signal loss problems

[turntablist]

Recently, I attended a show of my friend's band with my MR-8. The sound for the show was already being handled by a sound company so I was planning on just plugging in to one of the sound guy's MASTER OUTS from his big board and on in to my MR-8. Theoretically this would work great, but the finished product was way under my expectations. I understand that the sound guy was mixing for the theatre (not for my recording) but it seems like on the recording, when just the vocalist is making small talk between songs, the recording sounds damn nice! But then when all the instruments rock out at once, like when transitioning from a soft part to a loud part of a song, there is loss of some instruments. For instance, if the vocalist is belting a note out, and the guitar and bass are rockin, the drums will get lost. Or sometimes the guitar or backing vocals will get lost. The signal never once went over zero decibels so it's not distortion. It just seems like the cable had too much running through it (if that is possible).

The sound guy gave me two XLRs (right and left) but since he wasn't doing any crazy panning, I just plugged in the left one in to Input A and recorded in mono to save space. Could that have made this recording sound so bad? I am prety sure i had my input switch switched to line level too.

Is my MR8 at fault for this crappy recording? If any of you have any idas on how i could avoid in this in the future, i'd like to hear them.

[bdbdbuck]

Maybe he was just a crappy soundman. Were the guitar amps mic'd? There's a lot of things that could have caused it. I don't think I would be too quick to condemn the recorder. Were you somewhere in the audience where you could hear the mix? Small club? Acoustics can bounce around in a small club, especially when the music is really loud, and sound like s#!t. You could have been getting some of that fed back through the mic.



bd

[turntablist]

the guitar and drums were miced. the bass guitar was connected through direct line from the bass amp (contrary to the bass players requests). i was in the booth so i could hear the live mix, it sounded fine.

[bdbdbuck]

Well, How does the MR8 sound when you use it to record normally? Another thing, how about the cables?


bd

[turntablist]

when i record scratching or mixes it sounds fine. that's one thing i got going for me. i am just wondering if the mr-8 has a threshold of like how much power can actual be fed into it without sounding shitty.

like i said before, the sound guy was mixing for the theatre's sound (which sounded good except for the bass direct line issue. it kept making this awful popping noise), not my recorder.

I am wondering if i would have gotten a better recording by just sitting in the audience with my internal mic on and hitting record. lol.

[bdbdbuck]

I don't think I would ever use a "powered" out. I would be afraid of frying my unit. It's always good practice to use "line" out.




bd

[alexspetty]

hey bd,

you coming out to warrenton next tuesday night?

hope to see you there!

-alex

[bdbdbuck]

Barring another 3' of snow, I'll be there.



bd

[turntablist]

bdbdbuck, what do you mean about not using powered outs? explain to me this so i know what NOT to do to my machine.

[bdbdbuck]

You don't want to be on the receiving end of any power amp of any kind. I'm not sure what "master outs" means in your case, but if there was enough power there even to drive monitors or whatever, you may have been driving the s#!t out of the MR8. That will have a negative effect on the sound at the very least. Always look for the output marked "line out".




bd