Topic: Help with soundboard

[alexburatti]

I taped a show from the desk last night   http://www.sendspace.com/file/nnqlou  sample.

It has come out slightly distorted, any ideas how to clean it up please

Alex

[SmokinJoe]

My guess is something brickwalled, and I doubt there is anything you can do to clean it up.  It's possible the signal coming in to your recorder was hotter than it could take, or it's even possible that the whole show was distorted in the board, but it was so freakin' loud that the sound guy couldn't even tell (I've seen it happen).

What were you using for a recorder? (brand/model)
How were you running it?  (mic in/line in/digi in)
What did you have the gain set to on your recorder?

[alexburatti]

What were you using for a recorder? (brand/model)  Zoom h2
How were you running it?  (mic in/line in/digi in) line in via xlr
What did you have the gain set to on your recorder  80

I taped Ash through the soundboard and this was ok apart from one song. The show was loud, Luckly i filmed the show so the camera sound should be ok

[SmokinJoe]

By the way... I DID open up your sample in Audacity and look at it before I commented the first time.  The quiet parts of your sample are clear and the loud parts are all "smooshed together" for lack of a proper term.  Heavily compressed is probably a good term.

The H2 has an AGC/Compressor/limiter option.   I suspect that was on.  If you crank the gain with that turned on, that can lead to that sort of compression.  I did that once when I first got my R4...  you crank the gain to bring up the meters, but the meters don't climb, so you are just adding a ton of compression.  Turn that off, and leave it off. 

[alexburatti]

I just looked at my recorder, it was turned off, i uspect the guy on the sound desk had the levels on his recorder at full, mine was on 80, I guess it i turned it down to 60 then it may not of distorted.

Alex

[SmokinJoe]

If it were me, I would turn off that limiter and leave it off, because YOU want to be in control of the levels.  Like I said... I flipped what switch by accident once on my recorder... then I put tape over it to make sure I would never make that mistake again.  That was 2 years ago, and I've never touched it again.

[fmaderjr]

I just looked at my recorder, it was turned off, i uspect the guy on the sound desk had the levels on his recorder at full, mine was on 80, I guess it i turned it down to 60 then it may not of distorted.

NO! The record level control on the H2 comes after the Analog to Digital Converter (a very poor design). If you have it set to low sensitivity and must turn the record level below 100 to keep the meters from going over 0 dB, you will just be recording a distorted signal at a lower level. The only way to avoid distortion in this case is to use an attenuator between the sound board and the H2 with enough attenuation that the H2's meter's stay below 0 DB when the record level is kept at 100. My Zoom H4 is the same way. I hate Zoom products, although the H4n is supposed to have this issue corrected.

[alexburatti]

hey, where would i get a Attenuator Cable to fix this problem?, i live in the uk as well.

alex

[mattmiller]

hey, where would i get a Attenuator Cable to fix this problem?, i live in the uk as well.

alex

http://store.microphonemadness.com/mmatatcab.html

[junkyardt]

if you get a soundboard that is distorted there is probably nothing you can do to fix it. i have had that happen to me a few times. one time i had the recording level set to like 1 or 2 out of 10, on line-in, and it still came out badly distorted -- the signal coming from the board was just too hot and there's nothing i could've done to fix it on my end.

[dgale]

The only way to avoid distortion in this case is to use an attenuator between the sound board and the H2 with enough attenuation that the H2's meter's stay below 0 DB when the record level is kept at 100.

Well, there is one other thing you can do - get the feed from the sbd turned down.  This is always preferred to using an attenuator, although having a pair of attenuators is not a bad plan, as you can't always get the feed turned down or don''t want to bother the FOH person.

[dgale]

if you get a soundboard that is distorted there is probably nothing you can do to fix it. i have had that happen to me a few times. one time i had the recording level set to like 1 or 2 out of 10, on line-in, and it still came out badly distorted -- the signal coming from the board was just too hot and there's nothing i could've done to fix it on my end.

With most recorders, the position of the level knob has little to do with whether a hot feed will be distorted or not.  Rule of thumb - if you have to turn the levels down anywhere below ~50% to get the levels where you want (i.e. lower than 5 on a 1-10 knob), your feed is probably too hot and you should get the feed turned down.  Even though you may set the levels where you want them on the db scale, you're still quite likely getting a clipped/distorted recording as the hot incoming feed is overloading your deck and this occurs before the signal gets to your record level controls.