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Author Topic: Delay in Matrix Recording?  (Read 15013 times)

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Offline SuperDave

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #30 on: March 21, 2005, 05:00:46 PM »
true, under 20ms is relatively unnoticeable.
over 20ms and I would definitely reccomend a delay.
personally, I like the effect of the signals being about 5-10ms apart...gives it a nice fat/warm punch.
25-30ms+ and you've set yourself for the echo/slapback effect.

why would you need delay when sending the board signal back over the snake to the stage?
think about this for a second. wires/cabling have impedance.
under normal circumstances, the stage equipments signal is being sent via snake to the foh position. the signal is not traveling at speed-of-light due to the impedance of the cabling.
if you're sending the signal back down the snake to the stage, you are increasing the impedance against the original signal. with mics setup onstage, there will be a time difference between the signal coming back down the snake compared to the signal captured by your mics. granted, the impedance of the cabling/snake isnt as large as the perceived time delay of the sound coming from the speaker stacks, but it is there.

if this is for a tiny room where the foh position is @25' from the stage and your onstage mics have +15' of cabling then you probably wont notice any effect. (this assumes the snake doesnt have alot of slack coiled/hidden somewhere). increase the size of the room and the cable impedance/perceived time delay increases.



Oh please - It might be there in theory - but you surely dont need a DELAY to compensate...You have heard of monitors right? - The monitor feed is often sent back the snake as well...seems to work fine for all involved! The musicians are using the monitors as key part the performance! They are listening to the monitors as they perform...right...? Their musicans are onstage, the mics are onstage, the monitors are on stage! So really - this technique might actually decrease the delay!

only the tiniest of clubs have the monitor mix at foh.
just going by personal experience. every time we've send a sbd signal back down the snake to the stage we had to add delay in post/mixdown, even in venues where the stage-to-foh distance was only about 40'
Speaking from my own experience of mixing FOH and Monitors at various venues(this includes some big outdoor festies), the monitor rig is set up on the side stage more for the convenience of communication to the band onstage rather than the delay problem.  While the monitor rig may be only 20 feet from the front of the stage, the signal still has to be split and run through an abnormally long snake that usually has a lot of it(100 feet or so, sometimes more) coiled up by the monitor board.  So it's still running down a long length cable.  I can't say that I've ever noticed the delay that we're refering too.

Just my 2 cents.   

true, but in that scenario, you aren't comparing 2 different input sources simultaneously.
not trying to be sarcastic, but when soundchecking/performing on stage, do you think you could really notice a 20-30millisecond delay?

we only noticed it when mixing down in post...
No you wouldn't.  I guess I read it wrong, but I thought someone implied that the reason that at big shows, that monitors are run from the side of the stage was because of the delay problem.  I wasn't really referring to the recording.
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Offline mmmatt

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #31 on: March 21, 2005, 05:27:08 PM »
only the tiniest of clubs have the monitor mix at foh.
just going by personal experience. every time we've send a sbd signal back down the snake to the stage we had to add delay in post/mixdown, even in venues where the stage-to-foh distance was only about 40'

If I'm reading this right you are suggesting that the onstage mics are receiving the signal earlier than the board>snake?  That would be a real mystery, given that the onstage mics only get sound after it's travelled at least as much cable distance just to come out of the p.a.

If there's some discrepancy, it might be in the other direction - board snake gets there first because some post-board processing equipment is delaying the signal to the p.a.  
e.g. the p.a. speakers sit 6 ft in front of the band.  In order to synch the direct sound with the p.a. sound, the p.a. is delayed by 6 ms so the direct sound can travel (catch up to the p.a.) and hit the listeners ears at the same time.
are you saying it is typical practice to delay the board to the pa to compesate for the space between the on stage amps and the PA speakers?  I've never heard that one yet... what about if the leslie is 3' from the pa, the bass 6' the drums 10' and the guitar is 8'.  Then what do you do?  You may be right but this again sounds like a walk through esotaria to me.  that 3-10 ms delay would surely go unnoticed.  You would get more delay from the bounce off the rear of the stage.

