I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?
The pieces range from a few seconds to a few minutes each and I don't see
any pattern on the stopping points (it's not voice activated). Some of the
pieces are contiguous (the end point of one piece connects to the starting
point of the next piece). Why is this happening, and what do I have to tell
the sound guy next time so he can give me one long piece instead of many
small pieces of audio? Let's assume he doesn't know how to use this CD
recorder very well.

On 1/25/05 5:56 PM, in article 21BJd.19097$IP6.10508@trnddc05, "peter"
wrote:

I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?

None that I can think of, except a defective one. Or if the power has
constant brown-outs.

Any chance the guy didn't want to do the recording for you? (I.e. not his
job, he was offended by your request, etc...) He may have just screwed you
over for kicks.

I'd go back to the venue and test the recorder myself. That will tell you if
it was the unit or the operator. If it's the operator, you'll have to guess
if it was a mistake or malicious.


Allen
--
Allen Corneau
Mastering Engineer
Essential Sound Mastering
Houston, TX

If his pay is only based on live sound, then it's hard for him to
justify any extra monkeying around to perfect your recording. If he
doesn't do this particular multi-tasking every day or every week he
probably won't have all the kinks worked out.

Get there early and ask nicely to run a test.

You said it wasn't voice activated, but consider it again.

Google:
search for "recording stops" CDR
search for cd-sync, 20, "20 seconds", silence, digital silence

I found page 26 of this document interesting
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/c/c...00_dfu_eng.pdf
Prediction: It's a Philips CDR, turn off CD-SYNC

In article 21BJd.19097$IP6.10508@trnddc05 writes:

I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?

A broken one. Unless he was putting it into Pause for long periods of
time. Some of them will only pause for 10 minutes or so before they
decide you've gone to lunch, so they do, too.

Let's assume he doesn't know how to use this CD
recorder very well.

Then he probably doesn't use it very often. Borrow it from him a week
or so before the next gig, learn how to use it yourself, and then show
him what not to do. Or just start it yourself and tell him not to
touch anything. And don't forget to finalize.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

peter wrote:

I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?
The pieces range from a few seconds to a few minutes each and I don't see
any pattern on the stopping points (it's not voice activated). Some of the
pieces are contiguous (the end point of one piece connects to the starting
point of the next piece).

I've used two different CD recorders that have two or three different
modes. (And they behave very similarly, so I think they may have had
the same chip in them.) The only useful one is "MANUAL" mode. I
forget exactly what the others are (since they're designed for making
copies of recordings, as far as I can tell), but if it's in any mode
other than manual mode, then the thing will just randomly stop in the
middle of the program I'm trying to record. Based on the instructions,
it seems like it's supposed to correspond to periods of silence, but
if so, then the threshold is unreasonably high.

The thing I really, really hate about it is that if the recorder loses
power (such as when I, say, hit the power button and turn off the
whole rack -- it's a rack-mounted recorder), then it defaults to one
of the useless modes.

After I understood that the recording modes existed and that only
one of them was useful, I got much better results out of the thing,
but I still did not understand for a while that it likes to change
its setting back to what seems like a totally unreasonable default.

As a consequence, I eventually learned that every time I insert a
disc to record on, I check the record mode. Even if I *think* I
had it set right earlier, I still always put the disc in, wait a few
seconds for the thing to get used to its presence, and then hit the
"REC MODE" button repeatedly until I see the word "MANUAL" appear
on the display.

- Logan

In article znr1106700456k@trad, Mike Rivers wrote:
In article 21BJd.19097$IP6.10508@trnddc05 writes:

I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?

A broken one. Unless he was putting it into Pause for long periods of
time. Some of them will only pause for 10 minutes or so before they
decide you've gone to lunch, so they do, too.

OR one that is using the wrong media. If you put the new 54x media into
a typical realtime CD recorder, it will periodically stop with an error.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Lots of modern CD recorders have a "Sync" feature which auto-detects
silences in the program and will pause recording. This feature is meant
to make it super easy to dub a cassette or vinyl recording directly to
CDR without having to baby-sit the entire recording. When the silence
ends, the CD recorder will kick back in and make a new track.
Obviously, this feature can only be so good and would not really be the
appopriate setting for a live show. But it sounds like the CD recorder
was in some sort of similar "Sync" mode.

