[HL0105]

On Mar 10, 5:34*pm, "Richard Crowley" wrote:
"HL0105" wrote ...

At the bar where I do karaoke, I talked the KJ into making recordings
of our singing. So he
brought a (Gemini IKey Plus) Portable USB Recorder, and connected it
to the (RCA Record Out) on his (American DJ QFX Pro) mixer.

When we listened to the recording the next day, we noticed two
problems. One was that for some of the louder singers, there was
distortion. The KJ's theory on why this happened was that the gain
setting on the mixer (set at one quarter setting) was too high for
recording purposes. And that gain setting could not be turned down; it
had to be at least that high since this was karaoke in a bar
environment.

Might be that some other part of the bar's audio chain is
not set properly if he has to make up extra gain in the
mixer to the point where it causes distortion. *The solution
would be to do proper gain-staging for the entire sound
system. *The other possibility is that the speakers/power
amps are under-powered and no adjustment will fix that.

The other problem we noticed was that there was no background noise at
all to supplement the singer's voice; it sounded like a studio
recording. And without this ambient crowd noise, you heard every
imperfection in the singing. And since karaoke singers are amateurs;
well there were LOTS of imperfections.

Yes, that is exactly what we would expect to hear.

So we tried a second recording attempt. This time without any input
from the mixer; the recorder's built-in microphone was used.

That recorder doesn't have a built-in mic.


Sure it does. The updated iKey PLUS model includes a stereo T-mic.

So we're back to square one. How the heck do we get some decent
recordings?? If anyone has any insight on this, it would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks!

Simple answer. Move the recording mic around (likely somewhere
in front of the main speakers) to the point where the PA
sound vs. the ambient noise is pleasing to you.


Move the recording mic around? That's exactly what we did, between
recording attempts two and three. As stated in my original post...on
recording attempt three, we placed the Recorder one foot away from the
monitor speaker.

Technically correct answer: Use a recording mixer where you
can adjust the: singer(s), trax, and ambient sounds in the
proper proportion for recording.

Already asked the KJ about that option. He said that his mixer
unfortunately does not have that capability. He has seperate trax for
the inputs, but not for the outputs.