Matt
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hexyjones

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #32 on: March 21, 2005, 05:38:35 PM »
Not to beat a dead horse, but I've never understood why someone would want to mix on-stage mics with the sbd?

Technically, an onstage mic "is" the soundboard.  Look at the guitar amp, the drums, the bass amp, etc.   Mics!

If you're "in" so well with these small clubs, here's a better approach. 

1. Leave your snake(patchbay) and delay at home!
2. Make friends with the sound engineer, which sounds like you already have.
3. Brag, brag, brag about the killer mics you want to set up on stage.
4. Convince him to use those as overhead inputs from stage and use them for the house mix.
5. If he does or doesn't, just get him to  pick up the inputs into the board and then send you the sbd/your mics mix to a sub/buss directly to you.

"Brilliant!"


Its wrong to assume that every instrument will be in the soundboard mix...or evenly represented in the mix...
Also - live sound mixes generally use a close mic'ed technique - i.e. each instrunment has a mic set right in front of the speaker...this tends to produce a more discrete sound to each element of the mix...not always desireable on tape...

If one guitarist is very loud onstage - he will likely be unrepresented in the SBD mix...

The onstage "taper" mics are not focused on one instument - you get a very nice blend - but the vocals are generally underrepresented. - Stage monitors tend to be "beamy" and are firing the oposite direction of the music - making them hard to capture...

A few of the bands I tape these days use a small two-way system - they use vocals and an overhead on the drums...that mix is the PERFECT compliment for my onstage mics....

And running monitors side stage has nothing to do with dealy - its about communication...a lot easier to make a "more vocals in my monitor" gesture to a guy 10 feet away, than a guy 50 ft away in a dark room...

Offline dklein

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #33 on: March 21, 2005, 07:32:05 PM »

are you saying it is typical practice to delay the board to the pa to compesate for the space between the on stage amps and the PA speakers?  I've never heard that one yet... what about if the leslie is 3' from the pa, the bass 6' the drums 10' and the guitar is 8'.  Then what do you do?  You may be right but this again sounds like a walk through esotaria to me.  that 3-10 ms delay would surely go unnoticed.  You would get more delay from the bounce off the rear of the stage.

Matt

I'm not saying it's typical - I really don't know.  But I do know that in one of my regular haunts, I was chatting with the house sound dude and they ran that very 6ms delay on the drum kit (and it might have even just been the kick drum).  He explained why and it made sense - the band does sit 'behind' the stacks, with the drummer furthest back.  Without the delay, the p.a. will actually deliver the sound a few ms earlier than the natural, direct sound and this delay brought them back together (from the audience perspective).  As far as your scenario with different distances, I suppose they zero in on the drums since they have the greatest transients.

I'd suggest that anyone really interested should grab a mic & board source and play in multitrack.  You can get some pretty weird phase stuff going on just by sliding one of the sources a few milliseconds back and forth.  It's almost as if there's a very narrow critical window where the weirdness occurs.  Going beyond that (+ or -) and the effect isn't as severe.  But when the sources are very nearly synched, that's when the weirdness occurs.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2005, 07:33:58 PM by dklein »
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Offline Tim

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #34 on: March 21, 2005, 07:34:15 PM »
I've heard of that practice as well....
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Offline NJFunk

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #35 on: March 21, 2005, 08:28:19 PM »

are you saying it is typical practice to delay the board to the pa to compesate for the space between the on stage amps and the PA speakers?  I've never heard that one yet... what about if the leslie is 3' from the pa, the bass 6' the drums 10' and the guitar is 8'.  Then what do you do?  You may be right but this again sounds like a walk through esotaria to me.  that 3-10 ms delay would surely go unnoticed.  You would get more delay from the bounce off the rear of the stage.

