Hi, this is my first recording ever. I tried to read up a lot on these boards before buying and taping, but some of what you guys talk about is greek to me.
Anyway, I would appreciate any advice, suggestions, and feedback about the recording.
Hardware: CA-14 cardioids > CA-9100 preamp > R-09HR (line-in)
Settings: I had the CA-9100 turned all the way up, which, according to the label, is a +20 dB gain. For the R-09HR, I had Limiter off, Low Cut off, Plug-in Power off, Mic Gain low (does this even affect line-in??). The input level was set at about 13 or 14, which had the recording level meter peaking at just above -12 dB.
This recording was in a small club venue. I was about 20 feet back from the stage on the extreme stage right. The mics were mounted on the top of the brim of my baseball cap. In the future, I will probably be taping loud rock-type shows in small, large, and outdoor venues, most likely stealth.
I learned that temporary vertical obstructions (i.e. people jumping up and down in front of me) and vertical movement (i.e. when everyone gets on the ground) didn't seem to affect the quality of the recording. Horizontal panning though, I knew not move my head like that, but still did a few times inadvertantly, and I can hear it in the stereo imaging.
Here is one song. It is untouched, except for downsampling from 96 KHz to 48 KHz:
http://www.aloha.com/~tabanger/misc/kickoutthejams48.flacSo any comments or suggestions about my setup or settings? Should I set my recording levels higher?
How about post-processing? What kinds of things do I need to do? Normalization? When would I ever use dynamic range compression?
Thank you for any feedback!