new setup in 10 days or so.

Fingers crossed this resolves it.

[jeromejello]

See, the problem is I made a complete recording (error and overload free) last night of the band I went to tape - Dead Confederates (who fucking rock), and it sounds better than a schoeps recording to my ears.  So it's really a difficult decision.  And that was just the card pattern...I've haven't even messed with decoding to blumlein, hyper, sub or any variable in between.  You see the dilmena.

the way i look at it is, if you are batting 500 (or less it seems) with gear, what the fuck does it matter how it sounds if 50% of the time its fucked up. 

reminds me of that scene in anchorman with the sex panther... 40% of the time, it works every time.

if i had all the problems you did with this gear, i would get a refund and get a different mic setup.  nothing pisses me off more than gear failure.

regardless which way you go, good luck... and +t for your troubles.

[F0CKER]

because I'm sure there's an answer to the problem and because I like the way it sounds, I'm willing to deal with this until I find the solution so the gear is working 100% of the time consistently.

Right now it's only working 50% of the time, but I'll get this resolved and be happy or it won't get resolved and I'll move on.

I'm just not quite ready to throw the towel in just yet. Like I said above, a whole new setup is omcing my way which will be thorouglytested at SF.  If that craps out, then it's a done deal.  If not, then I'll be at 100% all the time.  It's the same issue each time, not just a different / new issue each time.  It can be fixed.

[Gutbucket]

+t for persistence and patience for such a PITA.

[mmedley.]

Jesus, it is about fucking time they took responsibility and did what they should have done months ago. Here's to hoping my buddy F0CKER is ready to make 100% shitty tapes! 

Nothing like being back in the old days drinking beer, playing with hookers (and substances), and making a tape all at the same time!

[Kindguy]

Glad to hear they finally stepped up.