Recording band practice and shows

[ghband]

Hello all. I have owned minidisc player's and recorders since about 1997 (thank's dad)

I am currently recording a good friend's band practice's (rock) and live shows. I have a sony mz-r30 portable md recorder and a crappy sony emc-719 stereo mic.

md recorder

http://www.minidisc.org/r30_review.html

mic

http://www.buy.com/prod/ecm-719-electret-c...1/90120941.html

The recording's come out pretty well. Good enough for the band to listen to and get an idea of how everything sounded that night.

I have been reading this forum for a few days and was wanting to see if I could improve the recording's with better equipment (mic's mainly)

When I normally record the practice session's i usually place the mic in the middle of the room level with the pa speakers to best pick up the vocal's. The bass player is usually directly to the left of the mic, the drums are in the corner behind and to the left of the mic, and the lead and rhythm amps are on the right side of the mic.

The room is very small (like a bedroom) so it's hard to place the drums and amp's in the ideal places for the recordings.

I have been reading about cardioid and omni directional mics. I seems that cardioid mic's would be the best choice for recording the live shows but I'm afraid that at the practice's It might not pick up the drums (normally in the back of the room behind the mic's) as well as omni directional binaural mic's.

The cheap sony mic that i currently use seems to pick up the drums pretty well but I am not sure how it will sound with higher end mic's.

Also i cannot decide if a battery box would be enough to allow me to bypass the on board mic preamp and go directly into line in on the recorder. Or if I should spend the extra money and invest in a good mic preamp.

It's normally very loud in the little practice room. From what I have read on these forums the battery box and line in should work. However I don't want to have to replace the battery box with a more expensive mic preamp if the battery box does not work well with the line in and the on board preamp is being overloaded.

If i can figure out how to upload some if the mp3s i have of the recordings i will post them just to let you hear how the recording's sound with the mic I currently use.

Any input or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian

[A440]

You won't need a mic preamp with loud music through Line-in. Battery box will do the job. Guaranteed.

I've never had an R30 but according to what I've read, its built-in mic preamp was better at handling loud music than later MDs.

Hard to give you any definitive answer on the mics.

If I were you I would go to http://www.soundprofessionals.com or http://www.microphonemadness.com and order two pairs of mics along with the battery module: one omni, one cardioid. Treat them gently for part of the 30-day guarantee and then send back a pair. For the cost of shipping you could make the definitive test.

The ECM-719 is cardioid/directional, which is probably cutting down on the drums behind it, and may be a good thing in a small room. If you like the mix you're getting you might want to get a cardioid. But lower-priced cardioids are going to have about the same bass response as what you're getting.

Q: Do you like what the mic picks up better than what you hear when you're in the room? Is the actual sound of the band rehearsing all boomy and bass-heavy? Because a more accurate mic might actually give you a recording that's less useful for analyzing a rehearsal. Do you want more bass?

A decent low-priced omni mic pair, or more expensive cardioids, will give you more bottom end and a little more clarity on top. The omni mics through Line-in and battery module will sound like what you hear in the room, if you like it. A cardioid will limit but, as you've found, not eliminate the sound of the drums from behind it, because they're also echoing off the walls that the mic is facing.

The only way to upload your R30 recordings is from a MZ-RH1. Or you could record them in realtime out of the headphone jack.

[ghband]

The tracks (about 18 of them anyway) have already been recorded onto my desktop with exact audio copy. I just didn't know exactly where to upload them.

And A440 on the question above about what the mic picks up sounding better or worse It sounds alot better live than it does on the recording's.

too much bass wont be an issue at the moment because the bass player is playing through a very crappy bass amp/sub.

The R30 im using was my father's very first portable md recorder. its about 10 years old iirc. Where did you read about it having a better pre amp at? would like to check it out.

Also my father has been messing with md recorders for awhile and does not seem to believe that without a pre amp the recording would turn out right. He has been known to be wrong though lol.

If i decide to try mic - battery box - mic in, the only thing i would have to worry about is the bass distorting? A battery box with the bass roll off feature would be the best to get right?

Would there be any advantage at all to getting a decent preamp or is just money being thrown away?

thanks for the help.

Edited October 21, 2007 by ghband

[A440]

You could upload to the Gallery here, link on the upper right.

I always use EAC as a ripper...but sure enough, it's got a recorder too! Nice to know.

Search for "R30" and "preamp" (or, I don't know, "loud") in these forums and see if you can find some posts about it. I remember reading somewhere that the R30 could handle loud music a lot better than later models, but I couldn't say exactly where.

Line-in expects a stronger signal than Mic-in, where there's already a preamp. Electronics guys often expect you to need a preamp for the Line-in of the minidisc, and maybe you would with something at normal volume. All I can tell you is that I've recorded loud music with mic(usually Sound Professionals BMC-2)-->battery box-->Line-in with the MZ-R700, MZ-N707, MZ-NH700, MZ-NHF800, MZ-NH900 and MZ-RH1 and it's loud and clear. I've also recorded speech close up and it's a bit quiet but it comes through. It's always possible that the R30 is in some way quirky and would need a preamp, but hey, a battery module will also have that 30-day guarantee.

