Tips on recording with Dolby.

Mr Fruit

Mr Fruit

New member
Here's the story:

Fostex R8, with Fostex 810 mixer and alesis studio 1 speakers.

Recorded 5 tracks:

1-Accoustic guitar with Sm57
2-Same accoustic gutar, with Rode nt1
3-Different accoustic guitar with SM57
4-Above guitar with Rode NT1
5-Accoustic bass with Rode NT1

Track 1 and 2 were recorded at the same time
Track 3 and 4 were recorded at the same time

Now, there is a fair bit of hiss/noise on playback. The tape path hasnt been cleaned for a while, and the machine hasnt been de guassed for as long as Ive had it- but all this is on the cards for the weekend.

Previously, I have tried flicking the Dolby switch on, during playback, as a matter of interest. The effect of this is dramaticaly reduced hiss, but, also a massive loss of presence.

Now I know this seems obvious in hindsight, but I tried recording a track with Dolby on, rather than just playing a recorded track and flicking the dolby on, and the hiss problem was much better.

So, were on the way to learning somthing, but the problem is that there is a fair bit of rumble, verging on distortion, when recording with dolby, and adjusting the EQ to counter for the lack of presence.

Are there any tips, for recording with Dolby, that I may not be aware of- or is it just a level/mic placement issue.

Incidentally all the instruments have there own pick ups, but we wanted to go down the mic route before trying the DI route.

Any ideas?
 
Mr Fruit said:
Here's the story:

Fostex R8, with Fostex 810 mixer and alesis studio 1 speakers.

Recorded 5 tracks:

1-Accoustic guitar with Sm57
2-Same accoustic gutar, with Rode nt1
3-Different accoustic guitar with SM57
4-Above guitar with Rode NT1
5-Accoustic bass with Rode NT1

Track 1 and 2 were recorded at the same time
Track 3 and 4 were recorded at the same time

Now, there is a fair bit of hiss/noise on playback. The tape path hasnt been cleaned for a while, and the machine hasnt been de guassed for as long as Ive had it- but all this is on the cards for the weekend.

Previously, I have tried flicking the Dolby switch on, during playback, as a matter of interest. The effect of this is dramaticaly reduced hiss, but, also a massive loss of presence.

Now I know this seems obvious in hindsight, but I tried recording a track with Dolby on, rather than just playing a recorded track and flicking the dolby on, and the hiss problem was much better.

So, were on the way to learning somthing, but the problem is that there is a fair bit of rumble, verging on distortion, when recording with dolby, and adjusting the EQ to counter for the lack of presence.

Are there any tips, for recording with Dolby, that I may not be aware of- or is it just a level/mic placement issue.

Incidentally all the instruments have there own pick ups, but we wanted to go down the mic route before trying the DI route.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
dolby is a 2-way process. it must be used when recording and then again on playback. otherwise it is useless.

cleaning and demagnetizing heads and guides (and keeping them clean) is paramount to to good sounding tapes.

sounds like your deck(s) need some maintanance work, calibration, etc. before using any more.

imo, your tapes must be done over again from scratch.
 
Yes it needs to be turned on for recording and playback. Also there is a switch on the back of the r8 for turning the dolby c off on channel 8 for midi.
You may want to read the manual
 
Yep, the clean up operation, including dismantling the desk, is on for this weekend.

Im not bothered about re recording, as these are the first songs weve recorded and we expected to learn as we went, which seems to be the case, and is working well.

Thanks for the replies.
In terms of callibration, is that somthing you can do yourself, of is it a specialist job?
 
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