Mark Ronson used Sound Devices’ 788T digital audio recorder to capture the sound of Olympic athletes in action for Beat 2012, a documentary chronicling his creation of Coca-Cola’s anthem for the London 2012 Olympics. Ronson, along with Location Sound Recordist Diego Sanchez, relied on the 788T to record the sounds of the five different athletes from five different countries and five different disciplines selected for the film. “We decided to record the sport sounds to two linked Sound Devices 788T digital recorders, as we anticipated a multitude of different microphones in each situation,” said Sanchez. “We opted for Sound Devices for several reasons. First, I have used these recorders for years, and being the only member of the sound crew with location experience, it seemed logical to stick to them. Second, their small size meant a small package for a 16-track recorder, allowing the crew to relocate and reset, while filming with ease. Also, the amazing headphone monitoring and track routings of the 788T allowed crew members to each listen to a different mic or mix, while still recording all of them. “From shooting outdoors in Singapore in the middle of summer to dealing with a 20C temperature change in the weather from day to night in Denver, not once did the 788T experience a crash, a file corruption or a failed recording. Also, the simplicity of the device’s L-style batteries meant we could have many of them and recharge them anywhere, even in the car. And the backup recording to compact flash cards meant an easy format for DITS in four different languages to load.” Sound Devices’ 788T has eight full-featured inputs and records up to 12 tracks. It accepts either microphone or line-level signals, provides 48-V phantom power for condenser microphones, offers peak limiters for microphone inputs and features fully adjustable high-pass filters. Routing flexibility allows each input to be routed to left/right mixed tracks, isolated tracks or aux tracks. The 788T has several options for recording media, an internal 160-GB SATA hard drive (256-GB SSD in the 788T-SSD), CompactFlash media with UDMA support, an external FireWire hard drive or DVD-RAM (with bus powering). Any or all of these features can be used simultaneously. www.sounddevices.com
