Echo sound out of just the vocals in a live concert recording.

C

Camera Expert

Well-known member
Here's a sample of a song that got effected by a weird echo sound. When you start hearing it, theirs no serious echo. No serious echo at the beginning of the song either. Then as the song plays some more, you hear an echo just on the vocals and not the instrumental. It's actually just 1 lady singing. Almost sound as if 2 ladies are singing.

http://we.tl/BN1heEbIn6

I basically had a Zoom H4N hooked up to the board during a live concert. I'm assuming it's an effect that the audio guy did to the vocals that sound decent live but not if you export that audio to a Zoom H4N. Or maybe theirs a setting in the output signal that was going to the H4N that can be adjusted.

Any idea what might have caused this? Anything I can say to the audio person to make sure this doesn't happen again? For example telling him what setting to use on the board when it outputs to my zoom. Unless if he does try to fix it, the live vocals wont have the sound he wants. I've done recordings on other days at that place and this is the first time this happened. Anyway to fix this? At least in the bright side, the live recording that was captured to a stereo mic (not hooked up to the board) was good so I don't really need to save this piece but just wondering what can be done differently and if theirs anything that can fix it.
 
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It sounds like the board operator applied a very pronounced delay effect to the vocal mic.
I can't imagine how that could have made it "sound better", but then there are dozens of details and circumstances not in evidence here.
I don't see how it could possibly have anything to do with either the specific mixer output, or with the recorder.

Alas, that is the chance you take when you get a feed from the venue system.
They are NOT mixing for your recording, and you take whatever they give you.
 
Basically what I meant was that it sounded better live if you were their or if you use a Stereo mic getting the live sound than getting a feed coming off the board and into the Zoom H4N. Yeah him applying an effect is one of the things I was suspecting.

It's definitely true that it can be a gamble getting sound off a board which is why it's good to capture good live audio as well just in case.
 
It's also possible that for some reason you are getting some of the signal that has been delayed for rear of house speakers, if the venue has them.

Unless you are getting direct outs on all the channels you are probably better off setting up a stereo pair than taking a board feed. The board mix is altered to mix with the live sound and to compensate for issues in the room. This often sounds fairly awful when recorded.
 
Possibly the delay in the room itself was lower to have some kind of "repeating backing vocal of the same voice effect" (if that make sense ? no it doesn't I know, but just pretend it sounds great).
And I think you got the "uncontrolled aux or group or whatever output prefadered", so that if they lower the "delay aux fader", it's not lowering in what's send to your recorder.
 
Here's one of the songs using audio that was captured live.


Pretty big difference since the echo isn't as noticeable. Anyway, thanks for all the comments.
 
But what have you learned from this experience ?

Indeed, it's always important to monitor the sound, and to be on time to check things. That's the raison why there's something like soundguys. If there was a soundguy he or she could have checked. And could have done something maybe so the problem was just a short time. He or she would probably asked for the right outputs.

Recording sound is more then dropping a recorder and never look at it.
 
In a smaller room, things like vocals and acoustic guitars are much more forward in the mix - drums and amps can carry a great deal by themselves. Sounds like we're hearing the vocal effects that mixed well in the overall room, but with just the board feed, it's a little much.

When you shoot something like this it helps to have stereo room mics. Mixing the board feed with the room sound can usually get you back to "what it sounded like at the gig".
 
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