Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

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306 NOVEMBER 1953 DEAR MR. PRESIDENT . . Mr. A. Avalle, President, Federation Francaise des Clubs de Cinema d'Amateurs, Paris XVII, France ky| Y DEAR Mr. President: On behalf of the officers, ' ' directors and members of the Amateur Cinema League, permit me to thank you for your gracious and informative letter of October 19 (see page 288) concerning the regulations which govern filming in France generally — and in Paris in particular. I have already requested the editor of Movie Makers, the League's official monthly magazine, to give your letter the fullest publicity in our pages. For I feel sure that it will be of very real aid and interest to our many members of ACL who will be visiting your beautiful capital with their cine cameras in the future. I know too that Miss Helen Welsh, recently honored by the League with the rank of Associate, will be happy that her recent report — which we entitled "Permits in Paris" — has brought forth this immediate, friendly and helpful statement from our fellow amateurs of the Federation Francaise. In closing, I send you, Mr. President, and all French amateurs the warmest greetings of America's amateur movie makers. Joseph J. Harley, FACL, President THE AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, Inc. Founded in 1926 by Hiram Percy Maxim DIRECTORS Joseph J. Harley, President Frank E. Gunnell, Vicepresident James W. Moore, Managing Director John V. Hansen Harrison F. Houghton Roy C. Wilcox Walter Bergmann, Treasurer Arthur H. Elliott Fred Evans Harry Groedel The Amateur Cinema League, Inc., sole owner and publisher of MOVIE MAKERS, is an international organization of filmers. The League offers its members help in planning and making movies. It aids movie clubs and maintains for them a film exchange. It hasvarious special services and publications for members. Your membership is invited. Eight dollars a year. AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE. Inc.. 420 LEXINGTON AVE.. NEW YORK 17. N. Y.. U. S. A. Also included, though not necessary, is a panel light designed to throw light on the working controls. This will be helpful when working under the darkened conditions of movie projection. Place the light close to the forward portion of the control board, so that its rays shine away from the operator and onto the control knobs. HIGH FIDELITY CONTROL CENTER While good results can be achieved with the foregoing setup, it is possible to get even better sound recording with more advanced equipment. Important in this connection are: better turntables, if possible, and particularly, magnetic reluctance-type pickups. For the latter it will be necessary to provide preamplifiers. A breakdown of the approximate cost for the better control center appears earlier. You will see that in this setup, there is no need to have the tone control circuit, since the reluctance-type cartridges are so well balanced that exceptionally good results will nearly always be obtained, and needle scratch will not be a problem. Fig. 5 shows the schematic wiring diagram for this case, including the preamplifiers. Note that even though only one pickup arm is playing at any one time, the two preamplifiers are required in order to monitor both records through the earphones. SPRING MOUNTED TABLES When choosing the turntables, it would be well to select a type that is spring or otherwise shock mounted. This will insure freedom from noise and rumble that might be transmitted from the motor into the recording system. If the turntables have their own automatic stop-and-start devices, these should be removed, or made inoperative; then outside on-off switches for the motor should be added as before. These motor switches preferably should be of the silent type, and condensers should be added across the make-break circuit so that there is no sparking click heard through the amplifying circuit. This will allow starting and stopping individual turntables without interfering with the recording quality. In fact, all the selector switches, too, should be of the silent or quiet type, for the least disturbance while recording. HI-FI MIXING CIRCUIT The control center just described uses the simple resistor-mixing circuit shown in Fig. 5. For a high fidelity setup, it is preferable to employ a slightly more elaborate mixer-amplifier tube. This serves not only to mix phono and microphone outputs, but it amplifies the mixed combinations as well. This mixer amplifier circuit is shown in Fig. 6. Actually, it is not very complicated or costly. It uses the same volume controls as in the simple resistor mixers, and needs only one tube, a 12AX7. The only problem in using this system is to obtain the filament and "B"-f power. These may be taken from the pickup preamplifiers, or from a small amplifier, if available. The total cost of this mixeramplifier addition should not exceed $10. For best results, the above tube and its volume controls should be enclosed in a metal-shielded housing, with shielded wire making the proper connections to the pickup arms, preamplifiers and connection jacks. Such a setup is shown in Fig. 2, where the metal housing only of a former Pentron mixer has been used for that purpose. Note also that the volume controls, the selector switches and connection jacks have now been removed from the turntable panel and incorporated in the shielded metal box — along with the mixer-amplifier tube. Directly behind this housing the two preamplifiers for the magnetic reluctance-type pickups are enclosed in a ventilated box-like structure. The above is a description of a practical type of equipment that should be helpful to the amateur filming and recording enthusiast. How best to use it will come only with practice, trial and error and critical listening to your own results. The rewards, however, are considerable in heightening the attraction. of all your movie efforts.