Topic: Brickwalled

[travelinbeat]

Recently taped a show here in DC and stood in front of the stacks with my CAFS-OMNI's > CA-UGLY Pre > R-09HR.  I was brickwalling the whole show, and since it was a stealth gig, I had no opportunity to pull out a screw driver in order to adjust the levels on the pre.  My question though, is would adjusting the levels on the pre have helped me at all, or was the problem elsewhere in the lineage (eg: mics unable to hand such loud dB's). 

It's a venue I'm frequently at, and I'd love to be able to run this set up again, but not at the cost of having another unlistenable recording.

Thanks in advance
-Brian

[Belexes]

I'd try again and use the 9100 pre so that you can adjust the gain on the fly if need be.  This may solve the problem.

[page]

I'd try again and use the 9100 pre so that you can adjust the gain on the fly if need be.  This may solve the problem.

I concur, the odds that your mics were the limitation is slim. Whats the max db rating on the omnis?

[fmaderjr]

I'd try again and use the 9100 pre so that you can adjust the gain on the fly if need be.  This may solve the problem.

This is why I much prefer the ST-9100 to the UGLY and I don't find it too large to stealth with.

How much gain did you have dialed in, anyway? You only need a battery box for stack taping. If you don't have one and can find out the 0 dB setting on the UGLY, set it to that. I don't think it's 11:00 like the ST-9100. I tried to test for what it was on my UGLY and came up with a very low figure-approximately 8:30.

[travelinbeat]

I was figuring it was probably the signal from the CA-UGLY; I certainly appreciate seeing that you all agree so far!

I don't know what made me decide to bring the UGLY over the 9100, as I have both... must've just wanted to get some "miles" in on my new toy =)

I'm not sure about the dB rating on the CAFS; any guesses as to what the stacks would be at The Black Cat in DC or a similar ~1,000 person capacity club?

[fmaderjr]

I'm not sure about the dB rating on the CAFS

All of Chris' mics are designed to handle a very high SPL. High enough to handle stack taping at a show loud enough that most people would wear ear plugs. But you don't want to amplify the signal going into your recorder when doing this. Doing this may still put out too hot a signal for some recorders to handle or even cause the peamp to brickwall.

I like the ST-9100 because you can also easily attenuate the singal being fed to the recorder if need be. The UGLY can attenuate also, but it is very hard to change levels on the fly as you have found out.

[Church-Audio]

Recently taped a show here in DC and stood in front of the stacks with my CAFS-OMNI's > CA-UGLY Pre > R-09HR.  I was brickwalling the whole show, and since it was a stealth gig, I had no opportunity to pull out a screw driver in order to adjust the levels on the pre.  My question though, is would adjusting the levels on the pre have helped me at all, or was the problem elsewhere in the lineage (eg: mics unable to hand such loud dB's). 

It's a venue I'm frequently at, and I'd love to be able to run this set up again, but not at the cost of having another unlistenable recording.

Thanks in advance
-Brian

If your taping a loud show you should set the preamp to no more then 80% of the total gain. Or travel of the pots. the cafs mics are hot output mics and don't need allot of gain.

Chris

[Belexes]

I like the idea brought up above of just using a battery box.

This failed for me the last time I used a bb at a loud show (distorted), but I was using UAT853 omni's.  You should be fine with Chris' mics.