mellzers

Thank you for your quick reply. I use Sound Professionals BMC-3, so that is why I'm confused...I've always heard that these are good microphones, but honestly I'm not all that impressed. I got them less than a year ago but they're rather crappy - no matter what I do the sound is always heavily skewed to the left (I have to boost the right side 4 - 5 dB to get it to really sound stereo). I have tried just plugging it into the microphone jack without the battery module, but then the bass really kills the recording. Fortunately the hiss is only audible during the very quiet parts, so I'm going to fiddle around in Cool Edit Pro and see what I can remove.

Okay...so I bought a battery module with bass roll off and was all set to get some beautiful recordings. I hit five shows - the first and second I plugged the battery module into the mic input and no matter what I did with the sound levels it came out very overloaded and distorted. Third and fourth shows, I put the mic and battery module into the line-in with manual recording levels and the sound was so soft that I could barely hear anything even when I had the volume level all the way up (am going to be able to salvage them with some heavy editing, I think). The fifth I said heck with it and put the battery module and mic into the line in and used AGC - that produced the best recording of the bunch, but now that I am transferring it to my computer there is an underlying hiss (only audible when you turn the volume up a great deal, but still it's there). I record things that are both very loud and very soft within the same show - anyone have an idea what to do to get a good solid sound without the hiss for the softer parts or the distortion on the louder?

Well, I found this site quite accidentally by google and I am hoping I can get some help for a problem I have. I did search and read the forum and picked up some lingo but a lot of the posts went way over my head. I know next to nothing about electronics. I have a Sony MZ-N707 and binaural microphones (SP-BMC-3) from Sound Professionals. I use the automatic volume level for recording since I never know how loud the show will be or what the acoustics will be like where I am sitting (does this contribute to the problem?). I only "stealth record" (see, I told you I picked up some lingo!) live musical performances (like Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, etc) and although I'm fairly happy with the quality of my recordings, the clipping/overloading/bass can really irritate me. I've attached a clip from my latest escapade and you can hear how the bass pretty much shot the entire thing (bassyrent clip). Also, even if the bass doesn't kill the recording, I generally have this overloading - maybe it's referred to as "brick walling" or something else by you all, I'm confused. When someone hits a high note or is really loud there's this scratchiness to the sound (scratchyphantom clip). Since my recordings mean a great deal to me, I would like to be able to prevent that. I've been browsing the gallery of live recordings and some of you have some AWESOME quality audios - I'd love to make it to that level. Would a battery box...thing...with bass roll-off fix this? (Also, I am very impressed with the level of security some of you have had to face to "stealth record!" I've snuck in a camcorder over a dozen times to musicals and no one has batted an eye - I feel very lucky.) bassyrent.mp3 scratchyphantom.mp3