Cheers,
Trevor de Clercq

peter wrote:
I was videotaping a stage show and asked the sound guy to record the audio
for me. He choose to put it on CDRs. When the show ended, he told me pieces
of it are missing because he didn't know he had to push the start recording
button often because it would stop after a while.

What kind of real time audio CD recorder would stop recording after a while?
The pieces range from a few seconds to a few minutes each and I don't see
any pattern on the stopping points (it's not voice activated). Some of the
pieces are contiguous (the end point of one piece connects to the starting
point of the next piece). Why is this happening, and what do I have to tell
the sound guy next time so he can give me one long piece instead of many
small pieces of audio? Let's assume he doesn't know how to use this CD
recorder very well.

That is probably what happened, like a few other posters pointed out. If it
was really just bypassing silence, it would be ok. Unfortunately, the sound
guy have fed audio into this recorder at a very low level ( have to amplify
it 10 to 20 dB to make them sound normal) so that alot of non silent portion
are not recorded as well. Sigh.

"Trevor deClercq" wrote in message
news:1106752080.e6fb8b1012a267a99b2ef5fe431ea39a@t eranews...
Lots of modern CD recorders have a "Sync" feature which auto-detects
silences in the program and will pause recording. This feature is meant
to make it super easy to dub a cassette or vinyl recording directly to CDR
without having to baby-sit the entire recording. When the silence ends,
the CD recorder will kick back in and make a new track. Obviously, this
feature can only be so good and would not really be the appopriate setting
for a live show. But it sounds like the CD recorder was in some sort of
similar "Sync" mode.

Cheers,
Trevor de Clercq

Tom Penharston wrote:
If his pay is only based on live sound, then it's hard for him to
justify any extra monkeying around to perfect your recording. If he
doesn't do this particular multi-tasking every day or every week he
probably won't have all the kinks worked out.

I got to the point where I refuse to do board tapes (if I could get away
with it). I had too many musicians/managers etc. 'pick apart' a mix based
on what they heard from the tape/disk...when what they were listening to had
very little to do with the actual sound in the venue during the show.

Also, it's way too easy to forget to push 'record' in time to catch the
first few bars, or to change the media when required. It's NOT my
job...unless it's on the rider, of course. In those cases, I try to get
someone else to handle the tape/disk machine. I also have a prepared
statement which explains that the raw sound from the console has very little
bearing on what the audience hears.

jak

Get there early and ask nicely to run a test.

You said it wasn't voice activated, but consider it again.

Google:
search for "recording stops" CDR
search for cd-sync, 20, "20 seconds", silence, digital silence

I found page 26 of this document interesting
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/c/c...00_dfu_eng.pdf
Prediction: It's a Philips CDR, turn off CD-SYNC

Concerning levels, a quality set-up requires at least one dynamics
processor before the CDR. If you don't then the levels must be low to
allow headroom.

It's better to have a soft signal than digital distortion at the peaks.
Even with a compressor, it's tough to judge where the safe levels are,
thus the safe level is a little lower than you wish it was.

That's not all... consider that his "tape output" (or whatever output
his board provides... his tape output might be dependent on the main
faders. That would be the same main faders that control the room
level. In that scenario he'd have to blow away the room to please you.

I'm glad you posted this. Video hounds, tapers, managers, and friends
often are at a loss to understand any of this. Some are disrespectful
and assuming along the way.

Tom Penharston wrote:

Concerning levels, a quality set-up requires at least one dynamics
processor before the CDR. If you don't then the levels must be low to
allow headroom.

That's right. People are too stupid to set gains properly, so it is
important to use a machine to do it. Machines are so much smarter
and effective than actual engineers.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article writes:

OR one that is using the wrong media. If you put the new 54x media into
a typical realtime CD recorder, it will periodically stop with an error.

