But the thing is i can't correct anything to the tascam settings when the concert starts, i have a fine place found to "hide" the tascam but i can't to two things together
Dear Kite:
Welcome to taperssection! The concerns you express above are common concerns for all tapers, not just you in your situation needing hands-free recording. The first question is asked 'What settings to use?'
Fortunately for tapers these days, we have the ability to record in 24bit. In comparing 24bit versus 16bit option, think about a photograph and how the number of pixels can affect the image quality. When viewing a photo from a distance, the image quality of a low resolution photo will look fine, but when you zoom in, you see problems. It's the same thing with audio. On playback, you may not hear much difference between 16bit and 24bit, but when you zoom in to do any work on your audio files during post processing (we simply call this 'post'), you may start to have problems.
It's for this reason that the first solution to your concern is that you should
ALWAYS record in 24bit. You might be saving media space by recording in 16bit, but in the end if you have problems that need to be fixed, chances are good that you'll regret it if you've recorded in 16bit.
Next, before the concert starts, as Acidjack suggests, if you want the best sound possible, make sure that all of your 'special' settings on your recorder are switched to the off position. These special features are nice to have, but when they actually engage during the recording process, they will probably introduce negative sound artifacts into your recording that you will notice. For example, on many recorders I've owned, when the limiter kicks in, there is an audible change in the sound of the recording. Some limiters are much better than others...for example, the limiter on the Sony M10 is said to be very good and very transparent...so some people will leave the limiter engaged as a final safety to protect from having the levels peak and distort. However, this should be irrelevant to you for the reasons stated in the next paragraph. Please read on...
The final step is to make sure your levels are set conservatively low so that they will never peak during the show. The goal would be to have your levels peaking around -12db, but it's OK if they peak even lower. That way, the levels can go upward during the show so that you'll never have to worry about your levels peaking (going over zero). Similarly, the levels can go downward and you'll still have a reasonable amount of headroom between the recording levels and the noise floor on your recorder. Finally, since you've recorded in 24bit, you can use your software in post processing to adjust your levels upward to where you need them.
This is how 99+% of all tapers of live concerts record now, not just people in your situation that need hand-free recording. Using this technique allows you to 'set it and forget it'...all you need to do is hit record, set your levels once and then you generally don't have to worry about whether or not the recording will turn out well. Back in the old days of 16bit, we couldn't use this technique because there wasn't enough data resolution to allow for the post processing without a corresponding sound degradation.
If you must set your levels before the music starts, you'll need to use a little guess-work to choose a setting that is conservatively low enough to meet the above goals. As long as you remember the settings you chose, after you've recorded a couple of concerts, you'll get a feel for what the proper setting needs to be in order to get close to the -12db goal.
I hope this answers your question.
Steve
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