live recording off board

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jmorris

jmorris

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Ok. I'm going to record my band off the board at a large outdoor gig. Its a new Mackie 32 ch. I believe. I'm planning on taking direct out's from the board into my 3 adats(24track). I plan on having compression on the bass, kick, and vocals. I have about 10 channels of compression possible. Any tips from anyone? Am I missing anything?
 
Just a thought... you might want to just limit things during recording to protect the digital equipment from the transients. Live recording doesn't always offer the best monitoring environment, and once you've committed the compresion to tape you'll be stuck with it. My approach would be to peak limit only, and compress as needed in the mixdown where you have control over your listening environment and can try multiple things (you only get one shot live).
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pglewis:
Just a thought... you might want to just limit things during recording to protect the digital equipment from the transients. Live recording doesn't always offer the best monitoring environment, and once you've committed the compresion to tape you'll be stuck with it. My approach would be to peak limit only, and compress as needed in the mixdown where you have control over your listening environment and can try multiple things (you only get one shot live). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree!!
Set up for limiting!

We built a splitter , and we could run a signal to Monitor mixer, Main mixer, and recording if needed.
We were doing a little mobile recording, and this worked out fine.

I would definitely say just Limit, for protection.

Tim B.
 
cover your adats and protect them from blowing dust and sand any way you can if you are working outdoors.a tent of clear plastic might let you see the meters well enough.i also saw a custom roadcase with a plexiglass front and air filtration,can't remember who had it but it was really cool.good luck.....les
 
Thanks Tim and pglewis, but when you say limit.define a little please. You mean use a limiter, not compressor? I thought they were really the same? What is the difference?
 
Technical answer: A limiter is a compressor with fast attack and release times, a compression ration of 1 to eternity and treshold set to the maximum level you want.
In practise, A compressor makes the levels more even.
A limiter just makes sure the level never goes over a certain treshold.
Did this make sense?
 
regebro! Yes godd explaination.A limiter then caps the max gain, but a comp. compresses lows and high signals.But another question,it seems we all compress kick, bass and vocals in studio situations, why not live? Thanks Jim
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jmorris:
regebro! Yes godd explaination.A limiter then caps the max gain, but a comp. compresses lows and high signals.But another question,it seems we all compress kick, bass and vocals in studio situations, why not live? Thanks Jim<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Jim, I usually Limit these tracks when recording, and then Compress them on Mixdown. I try to get the Maximum signal on tape.

I do use compression on the soundsystem live-but Since recording a live event is a "one off", I would want to get it right the first time around, and Limiting would help from Transients (such as feedback) which would definitely mess up a recording; I'm not sure if a burst of Feedback would Damage the machines-but I wouldn't want to take the chance on it.

Tim
 
Yup, Tim and I are both wusses about committing to "tape". ;)

Seriously though, I find myself in "I wish I hadn't done that" mode a lot while mixing. I'm finally converting to a "less is more" philosophy when recording, and leaving most other adjustments for mixdown. That's where you have more control.

The target audience for the recorded material will have different speakers than your live audience. The live sound and the "recorded live sound" are going to be different animals. I'm 100% behind Tim... compress things like you normally would for the house, but it's probably best to keep what you're sending to the recorder as dry as possible.

The limiter is to protect the digital equipment from peaks. If the ADATs peak, then you've got a nasty sounding "POP" in the recording that can be really hard to get rid of. This isn't nearly as big a problem when recording to analog since you usually have some "play" where the tape naturally compresses most of the peaks without the digital "pop". The digital ceiling is a real ceiling, you don't have the forgiveness of tape there. Too low with the signal, and you have to contend with more noise and lower bit resolution in the digital world. Thus the limiter to insure you get a proper signal level without peaking.
 
Thanks for the input on live recording,but this means I need 24 limiters?Im going to take the direct out of each channel, I think we will use 22 channels( big horn section) and plug them into each of the adats. First cannel off board into track one the the first adat and so forth.Dont have 24 limiters!!! or am I missing something?Thanks Jim
 
Don't use compression until your mixdown!!! bad news.!!!
 
Hmm, what to do with all those channels? Did you have 24 channels of compression ready to go? You probably won't need to limit everything, but that horn section might be tricky with the levels. And the drummer is going to play the kick and snare louder as the night goes on (without exception in my experience ;)). You might be able to get a reasonable rental deal for the night, especially if you have spent some money at the place and they know ya.

Any other ideas?
 
compression does not become limiting untill u hit a 10:1 ratio. this means that it'll take an increase of 10 decibels(over the threshold) to raise the output 1 db. the idea is to raise the threshold high enuff so that your highest peaks rarely go over. this is used to help protect your gear from some freak of nature "boom" . the guitar player could go over the thresh 50 db's by destroying his amp and your limiter will only allow 5 of those deafining db's.
 
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