BR-8 recording quality

S

SitarHero28

New member
Hello all. I am brand new to this forum and like what I see so far. Hopefully someone may be able to provide some insight into this for me:

I'm regarding electric guitar through a Marshall amp, miked with a Shure SM-57. My mike goes into my 16 channel mixing board where I've tweaked the EQ to cut the 'fizz' out and some low end. When I monitor the sound directly from my board, it sounds amazing, semi-pro studio quality.

From my board, I run the line-out into the line-in on the BR-8. When I monitor the signal from the BR-8, all the life is sucked out of my tone. Flat and thin is all I can obtain. Perhaps I've outgrown this unit?

Anyone else experience this limitation?

Thank you very much.

Glenn
 
it's possible the EQ is applied to the headphone signal but not the line out.
What mixing board and which line out are you using?
 
Hi, thank you for your reply. I bought the mixing console from a friend who only used it a dozen times. I do not have the board in front of me, but I believe it is a Vantage VX-16.

As for the EQ bypassing the line-out, that I'm not 100% sure of. The manual was originally written in Korean and (poorly) translate. LOL. The line-out from the board I'm using, I believe, is 'tape-out' which the manual states should connect to a recording device at line level.

Realizing I'm not going to get pro-studio quality with a cheap BR-8 or similar, would you recommend a decent value recorder?

thank you very much!!!

Lt. Bob said:
it's possible the EQ is applied to the headphone signal but not the line out.
What mixing board and which line out are you using?
Click to expand...
 
instead of using tape out .... try just using the boards out that you would use to go to a power amp if you were using it for PA.
Sometimes tape outs go direct and bypass the EQ.
 
Make sure you don't have a pre-set turned on the recording channel of the BR-8 when you are doing it and that the signal is strong, but not hot enough to clip. Why EQ first, anyway? Get the mixer out of the equation: record direct to the BR-8 with tone controls flat, then EQ the recording.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I always bypass the effects when I record. I hate the boxed presets that come with the BR8.

I will try going direct. The world of recording is fairly new to me, especially cabinet miking as I only recently have the use of a recording space.

The theory of using the mixer and EQ'ing was to get rid of some fizz and 'thud' and get the sound as close to what I am hearing from the speakers as possible and recording that. I've read different schools of thought on this, one being 'record everything and EQ later', the other being 'remove what you want before you record'.

Thanks again, I appreciate it! Cheers

mjbphotos said:
Make sure you don't have a pre-set turned on the recording channel of the BR-8 when you are doing it and that the signal is strong, but not hot enough to clip. Why EQ first, anyway? Get the mixer out of the equation: record direct to the BR-8 with tone controls flat, then EQ the recording.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for that suggestion. I will also try that and experiment. The problem is, I run the board outs to my PA for playback and monitoring while recording. Maybe I can just record through headphones.

Thanks again.

Lt. Bob said:
instead of using tape out .... try just using the boards out that you would use to go to a power amp if you were using it for PA.
Sometimes tape outs go direct and bypass the EQ.
Click to expand...
 
You can use a splitter and use the board outs for both purposes.

Also, unless you have a seperate room for tracking, you want to us headphones anytime you're tracking with mics as you don't want them picking up the sound from any monitors you use.
 
Thank you both for your suggestions and information. I'm relatively new to recording using boards, monitors and microphones.

Another question: people say you need a good quality pre-amp to run your SM57 through, would the BR8 input suffice (haven't been happy with quality going straight in) or the input to my mixing console?

Thanks again!!
 
doubt it's the BR-8

The Boss machines are usually very useable. But to me it sounds like the sensitivity and input recording levels may not be set high enough when bringing the signal in from the mixer.
I record my drums (also vocals/instruments) using a 12 channel mixer, set the levels and panning etc., and then run the stereo signal into my Boss 864 with the sensitivity and record levels set as high as I can with usually no problem whatsoever. The signals is always as I've set it up to be - either with or without a little bit of reverb (generally flat - but sometimes with a slight amount of FX).
I also will take the tracks from the Boss to my computer and further process them there (reverb, compression, limiting etc)- and then put them back in the Boss after I've tweaked it with whatever software I used in the computer. I experiment a lot with different ways to see if certain things work better in certain situations.
Just thoughts -

tulsa
 
Thank you for the advice and tips, Tulsa. I too use my computer software for effects like reverb, compression and some EQ, preferring to leave the BR-8's effects disabled.
As far as mixing down then throwing it back onto the BR-8, I haven't tried that except for when I do electronic drums or jam with a downloaded backing track.
I'd really like to setup some disks with all my songs, sans my guitar parts and vocals, so I can practice my set just by myself.
Thanks again.

tulsa said:
The Boss machines are usually very useable. But to me it sounds like the sensitivity and input recording levels may not be set high enough when bringing the signal in from the mixer.
I record my drums (also vocals/instruments) using a 12 channel mixer, set the levels and panning etc., and then run the stereo signal into my Boss 864 with the sensitivity and record levels set as high as I can with usually no problem whatsoever. The signals is always as I've set it up to be - either with or without a little bit of reverb (generally flat - but sometimes with a slight amount of FX).
I also will take the tracks from the Boss to my computer and further process them there (reverb, compression, limiting etc)- and then put them back in the Boss after I've tweaked it with whatever software I used in the computer. I experiment a lot with different ways to see if certain things work better in certain situations.
Just thoughts -

tulsa
Click to expand...
 
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