Topic: My first tape (help)

[MATTZS]

Thank you all in advance for the help. I taped my first show off the sound board at a local club. It doesn't sound good, it was mixed mono panned left, the vocals were far to high, the kick drum distorts. I was using a D8 level was down to 4 , read hear not to go below that because it adds its own distortion, plugged into the tape out. Now I don't recall the show sounding as bad as the recording (levels like they are) Did I screw something up, or is it totaly the sound board mix. Also Is there a DB reducer for knocking the levels down, how about a mono spliter type thing or is it better to just convert the one track stereo to two track mono on my computer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

[InfiniteOhms]

SBDs in a club usualy suck arse ... To iprove your tapes the obveous step is to get some mics but if the club has a regular sound guy and he is realy realy nice ... you may be able to get him to mix you a seperate mix / get acces to make a seperate mix ... this would involve either using a Aux Channel on the main mixer (which the sound guy would probibly do himself) OR letting you plug into the individual channel outs (note: not all boards have these) then you would be doing the mix yourself and would need ~$100 worth of equipment (cheapo beringer mixer and patch cables)

[Brian Skalinder]

Yeah, small club mixes often aren't great for recording.  If you're receiving a mono feed, I don't think it matters whether you split the signal to both channels pre-D8, or if you do it in post on your PC.  Either way, it's still a mono recording.

Were you recording mic-in or line-in on your D8?  I believe brickwalling is only an issue when running mic-in, but I could be wrong.

[MATTZS]

Ran it line in. Please excuse my ignorance, mics will have no problem with a very loud show? This was a metal show.

[InfiniteOhms]

Any decent mic can handle a metal show ... crappy sony mics cant though. If your looking at mic stats, the stat your looking for is called "max SPL" (SPL = Sound Pressure Level) ... parhaps someone could chime in with what kind of SPL would be expected at a LOUD show ?  My guess is between 110-125, but i could be wwwaaaayyyy off.

[InfiniteOhms]

and when i spoke of "crappy sony mics" i spoke of the ECM-MS907, which has a max SPL of 110.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/product/150434/SOECMMS907/REG/1458