I recently screwed up a recording.
The artist was super quiet, both speaking, singing and playing. I would ordinarily set my Sony M-10 at 7 or 8 with this soft of a level.
However, the crowd was incredibly loud, with clapping and cheering after each track. I would have set my Sony at 4 or 4.5 tops for this type of level.
So if I set the recorder for the music, the clapping and cheering would be way above 0db and would obviously clip.
If I set the recorder so the clapping would not clip, the music would be barely audible.
As it stood, I went with my standard setting with is about 4.5 and the recording came out terrible. The claps were at -12 tops, but the music was like -24 or -36, barely audible and had to be boosted considerably, which amplified ambient noise to an annoying level.
My opinion is that I should have set the recorder for the music and simply dealt with the clipping in post. Compress it, reduce the volume, fade it out, whatever.
Ideas? I've not encountered this phenomenon before. Thanks in advance for any help in future recordings like this