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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: Josephine on January 03, 2009, 02:31:52 PM
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First of all: Happy New Year, Everbody!! :-*
I came home with a "just decent" recording of Los Lobos at the Rialto. To me, it sounds a little flat and lacking in high end. I was set up in the back of the room, slightly under an overhang . . . not an ideal room, but not bad. Decided to run with my hypers.
My question for you guys is: Is there a plug-in I can use, something I can do to enhance this recording a bit? I've got the Waves Diamond Bundle (I think that's what it's called), many, many plug-ins. I use Sound Forge. And I am completely clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Any help would be much appreciated.
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If the problem is with the stereo image, that can be fixed with a bit of trickery.
I'm not at all experienced with Sound Forge (I use Audacity), but if it has some way to do so, convert the Left/Right signal to a Mid/Side signal. The resulting "side" signal can be distinguished by its lower amplitude.
Take the "side" track, and duplicate it. Apply phase inversion to the duplicate track; make the first side track the left side, and the second one the right. Make this new left/right pair into a single stereo track, and make the Mid track a mono track, or otherwise pan it to center.
You can now play with the stereo image by varying the Mid and/or Side levels; reducing the Mid or boosting the Side will spread the stereo image out, while boosting the Mid or reducing the Side will focus the image.
Once you have the stereo image the way you want it, you can export the resulting audio.
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If you want to do the recording > MS > recording route it can be done all at once with a VST plugin from VoxNGo. It allows you to vary the relationship of Mid to Side from any decoded track. So it really does not know if it ever was MS, and it does not matter. But you can make a more emphasized side track or center track, as you wish.
Cheers 8)
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The next best thing to knowing how to do something yourself is having a buddy that is willing to do it for you.
Thank you, DG. :-*
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If you want to do the recording > MS > recording route it can be done all at once with a VST plugin from VoxNGo. It allows you to vary the relationship of Mid to Side from any decoded track. So it really does not know if it ever was MS, and it does not matter. But you can make a more emphasized side track or center track, as you wish.
Cheers 8)
If you recorded in a coincident setup to start with, that makes sense, but I'm not sure that with a semi-coincident (or almost-coincident) it will yeild the same results. A quick test of how well it will work is to take the recording and drop it to mono. If it sounds much worse due to the phase cancelation from time-delay, MS trickery probably won't yield positive results. If thats the case, then I think EQ is the option of last resort.
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I read on bt.etree.org about another taper who patched from the SDB who had trouble w/ the mix:
rustystrings 2009-01-03 13:48:46
clinton is a grate taper.
duo and suprise me mr davis are both incredible bands.
this one seems like a No Brainer :)
THANKS FOR TAPING...IF IT IS OF ANY CONSOLATION....i had brd feed for Los Lobos to a my korg1000 in dsd and the sound guy ran such a shitty mix it basically unusable...so new years recordings arent always a guarantee..
i do better on a random tuesday night LOLOLOL
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You may be able to improve it a bit with a high pass filter and/or an appropriate notch filter on the low end frequencies using a para EQ. Cutting out some of the muddy low end - that I'd expect you dealt with being under a balcony overhang - will likely improve the mids and highs in the frequency balance of a post-processed version. That's where I'd start, at least. I'd be happy to help give it a try too Val if you want to bring a copy of the raw track(s) on Sat.
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rustystrings 2009-01-03 13:48:46
i had brd feed for Los Lobos to a my korg1000 in dsd and the sound guy ran such a shitty mix it basically unusable...so new years recordings arent always a guarantee.
There's a belief that NYE recordings are a guarantee? Maybe the board was mixed for the room, in which case it's no surprise the recording may not have been great.
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I've got the Waves Diamond Bundle (I think that's what it's called), many, many plug-ins. I use Sound Forge. And I am completely clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Wow. You spent $3000 on plug ins. You should probably learn how to use them asap. ::)
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rustystrings 2009-01-03 13:48:46
i had brd feed for Los Lobos to a my korg1000 in dsd and the sound guy ran such a shitty mix it basically unusable...so new years recordings arent always a guarantee.
There's a belief that NYE recordings are a guarantee? Maybe the board was mixed for the room, in which case it's no surprise the recording may not have been great.
Los Lobos' regular sound master Mando was not on the board this particular night. They were short one guy (due to illness, I think) and he ended up taking care of the sound stuff on stage. I believe the house sound guy was running FOH, but I'm not sure about that.
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Raw SBD sources often sound crappy or 'off' IMO unless they were sub-mixed for the recording.