If I put the wrong media in mine, it never gets through the laser
calibration. Once a disk decides to work, however, it keeps working.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article .com writes:

Concerning levels, a quality set-up requires at least one dynamics
processor before the CDR. If you don't then the levels must be low to
allow headroom.

What the heck, how about three or four? Seriously, there is no
requirement for a dynamics processor here, particularly when you're
not monitoring what it's doing.

It's better to have a soft signal than digital distortion at the peaks.

This is true, and it's why we look at the meters and set levels
conservatively, allowing a reasonable amount of headroom.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

What the heck, how about three or four? Seriously, there is no
requirement for a dynamics processor here, particularly when you're
not monitoring what it's doing.


Maybe it's a personal preference. For me it matters. With a
compressor I can maintain peaks around -6 and average program somewhere
around -12. My CDs are still noticeably softer than professional
retail releases but they are still very enjoyable in a home or car
stereo. Without the compressor folks think my discs are "too quiet" on
average with peaks that are "too harsh sounding".

-Tom

In article .com writes:

Maybe it's a personal preference. For me it matters. With a
compressor I can maintain peaks around -6 and average program somewhere
around -12.

But making a recording is not about "maintaining peaks," it's about
recording something that sounds good. If you have found that all your
recordings sound better when processed that way, fine. That's your
secret formula. But it doesn't apply to everyone.

My CDs are still noticeably softer than professional
retail releases but they are still very enjoyable in a home or car
stereo. Without the compressor folks think my discs are "too quiet" on
average with peaks that are "too harsh sounding".

I generally do any sort of processing like that after I've made the
recording. I record at a low enough level so that peaks won't clip,
nor be "too harsh sounding" and make adjustments later on. But you
don't really know what kind of dynamics processing you really need
until you've heard the unprocessed version.

In your case, it sounds like this is a reliable shortcut to getting
the sort of result that you want without an additional step. Saving
time is good, but professing it as a standard procedure is not good.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

If his pay is only based on live sound, then it's hard for him to
justify any extra monkeying around to perfect your recording. If he
doesn't do this particular multi-tasking every day or every week he
probably won't have all the kinks worked out.

I got to the point where I refuse to do board tapes (if I could get away
with it). I had too many musicians/managers etc. 'pick apart' a mix based
on what they heard from the tape/disk...when what they were listening to
had
very little to do with the actual sound in the venue during the show.

Also, it's way too easy to forget to push 'record' in time to catch the
first few bars, or to change the media when required. It's NOT my
job...unless it's on the rider, of course. In those cases, I try to get
someone else to handle the tape/disk machine. I also have a prepared
statement which explains that the raw sound from the console has very
little
bearing on what the audience hears.

"It's a recording of the reinforcement" we all know that speech. I offer
recording using a stereo mic, but not for free. Having a Rode NT4, DBX 386,
and Nomad JB3 around has paid for itself many many times over. The key
thing is to be able to do a decent job really fast in order to keep it
affordable to the musicians, otherwise either they can't pay enough or you
end up working for $5/hr. The JB3 makes that possible. I can literally
have tweaked, track-indexed CD's in the mail before a DAT is done
transfering in realtime.

As a result I make more per hour on the recording than on live sound, and
frankly I don't find live sound rewarding enough on its own - too often a
battle of wills over gear/configuration, when it all comes down to talent.
Just last night I got an earful for changing a monitor EQ (originally set by
a bassist), and all four bands were happy with the stage sound. I gave him
the "If it's so important take a damned picture" speech...

Maybe it's a personal preference. For me it matters. With a
compressor I can maintain peaks around -6 and average program somewhere
around -12. My CDs are still noticeably softer than professional
retail releases but they are still very enjoyable in a home or car
stereo. Without the compressor folks think my discs are "too quiet" on
average with peaks that are "too harsh sounding".

Never heard of post-processing? Considering it's an SR mix, it can surely
benefit from an EQ before a compressor, preferably multiband, and of course
a peak limiter can help get it up to "professional retail release" levels.
Blindly printing a compressor live is not going to wrangle that rascal.

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Machines are so much smarter
and effective than actual engineers.

Well, they eat less now that one needn't bake their tapes.

--
ha