FAQ: Record L&R and Use Aux 6 for the PA

[RoadRanger]

So, who's been doing this and what luck have you been having with getting a decent demo recording? I was planning on never doing a board recording but one of my regular bands can't afford me bringing in my multitrack capable board and really needs audio that they can mate up with video they are having someone shoot at an upcoming gig.

I plan on doing a "set and forget" PA mix during the first few songs and using my high isolation headphones to mix the recording on-the-fly. The DL1608 will be sidestage but I do have some 25 foot headphone extensions I can use so can set up out front - or maybe in another room so I can concentrate on the recording? The problem with high isolation headphones is that they don't isolate bass frequencies very well  I suppose I can EQ the bass later if needed?

I'm really hoping some of you have become proficient at this and can give me some of your hard-won wisdom .

[WK154]

I'd spend my time on getting a good FOH sound and recording it in stereo (2 mics out front and to either side not in the FOH Mix) than to try to mix on the fly for a demo CD. I used to drag a Yamaha AW1600 around to collect stems and post mix but looking back it really wasn't worth it. Of course if they need a lot of help then you may not have a choice if you know what I mean. Timing tracks of some sort are quite useful. A lot will depend on the room and the equipment your willing to bring. Do you have Auria? Do you just want to use the DL and iPad? What's the setup (# of mics etc)? Will aux 6 be enough for balance or do you want to separate  tops from bases with some control?

[Jerrylee]

I have done this and it worked pretty darn good. As you know recording the mains only has a big set of problems in getting the sound right. Stage volume makes the live mix almost nothing like what we would want for a recording. I was the first person to come up with the aux as mains idea way back when the old forums existed. Beno even thanked me for that.

Of course to get this to work great you need everything mic'd up, or plugged in direct, which I am sure you are aware of. Another good idea to try is a pair of wireless in ears, or headphones, and get away from the band. I did a mix for a band a while ago at the four seasons in south Florida. I had a room to sit in while they were playing to get away from the private party. I still had full working control of the band. If I had plugged in my wireless IEMs then I could have ait and mixed the recording without noise issues.

I did sound at a halooween party for a band. They wanted me to record and luckily I had them all mic'd. The room was big enough for this. Because I had no idea at first they wanted a recording I didn't use the aux setup. It was brought up a few minutes before they had to play. The recording sounded good. I knew it would. I did say if I knew this was going to happen I would have set the recording up separately. The drummer asked me what I needed to do. So during a break I rewired, and reset so everything was mains from auxs, and a separate recording mix. I also added an overhead to the drums. I was not able to monitor the signal at this point but using the level meters I was able to create a seperate mix. When we listened back to the recodings it was a lot better the second time using a seperate mix. Imagine if I actually could hear it how much better I could have made it.

So as far as my experience goes it works very well.

[WK154]

Let me go into a little more detail for some of you that may be new to this. Given that RR wants to walk away with recordings of 2 channels worth and TIME= $ in this case otherwise he would have brought more equipment that he has. I take that to mean that the mix-down will be done live. To make this manageable and to have something other than a dual mono from the existing mics possibly artificially contrived (panned) stereo let the two mics I mentioned give you the real thing a true stereo image without any effort on your part other than a good mic placement. These are the only inputs on L&R and that's what you will hear in your earphones and record. You can adjust the FOH mix in aux 6 to suite the recordings and your audience will most likely appreciate it as well. You could also use the new stereo link on aux 5 and 6 and balance the speakers beyond the DL at setup time. Room acoustics and other factors will have tremendous influence on the overall sound. Yes you also don't need to have everything individually mic'd this way. RR knows this I'm sure but JL keep reading it's in chapter 2 of recording 101. For post if you even want to spend the time you can deal with stereo width, compression, dynamics etc. things that can't be done in real time that are typically done in mastering a CD or DVD. A timing track will help the Video mix guy to sync audio with his video. You won't get SMTE out of a DL but it can be added post to the original in an editor. I've done it both ways not with a DL (early on) and settled on this as a good compromise solution given the time constraints and equipment limitations. I think you can swing two SD condensers mics and mic stands on this. Eyes sometimes help from a FOH position in dealing with the mix as well. This all requires 2 iPad's that I know you have. If that's too far away then you'll have to use you Galaxy IEM for the earphones. I know more gear to shlepp. Dave Rat has a unique method for mixing that I like even better but unfortunately it requires feature not on this mixer.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMMmR1u0CFk
Even small venues can benefit from this.

[RoadRanger]

Well, tonight was the night and it worked pretty good IMO .

A snippet: http://www.aspinock.com/foo.aac

[WK154]

A snippet:
http://www.aspinock.com/foo.aac

Is this with post processing and you final take? Low AAC bit rate and artificial stereo. Got it.

[RoadRanger]

A snippet:
http://www.aspinock.com/foo.aac

Is this with post processing and you final take? Low AAC bit rate and artificial stereo. Got it.

No, that's a piece cut out of the original file as recorded 160 kbs AAC which is as high as Voice Record Pro will go - some say it is almost as good as a 320 kbs MP3, sounds OK to me. There's a "large plate" on there on the vocals, acoustic, and snare/highhat. There were only two mics on the drums.

