Topic: SBD/AUD matrix How do I do it?

[Gr8ful98]

Hey y'all,
  I've made a few attempts at recording via SBD & AUD. I'm getting mixed feedback from folks. I need some help & clarification on a few things.  And please, talk to me like I'm in kindergarden. Most of the terms & equiptment are foreign to me. I'm a newbie trying to learn from more experienced tapers.

Here's my setup:
SBD>RCA>Dmod UA5>  then  C4>XLR>Dmod UA5>
those are my input sources, then from the UA5 it's optical out to my JB3.

Folks are saying that I need a mixer.  Or that I need to record the SBD & the AUD seperately, and put them together post show with software. What kind of mixer do I need?  How should I record the 2 sources seperatley?

One show I recorded like that, with my mics about 20 feet from the stage & it came out AMAZING!
2 other shows I recorded like that came out good to my ears, but more experienced tapers say that there are problems with
"MIXING and TIME ALIGNING"  How do I mix a show like that?  How do I "time align" a show?

Any help would be much apprecitated.  THANKS!

[John P]

http://taperssection.com/index.php?action=search

[Diamond_D]

I will give this a stab, but I'm sure others can give you more detailed information.

Your alignment issue is probably coming from the slight delay between when the sound is fed through the soundboard, and when it comes out of the speakers and travels to your mics. If you were to record your audience and soundboard tracks seperately, you could then open them both up in an audio editing program and align them perfectly. The problem with doing them seperately is that you need a 2nd recorder, and matching the audio up is not as easy as it may sound from two different recording devices (but that issue is covered elsewhere). One thing you can try is moving your mics onstage if possible, which should reduce the delay. Or, see if you can duplicate what you did for the "amazing" sounding tape you made.

[Ray76]

If you need help doing it after youve recorded seperately, I will be glad to help bud.

Ray

[slightlys]

It could be the feed from the SBD. If the sound guy does a shitty mixing job and your patching of his mix it could explain why the levels a screwed up

[mmmatt]

The time aligning issue, as stated before, is because of delay.  A certain amount of delay is undetectable.  Delay is based on the distance between your mics, and the PA stacks.  Up to about 30' back and you should be OK, any more than that and you will get an echo (like recording in a tunnel).  If you go 20' back or less, you can mix the two however you want, 20-30' back and you should favor 1 or the other(70% / 30% ish), 30-50 ft can be done without delay as well, but probably not without a mixer because monitoring and EQ are both important... that is tough one.
     As stated already you can go onstage with your mics and solve all the delay issues.  This is typically done by asking the FOH engineer to allow you to use his snake.  You will then need 2 pr xlr for your mics (1 pr to go from mics on stage to snake, and 1 to go from snake to ua-5), as well as whatever you need to patch the board.
     ua-5 can do this in a pinch, but you are far better off with a mixer.  I wrote a 20 pg how-to for the ts.com taping guide that never materialized and if you want to get a copy please feel free to PM me.  It is geared toward using a mixer, but good general info as well.

Matt
*edit* and yes... if the engineer gives a shitty mix, there isn't much you can do.  A typical (not shitty) mix will usually be lacking in some areas, and your mics will fill in the gaps nicely.  A shitty mix is where the engineer never stops fuckin with the dials, or even worse, has no ear.

[Gr8ful98]

Thanks for the input y'all.  SO, do I need a mixer to prevent the delay in sound that comes from having my mics more than 20 feet from the stage?  Or do I need some kind of "delay box". Or do I need both?

Also, can you guys please suggest a good product to use for this application. Maybe even a link to where I could find the gear?

Keep in mind...I've never seen or used either of these tools. Just wanna be able to pull a sweet recording next time I set up my mics & get a board patch.

Thanks Again

[mmmatt]

Thanks for the input y'all.  SO, do I need a mixer to prevent the delay in sound that comes from having my mics more than 20 feet from the stage?  Or do I need some kind of "delay box". Or do I need both?

Also, can you guys please suggest a good product to use for this application. Maybe even a link to where I could find the gear?

Keep in mind...I've never seen or used either of these tools. Just wanna be able to pull a sweet recording next time I set up my mics & get a board patch.

Thanks Again

If you are further than 20 ft from the pa you need to closely monitor the recording, further than 30ft and you will want to eq the bass down on the mics (The bass is where the delay gets REALLY anoying) AND keep the mics really low in the mix (this will allow the mics/delay to sound like a little bit of reverb) .  Some mixers have delay built in, and some guys use an outboard delay unit, and some guys will record mics and sbd seperately and delay the sbd feed in post when they remix.  I almost always go on stage... I feel that is usually the best.
     As for using a mixer... it is pretty easy.  The hard part is using your ears!  There are many types of mixers available, and I really like the Mackie ONYX line.  The pre's are spectacular and the board is very clean/dynamic all the way around.  I will be selling my 1220 (12 channel) to upgrade to a 1640 (16 channel) in the near future.

