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Why did the sound guy do this?

H

harmonica44

I was booming for a sound person on set and I noticed that he did the opposite of what I learned to do. Usually when feeding gain to the microphone I have to feed it till the microphone is 'full', which usually seems to be around 60-85 percent, of the gain knob turned up, and it depends on the mic, how full it has to be. Then you set the fader, to however far it needs to go, in order to reach the desired level for good sound.

This sound guy did the opposite and put the fader to 85 percent pretty much or more, and then turned the gain down halfway. I've done that before in trying to figure out how it works, and doing that way, causes me to have everything less louder and fuller, than it should be. But he's a pro sound guy who went to school, and gets lots of gigs, so of course he knows what he's doing. I was wondering, what reasons would their be to do it that way?
 
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Yep thanks I read that before, and it's very helpful. It doesn't mention the fader though. I was still fussy about why this guy put the fader way up, and the gain down. Usually I have to put the gain up first, fader second, or I get closer to the noise floor. I asked him at the time, but he said that he's always done it that way, and it's probably just my particular recorder.
 
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Given a Pre and a Post volume control... I generally put the Post volume (fader) at the 0db position, then push the Pre Volume (gain) until it's hitting the meter where I want to see it... then listen to the sound after the post volume (monitor/output) and listen for distortion. From there, the Post volume control will adjust your output volume. The goal being to get as much signal "good" signal hitting the electronics of the audio device at each stage in the chain as possible so it can do the best work it can before hitting the Post volume.

gain is the input level
the Fader is the output level

As that article says... tons of experience with a particular piece of equipment will lead you to make better decisions with it... in the same way that I could shoot with my old camera (still fun to say) without having to think about it after 10 years of using it. The little adjustments have been tweaked through trial and error to get the best possible image from it.
 
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There seems to be a lot of discussion in the audio world (or at least in the forums) about proper gain staging, and mixing at unity.

Some believe that setting the faders at unity, and then mixing using the preamp gain gives you the highest SNR. Others are of the opinion that if we were meant to mix with the gain knobs, they would be faders.

You've then got others, like Dave Rat (RHCP, Blink 182 FOH engineer), who puts the faders in a 'visual mix' position and then drives the gain until it sounds right.

At the end of the day, it comes down to what works best, and sounds best, for you.
 
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jax_rox said:
You've then got others, like Dave Rat (RHCP, Blink 182 FOH engineer), who puts the faders in a 'visual mix' position and then drives the gain until it sounds right.
Click to expand...

Different rules apply to music mixing both in the studio and live. Many music engineers push the pre-amps very hard (gain), something that is not a good idea when doing production sound and audio post.
 
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That entirely depends upon the mic and the pre-amp(s) in the mixer/recorder; stuff like this comes down to your ears and your experience. This is what we mean when you have to learn to listen and think like a sound guy.

Your biggest problem is that you don't have a proper post audio monitoring environment to make accurate judgments. If you're listening on headphones or computer speakers or low budget monitors the sound most probably is colored in some way by them, and/or by the room itself.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Yep thanks I read that before, and it's very helpful. It doesn't mention the fader though.
Click to expand...

But the principle is the same, you are just adding another SNR window between SNR3 and SNR4. If you are running your pre-amp at 85%, the chances are very high that you are adding pre-amp distortion to what you are recording. You could lower your pre-amp and increase your fader level but again, the more you increase your fader level beyond unity (0dB) the more distortion you will be adding. You need to do what the article suggests and find the best balance. There may not be a perfect point where you get no distortion from either you pre-amp or your mixer. If this is the case, the best solution would be to buy mic's with a higher output level and/or a better pre-amp and/or better mixer. If that's not an option, the best solution is to run some tests and work out which distortion is more objectionable (your mixer or your pre-amp) and set your pre-amp/fader accordingly.

jax_rox said:
There seems to be a lot of discussion in the audio world (or at least in the forums) about proper gain staging, and mixing at unity.
Click to expand...

Gain staging can be a big field to get into, in the linked article I dealt more with production sound. There is a different methodology in audio post. Live music mixing is different again and studio music mixing is different yet again. Even some of the basic principles of gain staging can be different. Also, never forget there are a great many people on the audio forums using music software and even quite a few doing the sound mixing for their mate's band who don't actually know anything about the engineering side of the Sound Engineer role they are fulfilling. You'd be shocked at how many are doing music or sound semi-professionally and selling themselves as a professional but know next to nothing about gain staging or any other technical details of what they are doing.

G
 
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Okay cool. Maybe I have been giving myself a little distortion and not knowing it. But it is difficult to get the levels to 12 db sometimes, and I have to push a little harder. I've been using my ears, and perhaps I could try going a little lower, like 75. Anything below 70 though, and I can start to hear the noise floor when I turn up the audio in post.
 
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It's really impossible for me to give any more accurate advice than I've already provided because there are too many variables, not the least of which is the calibration of your audio post system. At some stage it would be worth posting a short clip of your mixed audio, say a clip containing some dialogue at a normal speaking level and I'll have a look at how it plays out in my mix room. This will give me a very rough idea of whether your audio post system is in the ball park.

G
 
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Well I am just wanting to do the live recording, someone else can do post, but I want to get the live recording right, gain wise, so that we have the best quality possible for post. What about these samples. I had to make a video or youtube would not accept just audio:

http://youtu.be/7SpmK54CBQM
 
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