San Sebastian | 26.09.10 | Dafy Matrix

Originally posted by carlibengarli:[..]
I am not worried by embarrassment. I'm asking straightforward, motivated questions. It is irrelevant whether I know everything in this regard or not.

Thank you for your answers though, my fellow U2-lovers.

I've understood exactly so much, but you take the "finished" matrix and then take the individual tracks in order to balance it. What you stated above doesn't imply in anyway why that would not be viable.

Originally posted by Risto:Nice expanation!

If you have 2 identical recorders, can you still notice that the internal clocks arent 100% identical? Just curious, in theory no clock runs at the same speed

Originally posted by hoserama:[..]

Good try Risto, think it wizzed right by though.

Lemme explain. Here's what you must do to make a mix:
1. Record feeds
2. Time align feeds - because each recorder runs at a different clock, so you must stretch it so stays in time. I usually stretch in blocks of 10-15 minutes, as clocks are not completely constant.
3. Set levels of each individual feeds - so bono is at +6db, edge at 0db, and aud at -3db, etc. Minor changes between songs to emphasize certain portions. This is the real "mixing"
4. Run whatever processing you want - eq/compress/etc on each individual feed, and then on the final master mix.
5. Process mixdown
6. Enjoy final two channel mix

Now...once you've got a final mix, and that's all you have, if you want to change the balance...go back to step 3. Because you can only apply processing on the final mix, but can't change the individual feed levels.

So if you want to change the mix, but less work, try hitting dafy up for his time aligned tracks. At least then you don't have to do all the time alignment math and gritty work that I spend too much time on.

At least Bono/Edge have the same metronome sound, so you can time align to that. I'm currently working on a Fall 2005 show right now, and aligning an Adam feed to it. Adam/Larry used a high pitched metronome sound, so you can't use that to align. Bah!

Originally posted by hoserama:[..]

Even with the same recorders, the clocks run different. Plus the clocks don't stay constant over a period of a time.

I used to use nomad jukebox recorders 3 back in the day, and they actually had pretty close clocks to each other. It was funny because a 10 minute block at the beginning, I might have to compress it by 99.9998xxxxx% (effectively trimming off ~75 samples or something). At the middle...the clocks would meet. Then towards the end, I'd be having to expand it to create ~40 samples or so.

This is why multitrack recorders and/or clock syncing while recording is sooooo much nicer.

I'm very anal about the time alignment, and I always wonder how careful other people doing matrixes are. Audience/aud or aud/wireless don't need to be quite as precise (but you do need to resample/stretch it), but wireless/wireless has to be *tight*!