Why are equalizers and mixers still used

fns

New member
A long time ago we used mixers and equalizers with our analog systems. Recently I have been asked to record the local orchestra and chorale and I bought low cost modern equipment that was recommended by a retired professional . I use an H6N Zoom with a few extra mic's attached and that is about it. I have no mixer board and the only thing I really do during the concerts is monitor the levels of the inputs to prevent clipping. The rest is done when I get home using audacity etc. I get great results according to the ensembles that I record for.

One time when I was not available a professional was hired and he arrived with a digital system with a mixer/equalizer board.
Why are these still used? If you look at the DSP theory it makes sense to collect ALL the data you can, without pre-filtering in any way, and then during digital post processing you can adjust the frequencies and volumes any way you need. Probably I am missing something here?

Thanks-
Fritz
 
Well you see Fritz the instruments that 'classical' musicians play have been developed and improved over hundreds of years. Then the music was written FOR those instruments and the whole setup performed in places appropriate to them (you don't perform intricate, multi-part counter point ensembles in a church with a 15second reverb time!) .

Thus, "all" the recording engineer had to do was plonk a mic or two where the audience sat and record the result. Was not THAT easy of course, the dynamic range of tape could not capture the Moonlight sonata, leave alone the 1812! YOU have it easy! Just set the peak level to -8dBFS and record at 24 bits then bugger off to the pub and leave them to it...Well almost.

Around the time of the Beatles recording began to diverge. There was 'natural' recording of what was in front of you and generally that was left alone, no EQ, no reverb, no compression, pretty much. The other 'pop' route was using raw band sounds as more of a starting point and the mixer/producer became part of the performance. "Music Concrete" almost.

I am glad your musicians like your results, it would, IMHO be very impudent of you to impose 'colours' or 'dynamics' on their performances. Things CAN go wrong of course but any 'tweaking' should be done with full permission of the players.

There is of course a continuum. from "One mic, one pre, one channel" to 48 track messed about mayhem!

Dave.
 
Thanks Dave. You have confirmed my understanding. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something. Indeed recording in the "classical" world we have it easy compared to my jazz/rock friends. If we could only keep those darned timpani's out in the parking lot! When I get my cuts home I usually do a little balancing of the mic's, occasionally have to filter out a "ventilator" system and on occasion have to normalize the dynamics. Works pretty well and I usually end up with a "what you heard is what you get" final disk.

cheers
fritz
 
One time when I was not available a professional was hired and he arrived with a digital system with a mixer/equalizer board.
Why are these still used? If you look at the DSP theory it makes sense to collect ALL the data you can, without pre-filtering in any way, and then during digital post processing you can adjust the frequencies and volumes any way you need. Probably I am missing something here?

Hey there,

If this was a digital system then there's a good chance that his mixing and eq adjustments aren't destructive.
Most likely he was recording down the raw data just like you, but his digital multitrack allows him to non-destructively mix the thing then and there.

Really no different to giving a singer an EQ and reverb in the daw for the cans mix - It sounds nicer to them, but can always be removed or altered later.

Of course if he had some standalone recorder and an analog mixer in front of it, the opposite would be true - Any changes would be committed 'to tape'.
 
OK-makes sense. Myself personally-it sure is nice not hauling all that mixing stuff and table around (along with my viola!). I am able to fit most of my equipment in a couple of "roll along" suitcases-
Fritz
 
Yeah, fair enough. That makes sense.

If the zoom offers you enough discrete input channels to cover your needs then there's no need to lug racks of gear about.
Maybe the other fella was recording more than that, or the gear he has is simply the gear he has?!
He might be kitted out for big concerts where a live mix is necessary, and this is a much more straight forward job?

Either way - Whatever works and is familiar to you is usually the best way to go.
 
If the zoom offers you enough discrete input channels to cover your needs then there's no need to lug racks of gear about.

Right.

Myself personally-it sure is nice not hauling all that mixing stuff and table around (along with my viola!). I am able to fit most of my equipment in a couple of "roll along" suitcases-


If you can do an ensemble with a stereo-pair mic Zoom recorder...then you don't need anything else.
That said, very often there is a need for spot mics, like on some of the lead singers/players...and you can't adjust the Zoom specifically for them without disrupting the stereo balance.

Additionally...there may be some issues that need to be EQ'd during recording. If you always record the same ensemble in the same place, then you might have it all worked out...but when you move to different venues, and where maybe the ensemble also changes around a bit, it may not be as simple as putting up a Zoom and just capturing the sound as-it-falls.

You know what they say...it's better to bring some extra audio gear and not needed it...than need it and not have it.
Actually, I think it's about bringing a gun and not needed it....but same principal. :D
 
Kind of irrelevant to the topic but true.....
This is a classic example of how a well rehearsed group of musicians in a good room makes the engineers job easy.
:D

Something modern musicians who live in the cut and paste world should learn from.
 
The Zooms have 2 on-board mics plus 4 XLR ports. So I run the onboards and then put a pair of mic's remote from the main unit. All mics can be controlled independently and have their own track. Later I can fool a bit with the "presence" that way. And if I get unlucky and land one pair near the "audience cougher" I can try to cut it off.
Having 2 extra ports beyond that is indeed handy at times-generally for this type of work I don't like to spot mic as the musicians like to review "what the audience heard". But spot mic'ing is nice for some of the soloists playing a "weaker" instrument---harpsichords, period flutes etc. I can bring them forward in an additional cut if the performer wants that. Only downside of the zooms is you cannot independently control the phantom power so I can't use my ribbon mic (nice for violins and sopranos).

