[HL0105]

On Mar 10, 5:36*pm, Mike Rivers wrote:
On Mar 10, 4:57 pm, 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.

He's correct.

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.

This is because the singer was singing an inche from the mic and the
audience was 25 feet away. About the imperfections, you said it.

So we tried a second recording attempt. This time without any input
from the mixer; the recorder's built-in microphone was used. The
result had plenty of crowd noise, so we accomplished that. The
problem: *too much* crowd noise. The noise of the crowd was at such a
high level, that in some cases you could barely hear the singer.

Well, maybe you can put those two experiences together and learn
something about how microphones work. By moving the recorder closer to
the speakers, you can change the balance between the singer+music and
the crowd. How do you know where to put it? You listen to what it's
picking up. Plug a set of headphones into the recorder and listen to
what it's listening to. Admittedly, this is really going to be
difficult in a loud karaoke bar. You can make a test recording,
though, and listen to it. If the balance insn't satisfactory, move the
recorder to another spot and try again. Once you get it right, it'll
probably be OK for the rest of the night, at least for what you're
doing.

So for our third recording attempt we placed the Recorder one foot
away from the monitor speaker, assuming that this would result in the
singer's voice being the loudest part of the recording, much louder
than the crowd noise. Didn't work. At all. Regardless of the fact that
the mic was that close to the speaker, it was the exact same result.
The noise of the crowd was at such a high level, that in some cases
you could barely hear the singer. Baffling!

You still didn't have it in the right place, but you're at least
learning how to learn. Because it was closer to the woofer, it wasn't
getting a balanced sound from the speaker. Keep trying.


We had the Recorder on a mic stand. It was level with, and about a
foot away from, the woofer. We would've had to raise it up another
foot or so to make it level with the tweeter.

So you're saying it was that particular placement of the mic? And that
if we moved the mic (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 foot
vertically) so that it was then situated to get a balanced sound
between woofer and tweeter; that like magic all of that crowd noise
will disappear? Hmmmm. Something I'll have to hear to believe.

So we're back to square one. How the heck do we get some decent
recordings??

You could hire a professional. Or you can keep learning. That's what
professionals do.