Topic: Troubleshooting Clipped Files

[noahbickart]

Hi everyone. Last light I recorded Soulive onstage at the Brooklyn bowl and ran three pair of microphones:

Schoeps mk3> Nbob actives> Naint PFA> SD mixpre6 (channels 1 + 2) [see picture below]
Schoeps mk22> Nbob KCY> Naint PFA> SD mixpre6 (channels 3 + 4) [not pictured below, but look & sound fine]
Schoeps mk4v> Nbob KCY> Naiant Littlebox (high power [+48v phantom], 0 gain)> SD mixpre6 (channels 5 + 6, +20db) [see picture below]

As you can see from the attached screen shots, the sources using the SD preamps are totally fine, while the mk4vs through the littlebox look as if there were a brickwall limiter at around -8db.

Any idea what might have cause this? Brief ideas:

1) Battery problems in the littlebox
2) littlebox clipped at input
3) mixpre6 couldn't handle the output from littlebox

I ran the same system last week at TTB without problems.

BTW, the show was amazing, and the mk4v pair was basically redundant as they were on the same stand DFC as the mk22 pair. Here's my mixdown from the mk22 and mk3:

16 Bit: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=593684
24 Bit: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=593685

[bombdiggity]

I'd think you were brickwalling in the Littlebox so even if you had the levels looking OK at the end of the chain the damage was already done. 

I ran my Tinybox on high (it has switched gain stages rather than trim pots) at a very quiet show once and though the music was fine and the ultimate levels on the recorder looked good it brickwalled/distorted on the crowd noise spikes (applause and unfortunately the occasional mid-song outburst).  The Tinybox (at least my version) has a warning light function built in that flashes red to indicate its clipping there. 

[noahbickart]

Thanks for helping me troubleshoot.

Here's the thing. The Littlebox was set to 0 gain, so if it clipped, it must have clipped on the input to the pre. I didn't see the clipping light come on at all, just the faint green.

There is no input pad or anything, and I wasn't *that* loud. Any thoughts on solutions?