Matt

I'm not saying it's typical - I really don't know.  But I do know that in one of my regular haunts, I was chatting with the house sound dude and they ran that very 6ms delay on the drum kit (and it might have even just been the kick drum).  He explained why and it made sense - the band does sit 'behind' the stacks, with the drummer furthest back.  Without the delay, the p.a. will actually deliver the sound a few ms earlier than the natural, direct sound and this delay brought them back together (from the audience perspective).  As far as your scenario with different distances, I suppose they zero in on the drums since they have the greatest transients.

I'd suggest that anyone really interested should grab a mic & board source and play in multitrack.  You can get some pretty weird phase stuff going on just by sliding one of the sources a few milliseconds back and forth.  It's almost as if there's a very narrow critical window where the weirdness occurs.  Going beyond that (+ or -) and the effect isn't as severe.  But when the sources are very nearly synched, that's when the weirdness occurs.

This actually makes a lot of sense, and not to exactly sync up the sounds, either, but rather to make sure that you hear the sound from the stage first.  This is the same concept used in amplifying broadway shows.  Did you ever notice at a play that the dialog always sounds like it's coming from the actor or actress despite large sound reinforcement speakers hanging all around the theater?  Why doesn't the dialog sound like it's coming from the speakers?  They're certainly louder than the actor/actress on stage.  The answer is in the way the human ear works.  If you hear the same sound from two different sources, with one slightly delayed from the other, the sound appears to come from the direction of the first source, but appears to be at the volume of the loudest source.  Therefore, if you have reinforcement speakers around a broadway theater, but you make sure they're delayed (and the delay can be < 10 ms for this to work) enough to be "behind" the sound coming from the actor's mouth, the dialog appears to come from the stage but at the volume of the reinforcement speakers. 

It would make a lot of sense if sophisticated soundmen/systems would delay the PA to be "behind" the music from the stage so that the even the amplified sound in the PA appears to come from direction of the musicians, not the PA.  That would certainly make it appear to be a much more natural sounding concert experience. 

Offline Kwonfidelity

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #36 on: March 22, 2005, 08:34:50 AM »
Not to beat a dead horse, but I've never understood why someone would want to mix on-stage mics with the sbd?

Technically, an onstage mic "is" the soundboard.  Look at the guitar amp, the drums, the bass amp, etc.   Mics!

If you're "in" so well with these small clubs, here's a better approach. 

1. Leave your snake(patchbay) and delay at home!
2. Make friends with the sound engineer, which sounds like you already have.
3. Brag, brag, brag about the killer mics you want to set up on stage.
4. Convince him to use those as overhead inputs from stage and use them for the house mix.
5. If he does or doesn't, just get him to  pick up the inputs into the board and then send you the sbd/your mics mix to a sub/buss directly to you.

"Brilliant!"


Its wrong to assume that every instrument will be in the soundboard mix...or evenly represented in the mix...
Also - live sound mixes generally use a close mic'ed technique - i.e. each instrunment has a mic set right in front of the speaker...this tends to produce a more discrete sound to each element of the mix...not always desireable on tape...

If one guitarist is very loud onstage - he will likely be unrepresented in the SBD mix...

The onstage "taper" mics are not focused on one instument - you get a very nice blend - but the vocals are generally underrepresented. - Stage monitors tend to be "beamy" and are firing the oposite direction of the music - making them hard to capture...

A few of the bands I tape these days use a small two-way system - they use vocals and an overhead on the drums...that mix is the PERFECT compliment for my onstage mics....

And running monitors side stage has nothing to do with dealy - its about communication...a lot easier to make a "more vocals in my monitor" gesture to a guy 10 feet away, than a guy 50 ft away in a dark room...

Agreed.  I'm a contracted Midas Engineer and am currently training on Digi's Icon Systems and have been running FOH for over 8 years.  Also have been taping on-stage 2ch and 4ch mixes for instrumental bands (ie Vinyl, Kimock, Redman, etc.) for a while, too.

