Topic: I taped the Faint at Webster's Hall, NYC and have some Q's...

[George]

The first night sounds wonderful, i used my at943's and i stood on the balcony on the right side towards the back.  Saturday night i decided to use my Audix and was on the main floor and um...THERE'S FUCKING BRICKWALLING!   I used the same recorder (m1) and the same preamp (mv100) with the gain set to 40 on both nights.  The levels on Saturday nights are definitely brickwalling because they are staying put at around -2 and barely budge when the music is blaring.  I cannot believe there's brickwalling, the music was very bass heavy (to the point where my pants were shaking) but i'm a bit taken aback by what happened with the recording.  The batteries for the mv100 only had an hour logged on them before Saturday's show and the preamp never lit up in regards to low battery.  I imagine the preamp and the gain setting is the problem but i cannot grasp why it brickwalled.   Oh well, at least the setlist was identical and the Friday show sounds great...kinda feel deflated right now as i've been have more misses than hits with taping 

[Zaphod]

Yeah most likely the Audix mics have a much hotter output than the AT mics, resulting in the brickwalling. That sucks, I know it's happend to me before!

[zhianosatch]

yep, probably should have cranked the beyer down a bit.
buck up, don't worry!

[George]

 

Thanks guys.  I was thinking about it today and figured it must be the mics and its guts that didn't like how hot i was running the preamp.  I can definitely chalk this up as a learning experience and now i know what brickwalling looks like on a meter.