Topic: Taping in Mono rooms

[ducati]

Thanks Marc, great info!

I wish people wouldn't pan keyboards L/R.  It's not very often you have a keyboard in the center of the stage, and it's annoying to me when they're panned across the soundstage.  MMW does this to varying degrees every time I've seen them.  It's annoying on the tapes, because it doesn't fit what you "saw" visually at the show...  And it's tough to get your brain's filters to recreate the event as you saw it.  

Drums are usually not as distracting panned across the soundfield, since they're usually in the center of the stage anyway...

I know the idea of the guy mixing isn't to recreate the soundstage as it "looks" but I wish they would!!  

[Marc Nutter]

Hi Ducati and All,

I understand your point.  It is certainly another aspect of the dilemma in choosing stereo vs. mono.

The way you suggest is how The Grateful Dead did it, but not how most do these days.  While the idea of putting all the sounds of an instrument in its place according to the stage seems like a cool idea, and it worked with The (Original) Dead, it certainly pushes the issue of compromising listeners outside of the coverage area.  In this case however, it is the entire instrument that would be lower in level as opposed to only reducing the section that is panned the other side.

As far as keyboards are concerned, the output is often stereo.  How wide they are panned is the mixers choice.

Happy Recording,

Marc

[DaryanLenz]

Marc...you really should hang out and answer questions more often, your responses are always very informative.  Now go sell some stuff

Daryan

[greenone]

Don't encourage him, D...not if he's working on a Blues Traveler BitTorrent. Or as we're calling it on blackcat, a BT².

--Dave

[Marc Nutter]

Add to the list of bands that run a stereo mix:

Meshuggah

-A

Hi All,

Following Monday night's Trey shows, it's safe to say we can certainly add Trey Anastasio Band to the list of those running in stereo.

Paul is actually spreading the horns across the stage (panning), as well as spacing rack/floor toms, and full left/right split of overheads.  While I discussed the recording system with him, I did not inquire about stereo/mono for Phish.  

Happy Recording Everybody,

Marc

[wboswell]

How's about you enlighten us as to how they are doing the recording!  Just curious as to what info you got out of him.  I haven't seen any info on what kind of mix/system/mics they are using.  I remember hearing something about 414's being run omni on stage, but thats about it.

Thanks!

[Marc Nutter]

How's about you enlighten us as to how they are doing the recording!  Just curious as to what info you got out of him.  I haven't seen any info on what kind of mix/system/mics they are using.  I remember hearing something about 414's being run omni on stage, but thats about it.

Thanks!

HI wboswell and All,

I can't offer any great enlightenment.  I think the following is repetitive of something on Digi-Phish several months ago.  

Basically, Paul is using a Pro Tools LE system on one of those cute, really little Macs with OSX and an M-Box.  He is taking a feed into an Apogee PSX-100SE at 24/88.2kHz, utilizing Apogee Bit Splitting into a Tascam DA-78.  The signal is split (I suspect before the PSX-100) and goes into the M-Box and onto Pro Tools at 24/44.1kHz.

I didn't inquire about the use of house or audience feedback mics.  The only mic up at FOH was the Smaart/Earthworks M30 that we use for system readings.

It was nice to hear that the Mac is very stable with 24-bit via the USB.

Happy Recording,

Marc

[wboswell]

Thanks for the info Marc.  Nice to hear something (relatively) from the horse's mouth.

About the Mac being stable @ 24bits, which I have read that it wasn't, does 88.2 kHz make it more stable than 96kHz?  Just curious as to why they chose that freq. over the more common 96.

Not that I have ever taped anything at those resolutions...  I'm just trying to absorb a little info.

An outsider looking in... William

[Marc Nutter]

Thanks for the info Marc.  Nice to hear something (relatively) from the horse's mouth.

About the Mac being stable @ 24bits, which I have read that it wasn't, does 88.2 kHz make it more stable than 96kHz?  Just curious as to why they chose that freq. over the more common 96.

Not that I have ever taped anything at those resolutions...  I'm just trying to absorb a little info.

An outsider looking in... William

Not being a Mac user, I can't comment on stability but with the numerous Pro Tools users out there, and PT being native Mac, I would expect it to behave weel.

The Pro Tools M-Box only supports 44.1kHz and 48kHz.  The 88.2kHz is going to the Tascam DA-78 multitrack recorder which is taking all eight tracks to store the 24-bit/88.2kHz data.  

88.2kHz is often preferred by professional recordists under the idea that it is easier and more accurate to downsample to 44.1kHz for CD releases.

I don't think it would be of any significant advantage where bandwith of an device input is concerned.  If you want to go high-resolution with DVD in mind, 96kHz would be preferrable, albeit not necessarily of that great of a sonic benefit over 88.2kHz.

Happy Recording,

Marc

[scb]

>>About the Mac being stable @ 24bits, which I have read that it wasn't<<

24 bit has worked fine over USB on the mac for quite some time now, i started doing it in 2001....

That was in OS 9.  OS X has introduced some issues because (i'm guessing here) some companies rushed to get their stuff X compatible instead of working out the bugs