Topic: matrix mixing please advise

[magickbrother]

I'm just messing around but
I have my 140's & this little presonus firebox
I taped a SNAFU rad's party last night.
4 tracks - stereo mic's + stereo SBD feed
it been a while since I've taped so
:question:
I delay the sbd a couple of nano seconds correct? To match the mic's
how many Nano's do you usually set the delay on the SBD for?
thanks
Angelo

[easy jim]

The delay works out to be approx. 1 milisec/foot from the sound source.

When you load up the tracks in your multitracking software, they should be vertically aligned along a horizontal timeline/time ruler. So, If your mics were in the crowd ~ 40' back from the stage/PA, you will move the SBD tracks forward on the timeline ~ 40 milisecs until it matches up with the AUD tracks.

Find a rapid, transient peak; ideally, this will be a snare hit or something like that between songs.  Zoom in to a level of detail where you can see/distinguish milisecs on the timeline, and use the spike to measure the delay as well as check if you have accurately lined up the tracks.

[magickbrother]

"The delay works out to be approx. 1 milisec/foot from the sound source"
Thank you,Thank you,Thank you

[Chuck]

The delay works out to be approx. 1 milisec/foot from the sound source.

When you load up the tracks in your multitracking software, they should be vertically aligned along a horizontal timeline/time ruler. So, If your mics were in the crowd ~ 40' back from the stage/PA, you will move the SBD tracks forward on the timeline ~ 40 milisecs until it matches up with the AUD tracks.

Find a rapid, transient peak; ideally, this will be a snare hit or something like that between songs.  Zoom in to a level of detail where you can see/distinguish milisecs on the timeline, and use the spike to measure the delay as well as check if you have accurately lined up the tracks.

I find that when a drummer marks time before the start of a song, by smacking the sticks together is very good for aligning two sources.
One other thing to watch for is whether the two sources are in phase. If the wav on one source goes below the zero line and the other goes above the zero line during the same section, you will have to invert the phase on one of the sources.

[jackmf]

If you want, once you get it mastered and tracked out, if you're not familiar with uploading to the archive, I'd be more than willing to help. Unless of course its destined for live downloads...then I'll be buying that show for sure, or any other SANFU gigs at that, those are my favorites.

[boyacrobat]

experiment with different milli seconds + or - and use your ears for adjusting.
the formula is your ears as opposed to a math equasion.
the equasion serves as a rough guess as to where abouts, but your ears will overide the answer most cases.

i have found that lower freq take longer to travel than high freq.
try targeting those more also to get rid of muddiness as much as possible .
more work to see the lower freq but worth the time to look for.
lock to snare or high hats and thats easier but at a cost to the lower freq.
your ears are your formula.

g

[nasarius]

i have found that lower freq take longer to travel than high freq.

I suspect you're perceiving some kind of auditory illusion (perhaps lower frequencies being carried by the floor/walls?), because that's just not true. The speed of sound will be affected (slightly) by the composition, temperature, and pressure of the air, but the frequency of the source makes no difference. The Doppler effect would be something else entirely if different frequencies traveled at different speeds.

[boyacrobat]

im telling you what i saw with tracks lined up in lock.
i either locked to snare or high hat which were all in lock but the kick drum was out on every beat.
why did snare and h,hats lock but not bass drum ?

g

[F.O.Bean]

the last few matrix's I did, I actually did them track by track since the SBD/mics didnt line up at the beg and end of the set. and thatw as doing a stage-lip/DSBD matrix. no biggie really. just aligned each track seperately. kind of sounds weird inbetween tracks during crowd noise since the tracks were done seperately, but i could care less how the matrix sounds inbetween tracks. my last matrix couldnt have been too bad, its one of my most highly acclaimed Lotus shows EVER and I use Wavelab 5.01b for my matrix's FWIW the Audio Montage has treated me well for matrix's and i use snare/drum hits or any otehr clear level peak to align my matrix's. seems to work quite well tho it take alot more time than just opening two seperate tracks and aligning the very beginning of the set with a snar drum. but who cares. it may have taken two days to do just right, but the end result was/is fabulous, so the extra time was worth it. check it out

http://www.archive.org/details/lotus2006-02-17.matrix

[wbrisette]

the last few matrix's I did, I actually did them track by track since the SBD/mics didnt line up at the beg and end of the set.

