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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: pohaku on November 25, 2017, 03:14:35 PM
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I guess this goes here.
I went to record a show last night at an unfamiliar venue. While the sound guy was willing to give me a board feed, the board was located behind a curtain behind the band. He was , of course, controlling the board with an iPad from elsewhere in the room. Great technology for being able to hear the room and make adjustments to the PA. Not so great if you want a board feed and your recorder and mics are set up across the room from the band.
Anybody got a reasonable technology fix for this? I know the video guys have all kinds of wireless devices that they use, including multichannel devices. Near as I can tell, the pro stuff like Lectrosonics would probably work, but it is, of course, priced like SD and Zax. I was wondering if there was any other decent and affordable alternative anyone could recommend?
I can see this happening more frequently and it would be nice to have a fix.
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We have a few stages here that employ the iPad wireless method. The boards themselves have hotspots the sound tech can connect to. It's a great system for them.
I get them to give me a split off the main FOH outs and bring it to our booth via copper -- long balanced cable with XLR connectors on it. I found that it's the rare sound tech indeed that does any panning, so the feed is mono, saving us the need to run separate left 'n' right cables.
This answer isn't likely to be very helpful. Copper is dependable and cheap but a pain in the butt to haul and rig. It's what we're doing right now. Hopefully someone will chime in with an affordable wireless low-latency hi-fi mono (at least) link thingy that could be plugged into the sound board's headphone out or main split and get a line-level receive of the sound board's audio to plug into a recorder. 500mW FM transmitter and a transistor radio?
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I could plug my dr22wl into the soundboard and control it with my android tablet maybe 30 feet away using the internal router. If i get too far away, i lose control, but the recording keeps going. Guess I could use a battery powered router to extend the range.
IMO, the f8 and its competitors would have been even more useful in the scenario you are discussing if they had included control via wifi instead of Bluetooth because of the longer range of WiFi.
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I never thought of it until now- what about a pair of low-latency bluetooth transceivers? https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B01IV1H1ME/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512767461&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=bluetooth+receiver+3.5mm&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B01IV1H1ME/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512767461&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=bluetooth+receiver+3.5mm&psc=1)
Using the appropriate adapters, connect one to the sbd out (in transmit mode) and the other to your deck's line-in (in receive mode). The batteries are rated for 20 hours, and they make models with a 65 foot range. Is there any reason this won't work?
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Yeah, this could be a good option. Bluetooth and wifi and other wireless device manufacturers often overstate the usable range, so that's worth considering. And how the device sounds -- who know? Might not be any worse than your usual live music venue sound board. Let us know!
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Interesting. I wonder what the fidelity of that unit is? Actual range might be an issue. I agree that manufacturers seem to overpromise in that arena. I wonder what other competitive options are out there?
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I run my soundboard with an iPad. There is no audio going to or from the iPad though, I'm just able to adjust the settings as needed. Something like this here (https://www.altoproaudio.com/products/stealth-wireless) might be an option for what you're looking for.
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Can you plug a USB stick into the mixer and record.
Most of the units I have seen (Behringer XR series, for example) have USB recording.
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Varies from mixer to mixer even within Behringer's product line. XR12 and XR16 record direct to USB stick. XR16 records via USB to a computer. 32 series only recently got the option for a USB stick recording card.
Maybe the new Sound devices mixpre series have consistent enough clocks that multiple decks could be sync'd or at least have minimal drift.
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Can you plug a USB stick into the mixer and record.
Most of the units I have seen (Behringer XR series, for example) have USB recording.
Many of the newer boards do have that feature, but I would prefer a feed to my deck so that everything is synced up to start with.
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I never thought of it until now- what about a pair of low-latency bluetooth transceivers? https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B01IV1H1ME/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512767461&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=bluetooth+receiver+3.5mm&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B01IV1H1ME/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512767461&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=bluetooth+receiver+3.5mm&psc=1)
Using the appropriate adapters, connect one to the sbd out (in transmit mode) and the other to your deck's line-in (in receive mode). The batteries are rated for 20 hours, and they make models with a 65 foot range. Is there any reason this won't work?
Range limitations,
Lesser sound quality
Dropouts
Even high-end wireless transmitter systems used for mics, wireless guitar rigs, etc, do not have the fidelity of a copper run.
Using snake lines or moving your mics onstage to pair with the soundboard are your best bets
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Can you plug a USB stick into the mixer and record.
Most of the units I have seen (Behringer XR series, for example) have USB recording.
Many of the newer boards do have that feature, but I would prefer a feed to my deck so that everything is synced up to start with.
There's the easy way and the hard way, lol.
For reliability, plug a USB stick in and record.
Or plug a portable stereo recorder and start it ahead of time.
By the way, if you do mix on the fly,
I noticed a nice feature on the Tascam DR70 unit.
You record four tracks and delay the channels.
A very nice feature...
Good luck with your project ...
Richard
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Still an issue trying to do a matrix recording when you then have two unsynced sources. I am trying to avoid having to match them up in post when they won't be locked together and one or the other sources may drift. I was hoping there was a reasonably affordable wireless technology fix available, but perhaps not.
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If price is not an issue, you could go for an ENG-style wireless tx/rx package, like this:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/794316-REG/Sennheiser_2000ENG_SK_A_2000ENG_SK_Portable_Wireless_Bodypack.html
i'm sure you could find a decent used set for about half the cost of those ones.
Both are battery powered. Place one at the board, one at your recorder. That's all you'd need.
Sennheiser lists those units at 25-20000Hz, which is pretty good. Lesser quality wireless units, especially bluetooth, will suffer from too much latency, worse freq. response, and poor companding.
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I've been looking at similar devices. I'd love the Lectrosonics D4 system (4 channel digital), but a transmitter and receiver would run @ $4,000 new. Looking at the Sony UTX P03 transmitter and URX P03D two channel receiver which run about $1,400 new for two transmitters and the receiver. Not quite the performance of the Lectrosonics, but perhaps adequate for PA recording.
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Still an issue trying to do a matrix recording when you then have two unsynced sources. I am trying to avoid having to match them up in post when they won't be locked together and one or the other sources may drift. I was hoping there was a reasonably affordable wireless technology fix available, but perhaps not.
If you don't want to deal with the delay thing or syncing up 2 sources. I don't. The answer is simple. Run mics on stage and run the cords to where the board is. That sort of thing has always worked out good for me. I like having the sound guy send me a feed from the snake to the stage and record from there. That usually requires a pair of female to female barrel XLR's @ the board and a pair of male to male XLR's to get from the stage snake to my deck. Don't forget about asking if there are 2 spare channels in the snake for you to use. It can make the impossible possible. You guys know all this though!!!
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Still an issue trying to do a matrix recording when you then have two unsynced sources. I am trying to avoid having to match them up in post when they won't be locked together and one or the other sources may drift. I was hoping there was a reasonably affordable wireless technology fix available, but perhaps not.
If you don't want to deal with the delay thing or syncing up 2 sources. I don't. The answer is simple. Run mics on stage and run the cords to where the board is. That sort of thing has always worked out good for me. I like having the sound guy send me a feed from the snake to the stage and record from there. That usually requires a pair of female to female barrel XLR's @ the board and a pair of male to male XLR's to get from the stage snake to my deck. Don't forget about asking if there are 2 spare channels in the snake for you to use. It can make the impossible possible. You guys know all this though!!!
If it is doable I usually do this the other way around. Send my onstage mics back through the snake to the board and get a patch there. Less turnarounds and adapters. Wireless would be sweet though...