Topic: Poor soundboard recording- trying to figure out what went wrong?

[HighVoltage]

I've taped a TON of shows with my mics, but last night I ran from the board for the first time, so it was all new to me.

I had XLRs > 1/8 converter > Archos AV 500 and the soundman set it up.  The levels seemed fine and everything was looking good.

When I listened to the recording when I got home, the bass was very weak (i was able to bring it up in Audition) but the drums were sooo distant, you really had to listen hard at times to hear them (cant really fix this in mastering process)... but it the show sounded PERFECT in the venue through the PA.

Any ideas what I did wrong?  I have another opportunity to run from the board on the 30th, but im reluctant to if its gonna come out like this again.

Any advice?

[Will_S]

Your mistake was getting a board patch unless the FOH engineer was also setting up a separate mix specifically for recording from.

Was this a small venue?  If you were just getting the same signal that was being fed to the PA, it would likely be lacking in the instruments that have plenty of volume on their own, e.g. the drums.  The PA mix in a small venue has to mix with and complement the sound coming directly off the stage.

[HighVoltage]

Your mistake was getting a board patch unless the FOH engineer was also setting up a separate mix specifically for recording from.

Was this a small venue?  If you were just getting the same signal that was being fed to the PA, it would likely be lacking in the instruments that have plenty of volume on their own, e.g. the drums.  The PA mix in a small venue has to mix with and complement the sound coming directly off the stage.

Yes, it was a very small venue so that makes sense.

At a large venue, would you still need a separate mix from the FOH engineer or would the PA mix be fine to use for recording?

[Will_S]

The answer is, I'm afraid, it depends.  All else being equal the larger the venue the more likely the PA mix will be "complete" but the ideal mix to record and the ideal mix to pump through the PA will always be distinct things; at the same time sometimes the PA mix in a small room will have all you need.  You could always ask the soundman when you are patching in whether any instruments will be very low in the mix and decide to patch or run your mics based on his response.  I wouldn't expect him to do a separate mix just for you in most (almost all) situations.

Another thing you can try if the board feed is in mono is to feed your recorder one channel from the board and one from your mic(s).  Then in post mix the two channels into one, and use that mono file or copy it over to both channels for dual mono.  You can also experiment with delaying one channel VERY SLIGHTLY to get a stereo-like effect.  Some people will also invert the polarity on one channel but this kills the bass and sounds very wrong even in the upper registers to my ears.

It will take some adapters etc. to set up, and you won't get real stereo out of it, but it may give you a more pleasing mix than a straight board feed and more clarity than a straight audience recording.

[analogue]

it is not uncommon in a small room for certain instruments/potential imputs to be left out of the pa mix.  bass and drums are most common.  sometimes you might get partial drums such as the kick and two overhead mics.  the reason is twofold: (1) the bass and drums carry more than lower level sources so it may not be necessary to include these sources in the pa mix; and (2) in small rooms, the house may have have limited channels and equipment so they do not include inputs for sources that are not really needed in the first place.

sometimes you may find an incomplete mix in that the guitar is low or left out.  some of the jgb soundboard tapes from the early 80s come to mind.  if the guitar amp is cranked, there is little reason to crank it up in the pa because the overall sound then would have too much guitar.

probably your best bet is to use both mics and a sbd feed.  i have had lots of luck using spread omni mics placed on the stage pointed out into the crowd.  you need to reverse the phase of the mics pointed into the crowd if you were to go with this option.

mics at the foh position pointed to the stage work also but do not seem to work as well as the on stage mics.  if you go this route, you must be mindful of the delay in the signal coming into the mics vs. the signal coming directly out of the console and compensate for the delay.

[beefstew]

i run the PA for my production team. in small rooms i usually mic everything, but usually keep some things way lower than others. [i mix for the room sound, not recording.] And depending on the band, i dont mic some amps if their loud on their own.

also i see people mentioning a soundman would create a seperate mix for recording, how would one go about doing this?

[mwilker]

The bottom line is you went from xlr> 1/8" ----these 1/8 inch plug can be given a mono feed and you -not know until you get home.
Anyway, going from XLR > XLR ---will usually allow you to plug into and opening in the bacK of the soundboard--- and allow you to grab stereo channels, you will then need to turn a Grace Desing V3 down between 0-5 dbs. The board will seem to give you very hot levels, because the XLR ins on the back of the V3 are generally for mics, just turn off phantom power, and the signal you received will be very hot, at pro-signal rather than consumer signal.

[Roving Sign]

The bottom line is you went from xlr> 1/8" ----these 1/8 inch plug can be given a mono feed and you -not know until you get home.
Anyway, going from XLR > XLR ---will usually allow you to plug into and opening in the bacK of the soundboard--- and allow you to grab stereo channels, you will then need to turn a Grace Desing V3 down between 0-5 dbs. The board will seem to give you very hot levels, because the XLR ins on the back of the V3 are generally for mics, just turn off phantom power, and the signal you received will be very hot, at pro-signal rather than consumer signal.

