Topic: Why did my recording fail ?

[Arni99]

Seems you overloaded your line-input stage with too much signal from the external preamp.
No matter how you set the leves on the recorder, it will clip anyway in this situation.

[Belexes]

Seems you overloaded your line-input stage with too much signal from the external preamp.
No matter how you set the leves on the recorder, it will clip anyway in this situation.

I agree. Not sure on the Aerco, but my Church Audio pre has a spiffy led that goes red if I am overloading into the preamp.  If it goes red, I know to back off on the gain of the pre.

[Dede2002]

Seems you overloaded your line-input stage with too much signal from the external preamp.
No matter how you set the leves on the recorder, it will clip anyway in this situation.

I agree. Not sure on the Aerco, but my Church Audio pre has a spiffy led that goes red if I am overloading into the preamp.  If it goes red, I know to back off on the gain of the pre.

OK. If that was the problem, how come he had to set his input level at 70 to produce only
-12db to -6db rec level?

[datbrad]

What I don't understand is why the levels were not showing the overload.

It sounds like you could be over driving the active electronics between the line input and the gain control, and because your levels stay in acceptable range, you are falsely led to think everything is just fine. Unfortunately, you only find out after you get home what happened. I don't understand how you would get this running gain so high on the recorder, meaning the gain from the pre was not too hot to handle. Seems weird, unless you were going mic in instead of line in, as someone else suggested.

[bluntforcetrauma]

From my set ups I have the sonosax pre running shyof 20db and the edriol r-09 set at 7.  Yes only 7.  i used this setting for VAN halen, RUSH, etc.  usually around the 12th row floor.  if your setting your pre at 20db no way should the HR be that high.  AGain i am running the sonosax at 16db and the edirol at 7 and still i get close to clipping.

[boyacrobat]

setting mic gain to low on ro9 will do nothing for your line in rec levels.
different inputs they are independant from one another.

to surf +20 a pro you must be.
you will become one

g

 

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

Last night I tested my new set up. ...
According to my levels I was not peaking at all. ...
My problem was distortion. ...
Any bass at all is just simply distorted. ...
Ideas ? Sugestions ? Thoughts ?

You provide all the evidence necessary to point to mic pre-amp overload as the problem (popularly known as "brickwalling").  When the level controls in your recorder or pre-amp are physically after the gain stage, the gain stage can overload into distortion.  You can reduce it's already distorted output levels so that the meters show a reasonably low level.  They can fool you badly that way.

For 16-bit recording, the solution is to start with the lowest sensitivity switchable gain setting (Low instead of High) and low settings on the variable gain control, then slowly increase levels until you get close to clipping, and then back them off.

For 24-bit recording, you never have to get anywhere near clipping (0 dB) to record with a wide dynamic range -- after all you have more than 120 dB of range and most live concerts have less than 60 dB dynamic range -- so be very conservative.  You can always boost levels later (without adding any noise) in your computer.

[unclelouie]

It sounds to me as though the mics can't handle the SPLs.  The "Any bass at all is just simply distorted..." comment makes me think this.

I had a similar issue when stealthing Frampton & Tull this summer.  I did a low sensitivity mod to my homebrew omnis and voila! problem solved.



 

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

It sounds to me as though the mics can't handle the SPLs.  The "Any bass at all is just simply distorted..." comment makes me think this.

I had a similar issue when stealthing Frampton & Tull this summer.  I did a low sensitivity mod to my homebrew omnis and voila! problem solved.

Most of the energy at amplified concerts is in the bass -- that's why the problem first manifests there.

If you used an attenuator cable between the mics and the recorder's mic pre-amp input, you likely would have experienced the same relief in distortion.