Topic: Soundboard recording - post processing help!

[colinw]

Hi all, I had the opportunity to patch out of the SBD for the first time this past weekend, and I had mixed success.

The recording sounds great, with the exception of kick and snare drums too high. I have read a lot on the unbalanced mix that a SBD would offer especially in a small club/bar situation.

Questions:
-   What should I have done differently to get a more even pull from the SBD? Does it have anything to do with connections (I used ¼ mono TRS plugs terminated in a miniplug, directly into my Tascam)? I tried XLRs at first but the signal was WAY too hot, clipping a lot. ¼” plugs were much better.
-   I didn’t run a second rig to matrix with so that isn’t an option.
-   What can I do in post production to “fix” this? I played around with a hard limiter, but it doesn’t help much and I don’t like the sound of it. I can EQ to get it sounding a bit better, but the drum hits are still too hot for the most part.
-   The levels were fine and I am not clipping all, just stuck with the uneven sound.
-   Is there any way to “unamplify” just the spikes and leave the rest as is?

Thanks for any help!

Colin

[bryonsos]

Unfortunately there's not much you can do. It is possible to go into the file in the DAW you're using, and notch sections to reduce them, but doing that for drum strikes isn't really practical.

IMHO, SBDs from small venues by themselves aren't good (shitty) unless the engineer will create a custom mix for you. Some will, many won't want to bother. The vast majority of the time, it's better to go for an aud tape for 2 track recording, but if you can do 4 tracks, then combining the 2 sources for a matrix can improve the aud by itself.

[page]

Yeah, the limiter (or a compressor) are about all you're going to get and it's not fantastic... Part of the problem is either of those are just going to affect the loudest part of the transient and not the tertiary frequencies (so suddenly you get a snare hit that isn't really loud, but has a lot of meat and extra harmonics, sounds neat when done lightly but sucks if overdone).

[ScoobieKW]

You might want to play with parallel compression, which is mixing a compressed source with a non-parallel.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=137594.0

this will bring up the lower volume material while leaving the louder portions more natural.

[bryonsos]

You might want to play with parallel compression, which is mixing a compressed source with a non-parallel.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=137594.0

this will bring up the lower volume material while leaving the louder portions more natural.

Good call!

[yltfan]

IMHO, SBDs from small venues by themselves aren't good (shitty) unless the engineer will create a custom mix for you. Some will, many won't want to bother. The vast majority of the time, it's better to go for an aud tape for 2 track recording, but if you can do 4 tracks, then combining the 2 sources for a matrix can improve the aud by itself.

This.

[colinw]

thanks everyone, great advice. I will review the parallel compression thread to see if I can go that route.

Good experience for me to learn about grabbing a SBD patch from a small club. I was always under the impression it would sound perfect, and didn't realize there was so much involved with it. So much for my plug n play theory!! 

[runonce]

Instead of trying to fix this recording...give it a listen - and think about where you could put you mics on stage to fill in the missing elements of the soundboard.

If you can patch - you can probably get AC power.

Find a little mixer, and run you mics on stage, and mix them in with the board feed...

This approach works great in cramped places like restaurants, or smaller clubs, where an AUD would be too chatty.

[ScoobieKW]

thanks everyone, great advice. I will review the parallel compression thread to see if I can go that route.

Good experience for me to learn about grabbing a SBD patch from a small club. I was always under the impression it would sound perfect, and didn't realize there was so much involved with it. So much for my plug n play theory!! 

Think of live sound as Sound Reinforcement. The PA's job in most venues is to reinforce what is coming off the stage. Stage + PA = what you hear. A sbd recording only has the PA half of the equation.

[yltfan]

thanks everyone, great advice. I will review the parallel compression thread to see if I can go that route.

Good experience for me to learn about grabbing a SBD patch from a small club. I was always under the impression it would sound perfect, and didn't realize there was so much involved with it. So much for my plug n play theory!! 

Think of live sound as Sound Reinforcement. The PA's job in most venues is to reinforce what is coming off the stage. Stage + PA = what you hear. A sbd recording only has the PA half of the equation.

To add to what Scoobie is saying, some stuff needs very little or no reinforcement (loud guitar amps), while some (vocals) need tons. Your straight board feed is mixed for the room, not for your tape. The smaller the room, the wackier it's going to sound (at least for louder stuff where the above is true).

[acidjack]

thanks everyone, great advice. I will review the parallel compression thread to see if I can go that route.

Good experience for me to learn about grabbing a SBD patch from a small club. I was always under the impression it would sound perfect, and didn't realize there was so much involved with it. So much for my plug n play theory!! 

Think of live sound as Sound Reinforcement. The PA's job in most venues is to reinforce what is coming off the stage. Stage + PA = what you hear. A sbd recording only has the PA half of the equation.

This cannot be repeated often enough! 

To add to what Scoobie is saying, some stuff needs very little or no reinforcement (loud guitar amps), while some (vocals) need tons. Your straight board feed is mixed for the room, not for your tape. The smaller the room, the wackier it's going to sound (at least for louder stuff where the above is true).