So lately I think my technique is improving, I've been producing a lot more sound, and in order to avoid clipping on my Edirol I've turned down the microphone input. The microphone is placed midway (and slightly to the side) between my teacher and I, and I tend to stand about 15 feet from him when I sing. However, what I'm noticing lately is that while the singing is recorded clearly, the conversations between my teacher and I are nearly inaudible.
Have any of you experienced this and how have you gone about fixing it?
I have the "old" Edirol, if that helps in terms of thinking of settings.
is turn the input down, but place the mic very close to my teacher. I find what she tells me is far more useful than listening to my self sing. The mic is usually no more than 2 feet from her and 8 or so from me.
"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song"
- Angelou
Yes, but this doesn't work as well in sing-throughs...
October 16 2009, 2:59 PM
I often do this for lessons.
However, in a sing through or a rehearsal where I place the Edirol in the approximate center of us all, the sound capture is great, but I can never hear the discussions that happen in between.
I just know there are a lot of tabs on the back that I never touch, and was wondering if someone had explore this.
On my Edirol I put "AGC" on. I think it means adjustable gain control and it adjusts itself according to how much sound is going into it. It's great for lessons. The switch is on the back of mine, near mic gain and low cut.
This message has been edited by madaussiesop on Oct 24, 2009 11:44 PM
Be careful with this if you want accurate recording of your voice
October 25 2009, 10:47 AM
Yes, it will balance up the volume between the quiet speaking and louder singing.
It will also, however, balance up the volume between quieter singing and louder singing - iow, when you head for a high note it will suddenly sound small and quiet. If you know that and don't care,it's fine, but if you DON'T know it's doing that and suddenly think, 'Ack! My high notes are tiny! I can't sing!" it can be a problem! For the seame reason, AGC is also not so good for getting an accurate live recording.
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"If you only look at what you left behind youll never be able to focus on what lies ahead." - Gusteau
The gain control is two tracking one live at set gain and another track at -10db of set gain. That way all the singing is relative put if I go over the top I have a track that I can copy-pasta into the section and make it sound all hunky dory.
... although I admit I don't like gain control of any kind unless it's somebody who knows what they're doing riding a fader. Very cool feature of the Sony though - definitely good to know that it does that.
I usually under-record slightly, and then boost in post. That may leave a slight background hiss in some cases, but I've never found it a big problem; fortunately, my mics have excellent dynamic range (one of the reasons I paid the big bucks for them), and capture good sounds at both ends. I like hearing the reality of it.
But that's just me - we all know that commercial recordings use limiters, compression and are subsequently tweaked from here to hell and back, so people are far more used to the "processed" version (gain control and all) than they are to au naturel!
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"If you only look at what you left behind youll never be able to focus on what lies ahead." - Gusteau
Or, are you listening through headphones at all? I use a much lower-end Olympus DS-40 for my lessons, and I record on the highest quality setting. But when I listen on crappy earbuds, I can't ever hear the conversation. When I listen on my $40 headphones that cover my ears, I can hear everything perfectly.