From the same PLL clock? i.e. was this done on a multi-track recorder? I haven't ever seen a problem aligning tracks as long as the same clock is used. Now, if you used two different recorders, I could see this.

Wayne

[F.O.Bean]

the last few matrix's I did, I actually did them track by track since the SBD/mics didnt line up at the beg and end of the set.

From the same PLL clock? i.e. was this done on a multi-track recorder? I haven't ever seen a problem aligning tracks as long as the same clock is used. Now, if you used two different recorders, I could see this.

Wayne

nope, two diff cheapo jb3's

[powermonkey]

I've only done one matrix, but I found it reasonably easy to line everything up, despite being different sources (audience recording on R09, sbd recorded to DAT and transferred to MT). I used the untracked Aud source and the tracked sbd, took a little while but came out nice enough for me. There were a few tiny gaps between tracks from the sbd source, but they aren't audible over the crowd from the aud.

[F.O.Bean]

I've only done one matrix, but I found it reasonably easy to line everything up, despite being different sources (audience recording on R09, sbd recorded to DAT and transferred to MT). I used the untracked Aud source and the tracked sbd, took a little while but came out nice enough for me. There were a few tiny gaps between tracks from the sbd source, but they aren't audible over the crowd from the aud.

trhats def the way to do it I never thought of leaving one source untacked and one tracked. GREAT idea so there is no weirdness inbetween musical tracks

[BayTaynt3d]

Another, albeit slightly more complex approach, is to sync the head of the entire recording, then go to the tail end, and sync the tail by stretching one of the tracks. The stretch needed will be very small, maybe a second or two, which with a good editor will automatically be pitch corrected, and remember, you're spreading one second out over an hour or more of time, so the stretching isn't even noticeable. This way, you can get both sources completely synced over the entire recording in one shot, then track out as normal, with no "weird" stuff inbetween. Also, like said above, you need to delay the SBD not only watch out for being in-phase b/w the two sources, but ALSO LISTEN for phasing between the two sources even when they are in phase. I've found it's actually preferable to NOT get the two sources completely perfectly synced visually because you can easily hear the phasiness coming in/out. I find it more consistently sounds better to let the SBD run a few ms earlier than the aud, just enough so they don't produce and phasiness, but still close enough to remove the echo completely. Good luck, and just USE YOUR EARS!

[F.O.Bean]

Another, albeit slightly more complex approach, is to sync the head of the entire recording, then go to the tail end, and sync the tail by stretching one of the tracks. The stretch needed will be very small, maybe a second or two, which with a good editor will automatically be pitch corrected, and remember, you're spreading one second out over an hour or more of time, so the stretching isn't even noticeable. This way, you can get both sources completely synced over the entire recording in one shot, then track out as normal, with no "weird" stuff inbetween. Also, like said above, you need to delay the SBD not only watch out for being in-phase b/w the two sources, but ALSO LISTEN for phasing between the two sources even when they are in phase. I've found it's actually preferable to NOT get the two sources completely perfectly synced visually because you can easily hear the phasiness coming in/out. I find it more consistently sounds better to let the SBD run a few ms earlier than the aud, just enough so they don't produce and phasiness, but still close enough to remove the echo completely. Good luck, and just USE YOUR EARS!

i know there is a walk-thru somewhere on here(ts.com) about stretching the entire wav file(set) at once, but its complicated and i never got it. the two wavs have to be cut exactly within the second i believe to do it that way, dont they?