Matt

[wbrisette]

Also, can you guys please suggest a good product to use for this application. Maybe even a link to where I could find the gear?

Does everything you want:

http://www.zaxcom.com/audio/deva4.shtml

Oh, you want it at something under 10K.... Follow Matt's suggestions. If you can keep tracks separate, doing things in post is the way to go. However, there are some gottcha's there because unless you're doing multi-track recording via a laptop or something like the SD 744T or Zaxcom Deva, you're never going to be able to keep  the tracks separate. At most indoor venues, I don't have to use any delay (FYI, it's a built-in feature of the Deva). However recently I worked an outdoor venue and even with 20 ms of delay couldn't sync the soundboard feed to the mics (the good folks at Zaxcom have assured me that they can increase this to 40 ms in a future firmware revision which should take care of the issue).

If you can get a open pair of lines in the snake, then do as Matt suggested and put your mics on-stage, but realize again that if you're going to try to pull four feeds (actually most of the time you probably only need a single feed from the board, I have found that most feeds come in as mono -- which really hoses up the nice stereo image), you need a mixer or two devices (which can be very problematic when you try to align the audio).

There are also multple types of mixers. The type for field use is ENG mixers (SD 442, Cooper CS-104, Wendt X4/X5, and many others), these are used by sound crews doing video, film, news, reality TV shows, etc. They run off of batteries, are very light weight and provide hours of phantom power on AA and NP-1 style batteries. The problem with most of them is they don't provide the one thing you want, a delay. That's where the small studio mixers come in, they can provide you a delay, but the downside is you need A/C power, and you can't sling it over your shoulder and go. You need to really be in good with the sound crews at the venue to borrow AC and find a place to set the thing up.

I guess if I had any words of wisdom, they really would be to try to do the mixing in post and just keep the signals (soundboard and mics) separate.

Wayne

[Bdifr78]

Gr8ful98, I am converting your NMAS tape from jazzfest right now.  Can't wait to hear it!  I am an extereme newbie just like you and I have chosen the exact same rig.  Hopefully this will sound great and I can feel very confident about my gear when I officially start taping next weekend for Haymaker festival.  Now my taping skill, is another matter.   I know how to use my gear but thats about it.  Do you use the mount bar that comes with the C4s?  What mic configuration have you been using? 

Funny, I was just wondering the same exact thing about doing a matrix recording with the UA-5.  I guess we got our answer, it seems like its not a good idea to do it without some other equipment.  Thanks for postin this question and thanks for taping North Mississippi. 

Joe

[leehookem]

many people will say differently, but i've never liked the sound of hypers on stage (to brittle thin IMO).  DINa is what I have generally done, facing the band.  That all depends on what exactly is going through the sbd though.  The few times i've done a matrix, about half the band was coming through the soundboard, which is why i've had mics toward the band, to fill what was missing.

If everything is going through the board, and you just want ambient (crowd, room) noise, then towards the crowd is good. 

Split omnis are always nice too!

[mmmatt]

when runnin a sbd/aud matrix on my ua5, with the mics on stage, what direction do i point the mics?  out towards the crowd, or towards the band?  how high do i run them? also, i was thinking of running them in DINa config is that a good idea?

i am using gefell 210s (hypers)

thanks for help with these newbie matrix ?'s....

tim

The two most common ways to run stage mics in a matrix are to put them on the stage corners, facing the audience, turned slightly in toward the center of the room, or at center front stage facing the band.  you can also go behind the stage, or over the stage.
     If you face the audience, you should have the phase flipped on thoes mics.  You can make a +/- phase adaptor easily by making a short xlr mic cable (mine are about 2inches plus ends) and switching pins 2 and 3 on one end of the short cable.  I've done this type of micing without flipping the polarity and the difference is slight but there is a difference.  If you go on center stage you can use almost any stereo config, but it will be useless unless the band is using stage amplification.  That is to say, if they plug the instruments into a amp/speaker cabinet and then the FOH engineer is putting a mic in front of the cabinet.  Many bands just go straight into the board and there is no sound coming from the stage.  With a packed venue, center stage will still get you a lot of crowd responce between songs.  Center stage it is easy to add too much mic and wash out the vocals so be careful.  Here again without a mixer or at least a powerful headphone amp (svu-2 would be plenty) you should go stage corners as that is the most forgiving.  You would be surprised how much stage corner mics will fill the gaps of a sbd feed, and that is usualy the best way to ad "room" to the recording.  I have recently been micing both center stage and stage corners and that IMHO is the shit.

Matt