I am not sure why "some issues that need to be EQ'd during recording" however-still seems like this can be done as well by post processing right?

Thanks
fritz
 
I mostly record rock bands, so using my H5 means capturing a mix rather than discreet mics. If I want to record multitrack of a band more gear is needed, which for me means bringing my GB2R and HD24, along with my mic splits and snakes. If more than sixteen tracks are needed then I bring another small mixer. Although I have thought about swapping the mixers for preamps, having the ability to check inputs or even a rough mix through the robust headphone amplifier is helpful. If the house mixer runs out of monitor mixes I could theoretically provide several more.

The GB2R direct outs can be switched pre or post. In the pre setting nothing I do on the mixer (except input gain and HPF) affects the record output.
 
The answer is mainly personal preference, but...

For much of what I do I still use a mixer (in my case a digital one). There are two or three reasons I like to work this way. First, when using multiple mics it's quick and easy to set levels using 100mm pro faders than on small, closely spaced knobs or (even worse) software controls).

Second, although I record everything clean, I'm frequently asked for EQ and/or effects in monitor mixes. The mixer makes this easy.

And, in my case, a third reason is that I'm often doing a live theatre mix at the same time as I multitrack record the show.
 
I have a zoom, and I also have a flight cased X32. On occasions I have taken this to stereo jobs, simply because it was handy, and caused no real grief, and offered some benefits.

I needed direct to stereo, but was also able to add a few extra microphones with no impact - the desk output went to my MacBook. There was no EQ and no actually mixing done at the time - simply recording to the MacBook, via the desks preamps. However - I could also look at the spectral displays and get a feel for the content in terms of dynamics and frequency content. The desk case in wheeled, so creates no practical problems, and has ample headphone volume, something the zoom runs out of steam with. The zoom is a perfectly decent recorder, but the X32 is better in a number of ways - that don't improve the audio, but make managing it simpler.

There is also a practical business perspective to this. Very often, clients have no technical knowledge at all - but a mixer with flashing lights and displays in a flight case, with more 'wires' than strictly necessary can often er, support the fee being charged. In the past, I've had issues with billing when clients see minimalist equipment. Perfectly satisfactory equipment, but often misunderstood.

In a video job recently, the client mentioned at a pre-shoot meeting "One of our staff has a camcorder, and wanted to do this project - but we told him professional companies have very different equipment". This struck us as a potential trip-up point, as it was clear that this shoot would need lots of POV cameras, go pros, and probably cameras on poles, to peep over the edge of the higher machinery and look down inside. There would be some ground level conventional shots but not that many. We took far more equipment than needed, including our full size cameras, and cranes - which, while useful, were not really required and their shots were perhaps 10% of the total. If we had to hire in kit, we'd have been much more minimalist, but if you have it, use it?

Given the choice of using a zoom, or something better - I'd use the better one if it was a no cost option.
 
The Zooms have 2 on-board mics plus 4 XLR ports. So I run the onboards and then put a pair of mic's remote from the main unit. All mics can be controlled independently and have their own track. Later I can fool a bit with the "presence" that way. And if I get unlucky and land one pair near the "audience cougher" I can try to cut it off.
Having 2 extra ports beyond that is indeed handy at times-generally for this type of work I don't like to spot mic as the musicians like to review "what the audience heard". But spot mic'ing is nice for some of the soloists playing a "weaker" instrument---harpsichords, period flutes etc. I can bring them forward in an additional cut if the performer wants that. Only downside of the zooms is you cannot independently control the phantom power so I can't use my ribbon mic (nice for violins and sopranos).

I am not sure why "some issues that need to be EQ'd during recording" however-still seems like this can be done as well by post processing right?...
I use an H6 a lot for open mic recordings and it's a great piece of equipment, though I have the extra 2 XLR input piece instead of either the XY or MS mics. There's usually plenty of room ambience bouncing off the back wall or available on the video tracks that I can automate in/out as needed.

But, I also have a couple of pieces in an ABS rack that I'll bring with my old MacBook if I need more than 6 channels, and if I'd started there, vs. Sony cassette and stereo mic, that's probably all I'd bring, especially if it was the first time I got called in somewhere and didn't know quite what to expect. It doesn't help to show up with 6 channel capability only to realize you could have done a much better job with 7...

I don't have any EQ, but if I was trying to make a living at it, I might, because some rooms are simply horrible, and if you can't close mic, you risk having tracks that are far more work than you might have, if you had been able to keep some of the room's bumps and warts out. Not sure, but that's my guess. It also gives you the option of (perhaps) being able to feed into video an audio signal that's better, and I'd want that these days since live streaming is so popular - that's already made me recognize some limitations of the H6, BTW, and consider paying more attention to the monitor pan settings in it, as well as packing my ancient Behri 2-channel mixer specifically to give me a EQ'd mix to pipe into a live camera (testing...).
 
Work in my world and you never woukd have asked the question.

---------- Update ----------

Work in my world and you never would have asked the question.
 
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