Topic: Help w/ Matrix Please

[rowjimmytour]

Looking for kind folks to give this a listen and let me know if I got the delay down or if I have to still work on it. I was about 50' back DFC up on top of a hill of the ampitheater. I was running my r4 channel 1,2 SDB>RCA>XLR(-25pad)>R4 channel 3,4 mc930 (DIN)>Dogstar>R4(T-Mod). I used Vegas and lined up all 4 tracks and took the two audience tracks left and right and shortened by 4 ms. Please let me know what you think so I can upload the matrix to LMA. Below is a file called matrix w/ 3 tracks in flac and mp3. I used the first, middle, and last track for this sample so you can get a idea if there is any drift issues. Thanks.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ce86b1f032bcf17c220c2ebe7ab8b3c583bc1171c6401559
Also here is link to the aud only tracks if you need a reference to go by:
http://www.archive.org/details/bts2008-05-03.bts2008-05-03aud.16
http://www.archive.org/details/bts2008-05-03.bts2008-05-03aud.24

[Gordon]

I'll check it out but one good way to tell is in vocals.  if there is any "echoy" sound to the vocals at all they aren't synced perfect.  if the vocals sound perfect together then it's spot on.

[SmokinJoe]

If your mics are 50' from the stacks, 4ms doesn't sound like enough.

The sound travels from the stacks to the mics at "The speed of sound" (duh!), which is "about 1 millisecond per foot", so I would think it's more like 50milliseconds.  That's just a rough guess, but I think it's a lot more than 4.  Technically, the speed of sound varies with air density, but unless you've got some radical weather changes going on, I'm not convinced it changes much over a 2 hour period, so I generally align the beginning and don't worry about drift.

When you have a big error (100ms or more) it will sound "echoy".  When you are down to smaller amounts, it will sound OK, but not perfectly crisp.  When you are spot on, it will be nice and crisp.  I listened to your T05 flac, and IMO, it falls into that category of "Sounds OK, but not perfectly crisp", so I think your not quite perfect yet.  It should sound as good as the SBD you are starting with, only better.

My technique is to try to find some spot where it goes from quiet to "loud" and line up the beginning of that jump.  I find this more definitive than peaks.  Then I look for other similar spots, and make sure they look lined up too.  Then I fade AUD > left ear, SBD to right ear and listen to drums and make sure they sound in sync.  If for some reason I can't get it just right, I would rather have the SBD a couple of milliseconds ahead of the AUD then the other way around.

That's our opinion, we welcome yours...

[rowjimmytour]

Thanks and +t for all your help. My ears are failing me right now and seem stuffed up but I agree w/ the statement that I almost have it but still need to tweak it a little more.

"about 1 millisecond per foot"

Thats what I thought also but when I did to much it sounded to far ahead so I tried way smaller.

[easy jim]

It helps too Jim if you zoom in as much as possible on the waveform of a snare hit, count-off, or some quiet to loud spot (as SmokinJoe mentioned).  You can usually visually verify that things are more or less 'lined-up.'

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

What works good for me is to pan the board to one side and the mics to the other and listen in headphones.  Really easy to hear how off it is.

[rowjimmytour]

It helps too Jim if you zoom in as much as possible on the waveform of a snare hit, count-off, or some quiet to loud spot (as SmokinJoe mentioned).  You can usually visually verify that things are more or less 'lined-up.'

Yeah I did and thought I had it on or close so I wanted to hear other folks thoughts on the mix. Thanks all and once again round of +t's fro your help.
Peace