Not sure if any of the above is relevant or even correct...no V3 mentioned by the poster...and if you want to correctly interface a pro-level (XLR) output with a Lunatec V3....RTFM!

From the V3 manual...

The analog inputs can also be used as consumer line level inputs or, with an internal jumper change, as professional level line inputs. See the jumper configuration section of this manual for more details.

Back to the point at hand:

To be clear - you seem to have done everything right...its just that the mix only contains the instruments that needed re-enforcement.

Double check for RCA outs on the board...they are your best bet...How are you going XLR > 1/8 ? - While this CAN work - you can also get burned by too hot a signal coming from the board. XLR outputs reference a +4db signal - consumer 1/8 and RCA reference a -10db signal...big difference.

3 ways to go here:

1 - Just record the room with mics.

2 - Ask the soundman if he has an extra set of AUX or effects sends - he can create a separate mix form those controls - it will be mono, but will sound worlds better if done right. (also this will probably be an unbalanced signal - good since you are using unbalanced ins) You might need a splitter - since there will probably be only 1 output.

3 On stage matrix - you will need a small cheapie mixer for this. Take inventory of your last recording, note what IS in the mix. Now place your mics on-stage accordingly - sounds like the soundboard mix you did get would be excellent for creating a matrix. If you dont have enough cable, ask the soundman if he has some extra snake channels. Get some closed ear headphones - get the soundboard in the mix and then bring in the stage mics to taste...usually just enough to keep the vocals properly above the mics...

[BruPri]

Yeah, sounds like he may have set you up with a separate sub mix through either aux sends or a separate bus and omitted the drums and you got whatever drums the open mics you were getting picked up. Always monitor through headphones and whenever possible, do a test recording. Unforturnately you are at the mercy of whatever "adjustments" the FOH guy is doing, for example, if the mains have an aggressive area around 2k, he may try to "fix" this with the board EQ leaving your board feed with a dip there. Unless you are the FOH guy and know exactly what is going on, the best way to do a live gig is have a splitter snake that does exactly that, splits all of the stage sends so the FOH board gets them and you get them, they go into your mixer or directly into your multichannel recorder, then you can go into post and mix 'em as you like. You could do this with a 24 to 16 channel board and submix these to your 2 channel recording device but you would have to do some prior setup. See if you can attend sound check next time and that way you can make some test recordings and eliminate at least some of the guess work...

[Roving Sign]

Yeah, sounds like he may have set you up with a separate sub mix through either aux sends or a separate bus and omitted the drums and you got whatever drums the open mics you were getting picked up. Always monitor through headphones and whenever possible, do a test recording. Unforturnately you are at the mercy of whatever "adjustments" the FOH guy is doing, for example, if the mains have an aggressive area around 2k, he may try to "fix" this with the board EQ leaving your board feed with a dip there. Unless you are the FOH guy and know exactly what is going on, the best way to do a live gig is have a splitter snake that does exactly that, splits all of the stage sends so the FOH board gets them and you get them, they go into your mixer or directly into your multichannel recorder, then you can go into post and mix 'em as you like. You could do this with a 24 to 16 channel board and submix these to your 2 channel recording device but you would have to do some prior setup. See if you can attend sound check next time and that way you can make some test recordings and eliminate at least some of the guess work...

I dont think he used a separate submix - just a room where the drums weren't miced...I see this all the time with small bands.

The rest of your advice - while true - is a bit off target considering the gear mentioned in the original post...

I had XLRs > 1/8 converter > Archos AV 500

[BruPri]

I dont think he used a separate submix - just a room where the drums weren't miced...I see this all the time with small bands.

The rest of your advice - while true - is a bit off target considering the gear mentioned in the original post...

I had XLRs > 1/8 converter > Archos AV 500

[/quote]
How so?  The original post states: the show sounded PERFECT in the venue through the PA. I suppose that could mean one of two things, either a) how I interpreted it, the entire band including the drums were coming throught the PA and sounded PERFECT...or b) as you suggest, only some of the instruments and the vocals were coming throught the PA and balanced with the drums acoustically therefore sounding PERFECT in the room. If the latter were truly the case, point taken. IMHO, Monitoring the recording through headphones may well have exposed any issues right then and there, at the very least indicate if there were drums in the mix or not. no?

[anodyne33]

IMHO, Monitoring the recording through headphones may well have exposed any issues right then and there, at the very least indicate if there were drums in the mix or not. no?

If you're still in the room in front of the board you're probably not going to be able to tell what's in the mix (in the cans) over what's happening in the room.

IEMs help that to some extent, but it depends on the SPL in the room.

[HighVoltage]

Thanks for the help.

It turns out after messing around with it, I inverted one of the channels and all the sudden it sounds a hell of a lot better.  Nice full sound, clean bass.... drums are still a bit lower than I would like, but this is much better than it originally sounded.