Topic: How to capture SBD recordings at shows?

[relefunt]

To address the OP, I have found that for Behringer X32 boards, the USB stick has to stay inserted after recording for a few seconds — an indicator light will blink until the file is finished writing to the USB stick. If it is removed before the blinking is finished, you will get a corrupted file that I do not believe can be recovered

Not sure if this is the answer for why it happened to you. I did want to warn folks about that in advance so they will know

[morst]

To address the OP, I have found that for Behringer X32 boards, the USB stick has to stay inserted after recording for a few seconds — an indicator light will blink until the file is finished writing to the USB stick. If it is removed before the blinking is finished, you will get a corrupted file that I do not believe can be recovered

Not sure if this is the answer for why it happened to you. I did want to warn folks about that in advance so they will know

It can usually be recovered, but I do NOT recommend it.
Make sure to remind anyone who might touch it to be sure the blinking has ceased before removing the drive.


Here are two stories of successful recovery via windows
https://soundforums.net/community/threads/how-to-salvage-recording-from-x32-usb-recorder.12829/
https://smartergeek.com/2014/12/lost-wav-on-behringer-0-bytes/
I have used the old app ZAR with success.


It's such a pain in the butt, I really prefer to let the light stop flashing!!!

[yltfan]

That's probably correct. I didn't realize those inputs were for mics only and that there was a difference between a microphone input and a line level feed. I'm still pretty new to taping, and it's still a lot of trial and error and learning from mistakes like this for me.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, or if your recorder even has phantom power - but since you are new to taping and getting board feeds, I wanted to pass on one small piece of advice - make sure you don't send phantom power to a board. It could cause damage.

[nicegrin]

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this, but I taped 4 shows yesterday, and was lucky enough to get a board feed for all 4. 3 were in one location, the 4th was in another.

In all 4 gigs, the feed was XLR straight from the board into an H4N, and my gain for all of them was set well below clipping. But during the shows I noticed that instead of the bars moving with the sound, like the channel my mics were on, they were maxed out at the level I had set below clipping. I mentioned it to the first sound guy, but I haven't gotten many board feeds in the past, and I was glad enough to have the feed, I didn't want to question what he was doing, especially while he's trying to mix the show. But then the same thing happened at the second location.

Sure enough, I transfer the files today, and the board feeds are all clipped out and unlistenable. Is this a situation where there was too much gain on their end on the board output? Or is it something I have set wrong on my H4N?

I had just had my H4N replaced by Zoom bc of the rubberized coating degrading, and I'm not sure if I put all my settings back the way they were before, but I think I had everything right on my end.

Just trying to figure this out for future situations like this.

You need to ask the soundguy to lower the output signal from the board by 10-20 dB. The output signal is always too hot for any recorder.
Try to sort this during soundcheck as it's unlikely he will prioritize you once the show has started.

[cajuntaper]

That's probably correct. I didn't realize those inputs were for mics only and that there was a difference between a microphone input and a line level feed. I'm still pretty new to taping, and it's still a lot of trial and error and learning from mistakes like this for me.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, or if your recorder even has phantom power - but since you are new to taping and getting board feeds, I wanted to pass on one small piece of advice - make sure you don't send phantom power to a board. It could cause damage.

I was at least aware of this. Definitely did not want to fry the board.

Thanks to all who have responded to my post in this thread. I picked up a couple attenuators and was able to successfully deploy them during the 50th Festivals Acadiens et Creoles a few weeks back. Haven't had time to sit down and process any of them yet, but upon first listen everything sounds great. Appreciate the help!

[nulldogmas]

Thanks to all who have responded to my post in this thread. I picked up a couple attenuators and was able to successfully deploy them during the 50th Festivals Acadiens et Creoles a few weeks back. Haven't had time to sit down and process any of them yet, but upon first listen everything sounds great. Appreciate the help!

Oh wow, that looks amazing! I got to see Cedric Watson back in September, and he was one of my highlights of the year.

[TheJez]

To address the OP, I have found that for Behringer X32 boards, the USB stick has to stay inserted after recording for a few seconds — an indicator light will blink until the file is finished writing to the USB stick. If it is removed before the blinking is finished, you will get a corrupted file that I do not believe can be recovered

Not sure if this is the answer for why it happened to you. I did want to warn folks about that in advance so they will know

Not sure if the OP is still reading this, but anyway... It does feel like the stick was removed before the file was properly closed. Hence it still is reported as a 0-byte file, as the mixing desk never had the chance to properly close the file and update the file size. Most of the samples will have been written to the stick, though! It's just that the 'file system administration' still reports it is an empty file. In situations like this I would always make a disk image of the stick (or SD card) and then open the disk image as 'raw audio' in my DAW to salvage any samples present. Doing it this way will make sure a corrupt file system will not hinder the salvation process. Creating the disk image should be done before anything else is done with the stick (e.g. storing/removing/moving files, repair attempts, formatting, whatever.) Some suggested the stick had an incorrect file system (NTFS iso FAT32). However, as the mixing desk was able to create a file in the first place, I guess it wasn't hindered by the fact that it was an NTFS stick. I do believe FAT32 has better compatibility with various mixing desks.