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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: AT853rxwh on May 06, 2004, 10:08:30 PM
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Got a AD20Mod coming (Thanks again John!) And I was wondering, what is the best way to get the levels set?
I understand L/R is seperate so that can be a bit of an issue, but also, for recording, where do you set yours? Using optical on the NJB3 I don't think I have to worry about any settings or do I?
Upgrading is FUN!
:iamwithstupid:
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I use as little gain as possible. At loud shows especially, if the gain is set high it has the potential to brickwall.
When you use the digital in on the JB3 doesn't it disable the meters? If so that's going to be a bitch to set right.
I still use an MD so monitoring is alright.
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I use as little gain as possible. At loud shows especially, if the gain is set high it has the potential to brickwall.
I think you mean clip, not brickwall. Nit-picky, I know... ;)
When you use the digital in on the JB3 doesn't it disable the meters? If so that's going to be a bitch to set right.
Nope, NJB3 meters are active regardless of mic-in/line-in/optical input.
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Is there a good way to try to get the levels the same l/r?
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I use as little gain as possible. At loud shows especially, if the gain is set high it has the potential to brickwall.
I think you mean clip, not brickwall. Nit-picky, I know... ;)
When you use the digital in on the JB3 doesn't it disable the meters? If so that's going to be a bitch to set right.
Nope, NJB3 meters are active regardless of mic-in/line-in/optical input.
Nit-picky? Nah, discernment is important to get information across in this medium. :) I didn't know of a difference in the two terms. Would you mind explaining?
Nice to know about the JB3 digital metering. I'm not sure where or who I heard it from that a digital input disables the meters.
As far as getting the channels equal....I just use my eyes and a little flashlight. But test it out at home and see how responsive the JB3 meters are to level tweeking. If it works you can just use the JB3 meters to see if your even with the gain.
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You probably meant that the ability to adjust the levels with the JB3 are disabled which is the case.
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I did read in an earlier version of the firmware that there were no meters, I think that is what he was referring to...
I guess if you are off on your estimate you can always pan l or r in sound forge to fix it...
Thanks again!
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watching your meters with a little flashlight and tweaking the gain knobs is the only way to go. I wouldn't mess with the internal gain on the AD-20. Usually, I prefer to run a slighly softer signal in, and boost the levels with sound forge. This way I avoid clipping and the associated distortion. I usually run the AD-20 with the gains turned all the way down, as it puts out 17db even at the lowest setting.
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Don't need a flashlight... Tap the power button twice for the light when locked.
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I use as little gain as possible. At loud shows especially, if the gain is set high it has the potential to brickwall.
I think you mean clip, not brickwall. Nit-picky, I know... ;)
When you use the digital in on the JB3 doesn't it disable the meters? If so that's going to be a bitch to set right.
Nope, NJB3 meters are active regardless of mic-in/line-in/optical input.
Nit-picky? Nah, discernment is important to get information across in this medium. :) I didn't know of a difference in the two terms. Would you mind explaining?
Nice to know about the JB3 digital metering. I'm not sure where or who I heard it from that a digital input disables the meters.
As far as getting the channels equal....I just use my eyes and a little flashlight. But test it out at home and see how responsive the JB3 meters are to level tweeking. If it works you can just use the JB3 meters to see if your even with the gain.
Here's what I see as the difference between the two:
Clip: going past -0- on your digital device
Brickwall: (pulled this off of Victor Yiu's D7/D8 page)
"Brickwalling occurs when the output of your microphones is too hot for the preamp you are using (either the deck's input or an outboard mic-line amp), which results in the preamp being overloaded. Most of the better condenser mics out there (AKG's B&K's, etc) are capable of output voltages higher than the mic inputs on, say, a D7 are equipped to handle. This will turn what could have been a terrific recording into a mudbath in a big hurry.
Fortunately, brickwalling is both easy to spot *and* easy to prevent: the name "brickwalling" stems from the fact that when this phenomenon occurs, the levels on the DAT deck will typically go right up to but never beyond a certain point, as if they're running into a "brick wall". Note that IT CAN AND WILL OCCUR WITH THE LEVELS SET *ANYWHERE*, this has NOTHING to do with going over zero, which is *digital* distortion; brickwalling is *analog* distortion, the same thing you get when you turn a cheap AM radio up too loud. You can get it with the levels set at -12, and it has nothing to do with where the record level knob is set!!