I'm just a little baffled about this "bring  your snake" idea.  As a engineer, I'd scratch my head if I saw that and think to myself, "Now, I've seen it all!"

And as far as all this delay talk...

Every good...great...engineer uses delays all over the house:  Wedges, IFB, near field FOH, etc, etc.  It's not necessary, really, or I should say it's not critical.  But it sure gives everyone from the crew, stage hands, and artists to all feel like they are on the same wavelength, sonically.  It makes a huge difference and it adds that much more to the professionality and integrity of the engineers on hand doing what they know best.
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hexyjones

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #37 on: March 22, 2005, 08:56:20 AM »
Right - but remember - this hobby is not limited to recording the likes of Kimock, Vinyl, Panic, etc...Your talking about a very different situation...I'm not that dumb - I wouldnt show up at Kimock show with a snake...

I never tape stuff like that(not that I wouldn't if I chose to go to a show)

I am more interested in whats happening regionally and locally- college bands. You have better access to the band and can make better tapes...plus you can stumble on to some good bands - and its a lot cheaper! The regional scene is hot in the Harrisburg, PA area at moment...IMO.

So - there is no FOH - no one I would call a true engineer - more like "soundman" and smallish PA...half the time I have to tell the soundguy this and that...(I've done a ton of club/frat stuff in the past - not huge PAs - 24 - 3 way)

I'd probably tape them a few times - make some contact - and then show up with the snake...

I dont have a snake - but I have my eye out for one..I havent really had a need yet...
« Last Edit: March 22, 2005, 08:58:02 AM by corkscrew »

Offline dklein

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #38 on: March 22, 2005, 11:26:11 AM »
This actually makes a lot of sense, and not to exactly sync up the sounds, either, but rather to make sure that you hear the sound from the stage first.  This is the same concept used in amplifying broadway shows.  Did you ever notice at a play that the dialog always sounds like it's coming from the actor or actress despite large sound reinforcement speakers hanging all around the theater?  Why doesn't the dialog sound like it's coming from the speakers?  They're certainly louder than the actor/actress on stage.  The answer is in the way the human ear works.  If you hear the same sound from two different sources, with one slightly delayed from the other, the sound appears to come from the direction of the first source, but appears to be at the volume of the loudest source.  Therefore, if you have reinforcement speakers around a broadway theater, but you make sure they're delayed (and the delay can be < 10 ms for this to work) enough to be "behind" the sound coming from the actor's mouth, the dialog appears to come from the stage but at the volume of the reinforcement speakers. 

fyi - this is known as the Haas effect and is usually good to about 25ms.  Any greater than that and the brain perceives 2 separate sources.  Any less and the brain blends the sound, with location based on the first to arrive.

Kwon - thanks for the info.  Always good to hear from the guys making the sound.

Corkscrew - is that a snake in your pants or are you just happy...  ;)
« Last Edit: March 22, 2005, 11:27:45 AM by dklein »
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Offline mmmatt

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #39 on: March 22, 2005, 11:49:56 AM »
dklien... you always end up being right ya bastard!  Kwon, thanks for the info... Never thought that there would be that much thought ever put into innerstage delay issues.  As for the snake thing... I don't own a snake, but I cary enough cord to wrap around most venues.  A large duffle bag full of cords, power strips, adaptors, etc.  Between that, my mixer, my lappy, my stands, and my mics, I make at least 2 trips to the car when I do a multi or a matrix.  Crazy looks sometimes, but more times than not I get the red carpet with venue holding doors and carying my bags for me.  FOH engineers are usually impressed that I have every cord/adaptor known to man and I have gotten compliments from some saying how impressed they were at my preparedness and my rig.  The only reason I don't have a snake is because my cords are usuable in different ways and as a snake they are just a snake.
     That being said, this has been an informative thread for me.  I like it when I learn something new.

