Long time listener, first time caller...

[JayJee]

Hello all,
I've been lurking on this forum for a while and it seems to be full of a lot of really cool, knowledgeable people, and I hope one or a few of you can help me with my question. When the opportunity arises I plan on contributing what I can to the board, but I have a feeling that for a little while I'm going to be doing a lot more asking and reading than answering questions.
I was recently offered a good deal on a brand new Yamaha AW-16G (16 track digital hard disk recorder w/a built in CD-RW drive) which I jumped at, given the fact that I'm interested in getting back into recording and I have little experience in the digital realm. Other than the recorder I don't have much of a setup yet. That said, for the time being I'm using headphones to monitor my mixes until I can scratch together enough cash to get an amp and some nice monitors. I have a pair of Realistic Nova-10s (OLD school) as well as a pair of SONY MDRV900s that I plug directly into the headphone out of the recorder to monitor/mix my stuff.
The problem I've been having is this: I've been recording using the Nova 10s and everything seemed to be going well until I decided to listen to the tracks through the SONYs. Everything came out rediculously distorted. I connected the stereo outs to the CD input of my crappy Onkyo reciever to see if it was a headphone problem, and the recordings are coming out distorted through the Bose speakers that I've connected to the reciever.
I've checked both sets of headphones as well as the reciever/speakers and when I play CDs and other recordings through them everything sounds fine. My input levels when recording are hot, but not in the red, and when I monitor using the SONYs the only input signal I can get to come out that isn't distorted is rediculously low. I'm running out of possible solutions to this problem. Can any of you guys help me out? Thanks in advance.

 

[tollbooth]

headphone monitoring

hi jayjee

a few things to look at:

digital distortion - things really don't need to clip by much to sound reaaaaaaaaallly ugly - 0 really does mean 0! there's none of that groovy headroom that we were all so used to wading into in analogue. so that's worth checking as you won't need to be clipping by much for things to sound really out of control - only today i was mixing a project someone else had recorded quite 'hot' and we tracked down a really nasty graunch to an erant reverb send that was just a little too high.

does your yamaha have separate levels for headphones and stereo main outs - might be worth checking there isn't a huge disparity between the two. i had that problem years ago in my early days of using the roland VS recorders.

have you checked headphone impedences are suitable for use with the unit

i'll keep thinking. keep going - it all slots into place eventually - promise!

best regards

paul d

 

[JayJee]

Paul,
I'm aware of the evils of digital distortion, and trust me, I respect the 0. I'd say nothing on any of the tracks I've recorded goes above -4/-2.

As far as checking for disparities between headphone and main outs, do you mean that I should use a multimeter to check their respective output voltages?

Thanks for your feedback, and I apologize if my questions seem a little elementary. It's been a few years since I've done any recording, and there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge that need to be filled in. I'll be sure to check the impedences of my headphones and I'll get back to you with my findings. If they don't match, would you advise getting a headphone amp?

Thanks

 

[Bianchi Joe]

A couple of thoughts

Just for grins, burn what you've recorded onto a cd, and play it both through speakers and through your headphones. This isn't a solution, per se, but it might be good to know if what you hear on playback is the same as what ends up on the disc.

On a side note, on my Korg D12 hard-drive recorder, I was amazed at how little guitar attack it took to drive an otherwise normal signal into the red, and how audible even the smallest bit of digital distortion was. So I really watch the "trim" control on each input, and keep a close eye on the post-fader levels. If the Yamaha has a "trim" wheel , be advised that it may be really sensitive; mine have to be adjusted differently for keyboards and guitars and vocals, as you're adjusting the input level for each channel. An eighth of a turn makes a HUGE difference.

Also, I recently bought an ART tube pre-amp with "OPL," that's supposed to protect against output peaks that cause clipping. I'm not yet familiar with exactly how it works, but the idea seems to be similar to a limiter. I wouldn't buy one until you figure out what the deal is with your machine, but if you're going to get a tube pre anyway, it seems like a nice feature.

If my suggestions seem to elementary, please disregard--I'm fairly new to much of the technolgy myself.

 

[tedluk]

When you say the output is distorted, you need to first figure out what kind of distortion and where it's coming from.

Digital distortion is VERY obvious. It's one terrible sound! You'll know it when you hear it.

From your description, it sounds like the distortion you are dealing with is analog in nature. If that's the case, then somewhere in your recording/monitoring chain you have your gain incorrectly set. My first bet would be that the Nova-10s are the culprit, not only because thay're Radio Shack, but because you indicate that you hear distortion with both the Sony headphones and also through your home stereo.

Now the question is whether the problem is occuring before or after the recording process. It doesn't make any sense for it to be a problem in the recording process or else you should have heard it on both sets of headphones, but, for the sake of discussion we should go through it. What are your sources for the recordings? Acoustic, line level, vocals? Are ALL tracks distorted or is it only happening to certain instruments? Check your input levels as was suggested. I don't know the AW16G. Check the manual for instructions on how to monitor and set input signals prior to recording.

If your input signals are set correctly and the sounds you're recording are clean, then the distortion is happening on playback and the issue then is about setting levels correctly for playback. Where are your faders on playback? Where is the master fader? How high do you have the headphone level set (I'm assuming that the AW16G has a separate level control for the headphones)?

It IS possible that you're not recording things hot enough and are having to overdrive the monitor section in order to crank it up loud enough to hear on the Sony headphones. To me, this is the most likely possibility.

At any rate, if it's analog distortion, you have a gain staging problem somewhere. You need to isolate each portion of the recording chain until you figure out where the problem is occuring.

Hope this helps. Let us know what you figure out!

Ted