So, for example, if you're recording a show and see that the levels are always hovering right at or around -6dB and never go beyond it, no matter how intensly the band is playing, it's a pretty safe bet that the mic preamp of your deck isn't happy with what it's seeing. In the worst case, the recording will be unlistenable; in cases where the overloading is bad but not severe, the recording will sound really good during the quiet parts but will tend to get muddy-sounding during the louder stuff. So, for example, Fee will sound great, but the finale of
Bowie will sound muddy, garbled, trashy, etc. :D As I said, I have been seeing this on a *lot* of the recordings I've been getting lately, so I figured a word to the wise oughtta make a lot of people happy. :-)
So how do you stop it? Simple. Most of the good condensor mics out there also have attenuation pads, which will drop the output signal level of the of the mics down to where your mic preamp will be much happier (as will all of the people that listen to your tapes, including you! :-) So if you see this happening, all you've gotta do is switch the attenuator pads on your mics to the "-10dB" position (make sure you don't hit the rolloff switch by mistake!). Note: this will require you to set the record level knob up significantly higher to get good levels, but your recording will sound *tons* better. If you do this *and* maks sure that the levels don't go above zero, you'll be rewarded with much-better sounding tapes!
FYI, if you want to see what to look out for, play some of the
less-than-perfect sounding tapes in your collection while watching the levels. Assuming that good gear was used to record it, there's a pretty good chance you'll see the brickwalling effect." http://www.rockpark.com/d7/
Hope this helps. -drew
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Don't need a flashlight... Tap the power button twice for the light when locked.
yeah, but you run through your batteries faster that way. I would rather conserve JB3 batt. power and use AA batteries in my flashlight.
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about brick walling...
I run At853Rx > mp-2 > m1
I suspected I was having brickwall issues. Is it possible that my M1 can brickwall the line signal coming from the mp-2? I think I fixed the problem by lowering the gain on the mp-2 (8 o'clock) and just adjusting the levels on the M1, seems to work so far, but does this seem technically sound or even plausible?
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Don't need a flashlight... Tap the power button twice for the light when locked.
yeah, but you run through your batteries faster that way. I would rather conserve JB3 batt. power and use AA batteries in my flashlight.
just set the jb3 light to the minimum time (3 seconds i belive) that will conserve your battery time
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Brickwalling is more of an issue when going analog into a Sony portable DAT deck when you have you level set lower than 4, if you have to go lower than 4 to keep from going over you need to lower the level on the incomming signal.
I ran an AD-20 over 2 years and never got an over that was noticable during playback. Some shows that are really lould I would have to set levels at Zero and hope for the best because the levels were bouncing off of zero on my deck the entire show and those tapes usuallt sounded great.
I would get the occasional CLIP in sound forge when transfering the tape but nothing that you could hear during playback.
To me setting the levels LOW and than bousting them in Sound Forge is taking the wimpy way out. At 16 bit the best sounding tape is possible when you can take advantage of the most dynamic range possible, this is achieved by running you levels as "hot" as you can get away with.
My goal when taping a show is that when I do the transfer in Soundforge the max level on both Right and Left will be at 0 db. Ive only been able to pull this off a few times but I think it is a good goal to shoot for.
I would much rather have a tape that has a very minor CLIP in it because I went over for a fraction of a second, than to bring home a tape where the max level is -12 db and use an editing program to boost the levels. When you use sound forge or other edit programs to boost the levels of a low recording all you are really doing is the same thing that can be acclomished by turning up the volume on your playback system.
With an AD-20 you might not have a choice anyway because it has the minimum gain so high, So if you levels are bouncing close to Zero don't worry you will probably have a better sounding tape
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about brick walling...
I run At853Rx > mp-2 > m1
I suspected I was having brickwall issues. Is it possible that my M1 can brickwall the line signal coming from the mp-2? I think I fixed the problem by lowering the gain on the mp-2 (8 o'clock) and just adjusting the levels on the M1, seems to work so far, but does this seem technically sound or even plausible?
Yeah, I think Todd R or someone determined that that was the problem...
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I use as little gain as possible. At loud shows especially, if the gain is set high it has the potential to brickwall.
I think you mean clip, not brickwall. Nit-picky, I know... ;)
When you use the digital in on the JB3 doesn't it disable the meters? If so that's going to be a bitch to set right.
Nope, NJB3 meters are active regardless of mic-in/line-in/optical input.
Nit-picky? Nah, discernment is important to get information across in this medium. :) I didn't know of a difference in the two terms. Would you mind explaining?
Nice to know about the JB3 digital metering. I'm not sure where or who I heard it from that a digital input disables the meters.
As far as getting the channels equal....I just use my eyes and a little flashlight. But test it out at home and see how responsive the JB3 meters are to level tweeking. If it works you can just use the JB3 meters to see if your even with the gain.
Here's what I see as the difference between the two:
Clip: going past -0- on your digital device
Brickwall: (pulled this off of Victor Yiu's D7/D8 page)
"Brickwalling occurs when the output of your microphones is too hot for the preamp you are using (either the deck's input or an outboard mic-line amp), which results in the preamp being overloaded.
Just trying to get this sraight.
When the mic signal is too hot for the preamp, the preamp clips, then the signal the preamp is sending to the recorder then brickwalls?
Thanks for the input.
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The brickwall as its coined is evident by the fact that the levels on the recorder wont get higher as if they are hitting a brick wall...