Matt
I do think taping is the reality of the business..it is also an impetus for artists to create studio CDs that are ART, not just another recording...    Fareed Haque  2-4-2005




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Offline Tim

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #40 on: March 22, 2005, 12:57:20 PM »

Agreed.  I'm a contracted Midas Engineer and am currently training on Digi's Icon Systems and have been running FOH for over 8 years.  Also have been taping on-stage 2ch and 4ch mixes for instrumental bands (ie Vinyl, Kimock, Redman, etc.) for a while, too.

I'm just a little baffled about this "bring  your snake" idea.  As a engineer, I'd scratch my head if I saw that and think to myself, "Now, I've seen it all!"

And as far as all this delay talk...

Every good...great...engineer uses delays all over the house:  Wedges, IFB, near field FOH, etc, etc.  It's not necessary, really, or I should say it's not critical.  But it sure gives everyone from the crew, stage hands, and artists to all feel like they are on the same wavelength, sonically.  It makes a huge difference and it adds that much more to the professionality and integrity of the engineers on hand doing what they know best.

+T Robert

good to see a real pro in here giving his opinion and perhaps dispelling some myths
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Offline mmmatt

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #41 on: March 22, 2005, 01:27:52 PM »


Agreed.  I'm a contracted Midas Engineer
BTW, I've heard that the midas consoles are the cat's ass.  supposed to be some of the best onboard pre's $$ can buy.  Care to share your thoughts?

Matt
I do think taping is the reality of the business..it is also an impetus for artists to create studio CDs that are ART, not just another recording...    Fareed Haque  2-4-2005




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Offline Kwonfidelity

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #42 on: March 22, 2005, 01:40:08 PM »


Agreed.  I'm a contracted Midas Engineer
BTW, I've heard that the midas consoles are the cat's ass.  supposed to be some of the best onboard pre's $$ can buy.  Care to share your thoughts?

Matt

You'll never get me to shut up!   ;D

The best in the business. And for road crews it makes it a ton easier.  People are realizing that touting around a Midas will sometimes completely eliminate the need to have an amp rack.  And when I make my rounds to new Midas users, people of all ages can all look the same - a kid at a candy store.  It's the equivalent of...say...going from 16bit to 24bit.  No looking back...

But even better, the new Icon from Digi, and it's brother Venue for live apps on the market now, you can effectively eliminate the effects rack.

Both without compromising any quality.

Eh, successfully hijacked another thread  ::)
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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #43 on: March 22, 2005, 01:52:09 PM »
so I'm guessing you like the Icon...  I haven't had a chance to get my hands on one yet, but I am hoping to play soon.  The only downside to it in my book, is that Digidesign makes it  :P 
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Offline mmmatt

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Re: Delay in Matrix Recording?
« Reply #44 on: March 22, 2005, 04:09:51 PM »


Agreed.  I'm a contracted Midas Engineer
BTW, I've heard that the midas consoles are the cat's ass.  supposed to be some of the best onboard pre's $$ can buy.  Care to share your thoughts?

Matt

You'll never get me to shut up!   ;D

The best in the business. And for road crews it makes it a ton easier.  People are realizing that touting around a Midas will sometimes completely eliminate the need to have an amp rack.  And when I make my rounds to new Midas users, people of all ages can all look the same - a kid at a candy store.  It's the equivalent of...say...going from 16bit to 24bit.  No looking back...

But even better, the new Icon from Digi, and it's brother Venue for live apps on the market now, you can effectively eliminate the effects rack.

Both without compromising any quality.

Eh, successfully hijacked another thread  ::)

the one I saw was running powered PA speakers (or so I thought), but that can be done with any board, right?  what do you mean by eliminating an amp rack?  Plese explain, I'm a little slow  :-\

Matt
I do think taping is the reality of the business..it is also an impetus for artists to create studio CDs that are ART, not just another recording...    Fareed Haque  2-4-2005




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