A preamp would be useful if you are recording something quiet: speech, ambient sounds, quiet unamplified music. But with loud music, what you need is something to hold back the signal from the mics, not to amplify it. Hence the battery module, which provides power to the mics (extending their dynamic range) and, as far as I can tell, raises their signal just enough so that live music blasts its way into the Line-in jack. I have tried recording loud music with an external preamp and all I've gotten is distortion. Any amplification is too much.

Bass distortion usually happens in the preamp built in at the mic jack. Bass roll-off (or the lack of bass in your ECM-719) helps prevent that. But there's no preamp at Line-in to distort, so bass roll-off seems unnecessary unless you know the room is exceptionally bass-heavy. If the music sounds right in the room, to your ears, then you want to capture that sound unaltered.

My philosophy is to get the sound as accurately as possible and then, if you want to adjust the EQ, do it in playback. Mic-->Line-in at a level that doesn't overload gets the full sound. With my BMC-2 mics, the usual level is at Manual Volume between 15/30 and 20/30 (I don't know if the R30 is numerical like the later models, or a bar graph, but about 2/3 of the way up should do it). Different mics, with different sensitivity, will have a different optimum level, but as long as it's not pinned when the music gets loudest, you should be fine.

[ghband]

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endid=103265603

These 4 recording's were done 2 weeks ago.

[A440]

You could do better with a a mic that picks up some bass. The upper registers are nice and clear, but there's no oomph on the bottom, and we know it would be there. If you had separate mics rather than the one-point mic, you'd also get some more spatial depth.

What settings did you use? Mic into Mic-in? Low Sensitivity? Manual or Automatic Volume?

Those squealing girls have got to go....

[ghband]

You could do better with a a mic that picks up some bass. The upper registers are nice and clear, but there's no oomph on the bottom, and we know it would be there. If you had separate mics rather than the one-point mic, you'd also get some more spatial depth.

What settings did you use? Mic into Mic-in? Low Sensitivity? Manual or Automatic Volume?

Those squealing girls have got to go....

Yeah the mic sucks at bass.

I always use mic into mic-in because I dont have a battery box. And I always use manual level settings.

How exactly would I get rid of the squealing girls in the recording?? All but one of the girls moved away from the table when they found out I was going to record. The only one that didn't move was sitting directly to the right of the mic. And I'm not going to lie I was there to drink beer first and record second. Especially knowing that The equipment that I am currently using is not going to capture the best sound in the first place.

Oh and when I set my recording levels I was told that you want the level to be as high as possible without exceeding the eighth bar on the recorder. (don't know the best way to word that but basically there is a vertical set of lines that are used to set the levels and the manual says never to exceed the eighth bar) Its a little tricky to actually see any of the bars when they are not lit up.

The attached file is from the practice room

glide_mp3.mp3

Edited October 23, 2007 by ghband

[A440]

I was just joking about the girl. You could gag her next time.

I'm impressed that the R30 can handle that volume through mic-in, because I don't know if a later unit would. The mic is cutting off the bass, which helps prevent it from overloading, but after hearing the gig, I really don't know how the R30 would react with a more bass-sensitive mic through Mic-in. You'd probably still get a slightly better recording with the battery module via Line-in, since the preamp must add some noise, but it would certainly be an interesting experiment to see what the Mic-in preamp could handle.

Your dad is right: Basically you want to get the level as high as you can without overloading, so you're close to the edge but never past it.

[ghband]

I was just joking about the girl. You could gag her next time.

I'm impressed that the R30 can handle that volume through mic-in, because I don't know if a later unit would. The mic is cutting off the bass, which helps prevent it from overloading, but after hearing the gig, I really don't know how the R30 would react with a more bass-sensitive mic through Mic-in. You'd probably still get a slightly better recording with the battery module via Line-in, since the preamp must add some noise, but it would certainly be an interesting experiment to see what the Mic-in preamp could handle.

Your dad is right: Basically you want to get the level as high as you can without overloading, so you're close to the edge but never past it.

Yea I thought the practice sounded good considering that the small mic is in the middle of a very small room as loud as they play.

This 10 yr old md might have something on the newer units(mic preamp). When the R30 released it was around $300-$350 from what I read. 10 years ago that was alot of money.

Thanks for the help A440. Now I just need to decide which mic to Get.

Heres another song from that same practice(Wonderful below). Its the second time they ever played the song It doesn't really have lyrics yet (more of a jam) but I thought the instruments sounded good.

and then a couple more if anyone is interested.

I think that some of the song's from the practice were recorded with the levels in eac too high. (sounds a little distorted on some now that I listen to it a second time. When playing the md through my home amp I don't hear the distortion) Oh well Ill fix it when I have time.

wonderfulmp3.mp3

run_for_awhile_eq.mp3

no_heroes__eq.mp3

Edited October 23, 2007 by ghband