Multitrack Reality - A question and a report back

timapter

timapter

Veteran
Hi all,

So i've gotten a little lazy at posting - my bad. Been working steadily this year (thank goodness) and have learnt a lot, and expanded my rig considerably.

I'm currently on a set in Zambia shooting a reality series about stand up comedy (think "Last Comic Standing" or "Pop Idol" with more laughs...) - Quite a few cam teams, as well as a theatre rigged for the shows.

I'm tracking the whole thing using a Mackie Onyx 1620 with firewire to a laptop... its working nicely. Also doing a realtime 2tk mix to our A camera as a backup, and a sync reference for post (no digi slating).

I like the Onyx, but coming from Sound Devices land I'd forgotten just how amazing those input limiters are. And for a show like this, where we are working with around 50 comedians at the moment, I just dont have time to be setting gain for each guy to avoid input clipping. I also DONT want to record too soft, as some of these guys are amateurs already, and speak softly as it is.

Any ideas on getting some front side limiting into the Onyx? I'm guessing I'm going to need a strip pre with limiting in it.

I'll try put up photo's soon, and give a run down - interesting show... feel free to fire any questions if you are keen...
 
if you're a mod, turn a blind eye to this. :)

oleg, are you SH*TTING me? I never thought I'd see Oleg Kaizerman suggesting a Behringer product! Ha ha!

But seriously, is this going to do the job? Do I have to chain it as an auxiliary or can I put it in Pre Onyx without completely screwing up the signal?
 
no - its cheap, its what you need and if it goes down you buy another one
you can go true the inser points on your mixer
 
hmmm. so its not going to add a ton of behringer hiss into the equation oleg? it sure is attractive at that price...
 
reality, sure, but i'm not chucking a noisy unit into the chain when im dealing with a few soft talkers as it is... i may as well get a behringer mixer then too. hell, lets make it a eurorack. :)

ok, well thanks for the idea though, i'll go check when out when I get back to south africa - shooting this show in bursts.
 
Another idea... not too pricey if you can find 'em used... is the Focusrite OctoPre, which has 8 "single-knob, idiot-proof" compressors. It works pretty well in situations where you're not there to futz around with the sound much, and the compression sounds better (depending on the setting, of course) than just limiting... can be used before the Mackie (not bad as a pre), or as a bunch of inserts.... PreSonus has a similar unit (one of the DigiMax versions), but I like the Focusrite sound better.....
 
Considering your entire gain structure, recording soft, or conservatively, might be as good an answer as any. Assuming you're running 24 bit from the Onyx, you've got a theoretical 144db dynamic range in the digital domain. Analog limiters at best will only worsen the noise floor, so you don't really gain anything there in absolute terms. And limiters are pretty nasty things - they're basically just a clip-proof brick wall. You don't escape the fact that they go from uncompressed to infinity:1 ratio at the threshold. This can give you pretty unnatural results if you find yourself hitting them a bit too hard, and the solution there again is to go conservative level-wise so you don't, which puts you sort of back where you started.

If I were doing this job, I'd just look for some worst-case peaks, set levels a safe margin below that, keep an eye on it for any exceptions, and be happy. Then in post I'd apply any compression, EQ, noise reduction, gating, what have you - as required for the mix. If low level tracks need gain added, then you should be no worse off than you would have been with limiting, and potentially better, since you haven't artificially brick-walled the dynamics or added noise from the analog limiters.

I think you'd only get two things from limiters - (a possibly false sense of) relief from clips (due to the consequent dynamic alteration when you hit them), and a little more level initially, possibly making a post-mix *slightly* easier. In either case though, I would think you're looking at a pretty intense mix due to the number of channels and the overall complexity of the setup. So...questionable benefit I think.

My $.02
 
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I hear what you're saying Ted, but the same old thing goes - an unnatural sounding limiter is better than unusable distortion. and sadly "conservative" gain is a bit tricky on this one because every single guy has completely different delivery volume (most of these guys havent ever used a mic - they'll get better, but the first few rounds of the show will be rough).

Basically what I'm saying is that the dynamic range I'm encountering is PSYCHO. My digital multitracks aren't really concerning me - they come pre fader, and largely speaking are ok. They are also my back up, not my primary. My main mix is going to both "A" camera, and the house. It's clipping THERE that is NOT cool. bit of a tricky one, this.

Anyhow, update - got through the first round of auditions with very few instances of clipping (mild little bit here and there, which I want to eliminate, but generally fine). First round was only 3 mics - performer and 2 judges. I did test multitracking which was great - will be sending to post to check out the workflow in anticipation of the main event (starting oct 28).
 
If your only worried about the two track out then put a two channel limiter there. For your tracks, if your using Boom Recorder you can add second channels connected to the same input and dial down the level. I was doing this on some doc. for the same reason you have, unpredictable volumes and no channel limiters. You end up recording twice as many files but you can toss all or most of them once you know the full volume tracks didn't clip. And with BR if you direct the (in my case) -6 files to a "safety" folder it's easy to dump them. Of course if you inputs clip this isn't much help.
 
yeah, sadly thats where im worried about hitting a clip. and im already putting my sd302 after the mackie to limit the camera mix to a predictable range...

an insert limiter also wont help though if the pre clips will it? not too clued up on the signal path here... where do the sd input lims sit in the chain?
 
I think their info sheet on the MixPre goes into it a bit. I believe they are pre-preamp.
Octo Pre is sounding pretty good if the compressor can act like a limiter.
 
what do you reckon the pre's on the octo versus the onyx would be? part of the reason i like the onyx is that it has nice preamps..
 
Don't Know but it has great user reviews from what I've seen. I'm going to check on Jef Wexler's site, though it probably gets dinged there because of AC power. Also you still need something to connect to the computer. Even with the digital card it doesn't have firewire, so it's more an addition to the mixer rather than a replacement. Also limiter if fixed at +20dBu so one would have to make sure your mixer line in was happy with that.
 
Hey I just got home from a gig where I was testing my MixPre in parallel with the OctoPre... and man, I have to say the headroom on the MixPre seems extremely limited in comparison. Mics that have never have problems on the OctoPre overload the inputs on the MixPre drastically (the limiter prevents most clipping - though a few clips did sneak by - but the sound is of course drastically squashed).

No doubt, the OctoPre is a nice-sounding unit, I'd say at least on par with the Onyx. The most annoying thing about it is that all the analog Line I/O is on DB25s, so you need special cables for line I/O (or does the Onyx series have DB25 I/O... I have a vague memory...)
 
? What were you recording??? I have used quite a few mics with the MixPre and never had it crap out. I've recorded jets and Prop planes and helicopters close up with Oktava's never a clip on the MixPre. Spec. wise I believe the MP maxes at +26 and the OctoPre at +22 so I'm puzeled
 
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