Topic: "Matrix" Two R-09HR Recordings?

[Tapehead]

I want to combine two recordings, from two R-09HR's - one placed close to a singing choir, and the other back a ways and pointing up, to get the hall's natural acoustics, so I can decide later how much room sound to mix in. The venues are nice halls and churches, so I don't want to use some yucky reverb effect. They are recording sessions, not concerts, so I can clap or something before the start of each song, and afterwards the two waveforms could hopefully be aligned on an editing screen. Is sync-drift a problem over the course of a five-minute song, or doesn't this matter? It will be a whirlwind trip and I don't want to buy a 4-track recorder and run cables all over the place. Has anyone done this?

[Brian Skalinder]

Yes, sync drift will be an issue.  How big of one, you'll find out when you try to sync two sources. Check the Computer forum's sticky post for threads on how to mix two or more sources in post.

[Tapehead]

Thanks, Brian, I'll have a look.

[stantheman1976]

For a single 5 minute song the drift will probably be so small you might not even notice it.  When you get into loner recordings, even when using the same type of device for both, you'll see noticeable drift.  Anytime you're using digital devices any drift should be constant though and easily adjusted.

[Tapehead]

Good to hear, Stan.

[Walstib62]

It's possible that since you have 2 of the same recorders, there may not be enough drift to cause a problem. Like Brian said, you will find out when you try to line them up. Like a lot of things, it is a pain the first couple of times, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy.

[cintana1]

I want to combine two recordings, from two R-09HR's - one placed close to a singing choir, and the other back a ways and pointing up, to get the hall's natural acoustics, so I can decide later how much room sound to mix in. The venues are nice halls and churches, so I don't want to use some yucky reverb effect. They are recording sessions, not concerts, so I can clap or something before the start of each song, and afterwards the two waveforms could hopefully be aligned on an editing screen. Is sync-drift a problem over the course of a five-minute song, or doesn't this matter? It will be a whirlwind trip and I don't want to buy a 4-track recorder and run cables all over the place. Has anyone done this?

I have done this many times using 2 R-09s (first edition) and had no problem with sync drift.  YMMV.

[nicegrin]

I´ve made matrices from two different R09-HR and found them EXTREMELY close in clock frequency.
(They were off by less than 0.001 seconds after 90 min! which isn´t noticable at all!)

In general do like this:
 
Take both recordings and line them up in multitrack mode.  Allign the sources in the beginning at some point x (so they are alligned with a difference less than 0.001 of a second!). Measure the difference in the end of the recording (denote the location of a certain point in source 1 with y and the same point in the other source by z (measure these points as accurately as possible!).  Calculate the ratio  (y-x)/(z-x) and stretch source 2 by this factor, then re-allign the sources around point x again. DONE!   

BR,
N. 

 

[aaronji]

^^^ Sorry to take this off-topic, but, nicegrin, can you elaborate a little on the "Nevaton MCE400s (miniplug modded!)" in your signature line?  What was done and who did it and how are they working out???