[WK154]

OK first the good news. Thank heavens I don't use iPad stuff for recording. My H2 will definitely outperform anything I've heard from iPad apps and can certainly provide higher quality raw tracks. I've used Voice Record for signals and playback but that's the extend. Those that believe 320MP3 and 160AAC are even close well it just goes to show you that this is an opinionated business but then there's math.
Now for the bad news. I don't particularly like a lot of reverb especially plate, my opinion. There are however the basics. The tracks recorded were at -33dB rms with a dynamic range of about 25dB, way to low. That may have been due to the app settings or the need to avoid feedback. This is where separate mics not in the mix will earn their keep. Max signal to noise without worry about feedback and a real stereo image. The usual goal for a good raw track is about 50dB above noise. You had about 30dB so a fair amount of detail is lost. Throw it into an editor and see what I mean. I also ran a FFT on the snippet and it appears that you really cut significantly starting at about 200 Hz, so much for lows. The first 35sec went OK but then something happened in the last 10sec which sounded like a torn driver. That's my take YMWV.

[RoadRanger]

As for the signal level, this was a "throw and go" situation (tables moved one hour before showtime) so I didn't have a chance to optimize that. I can't remember if the L&R fader affects the record level or not? I did have all the vocals faders at "0" and their levels bumping the yellow.

I was expecting to have issues with the low end, even high isolation headphone don't keep out the lows so I couldn't judge it that well - and I was literally sitting 6 inches from the sub cluster . This is just for some web demos so a bit of EQ and normalization should make it good enough. I sure wish I had the space and time to set up my Phonic Summit instead which can do multitrack . I'm sure looking forward to V3 with the multitrack recording upgrade to the DL1608 () or at least a separate stereo bus to record from (or maybe matrices? ) .

Using aux 5 and 6 for the mains and subs was pretty weird - as they were both pre-fader I had to adjust anything in the subs on both auxes. I ran the 'verb pre-fader too. I would have liked to use a different 'verb on the snare and acoustic but such is life . I wonder if an upgrade to four "real" fx engines is possible to better compete with the competition?

In any case I'm not super happy with it but not super unhappy either - I was prepared for worse .

[WK154]

RR can you find a more unfriendly environment to record in? Yes the main reason I don't record with the Ipad now that I remember is the lack of level control in the apps. Even a lowly Phillips cassette  recorder had more control. The Faders and level controls are after the iPad data (see the infamous Pg. 162 in the MANUAL). The Levels as I remember are not available in most apps. The only pseudo control is the comp in the output LR path. Yuk!!! 15 dB at best. No indication of what goes to the iPad. When you hit record the iPad meter should reflect the level being recorded but I guess that's for V4 if at all. My take on the preliminary v2.1 is that all the output EQ's etc should be switched to the input channels where they belong. Give the output more PE's and be done with it. Band-aids anyone. Admit you like the HPF's. Let's keep the primary reason for the mixer in place and leave the weird secondary uses where they belong, elsewhere.

[Jerrylee]

it sounded pretty good. the panning was a little extreme. and of course you said only 2 mics were on the drums. but, all in all, not bad.

the best thing you can do is what i did. order the x32 rack. i already have auria and now will be able to record up to 24 racks and mix them down to my liking.

now all i have to do is wait for my dl to sell. i also have the mackie case as a bonus.

i may keep it becasue i now live in two different countires. i am thinking about leaving one in each so i dont have to travel with a mixer.   

but if it sells.....nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye.

i'll probably still hang out here to keep you guys company. i dont want you to miss me.

curious if anyone is thinking about going the x18 route? i was debating on waiting for it, but in the last video i saw the behringer guy said it would be sept/october berfore it is ready. but to compare two boards the x18 blows away the dl in every way. it is direct competition, with a lot more features, and a cheaper price. i'm making sure to sell my dl now because when the x18 comes out the used price of the dl will go way down. its already dropping just based on the announcemnt at namm. for those of you who love your dl's, and refuse to make a latteral move that is actually a huge jump up, i feel sorry for you. 

[RoadRanger]

it sounded pretty good. the panning was a little extreme.

On purpose, you can always reduce the width in post but it's tough to widen it.

the best thing you can do is what i did. order the x32 rack.

MAP just dropped to $1299!

now all i have to do is wait for my dl to sell.

They seem to be holding their price well used. I'm hoping to eventually pick up a spare for $500.

[RoadRanger]

Hmm... I wonder if there would have been any real advantage to recording at 24/48 instead of 16/44?

[WK154]

Hmm... I wonder if there would have been any real advantage to recording at 24/48 instead of 16/44?

Not without fixing bigger problems first. I converted the 136 AAC (not that it mattered) into a wav file. The peak values where around 10% of what 16 bits can handle (64K). That's about a 13 bit recording. Philips cassette's are around 12 bits as a reference point. It would however have given a little more detail and would have helped when normalizing (yuk) and down-converting to 16 bits for CD quality. Oh and 44.1k would have been a better choice (no time conversion involved). This is assuming that your target was 16/44.1k CD.

[sam.spoons]

Given a choice I record at 24/44.1 (unless it's for video only when it'd be 24/48) the extra bit depth give a huge increase in headroom so you don't have to push the levels.