Hi all...
I love the sound of a BA6A on a single channel of stereo buss
material, but I only have one unit...
What are the issues involoved with running the left channel through
the unit and straight back to digital tape (DA38's), and then running
the other channel through the same unit and back to tape, creating
(theoretically) a stereo 2-buss mix though a pair of BA6A's?
I can't see any syching issues, but how about phasing issues?
Seems that the units would be well-matched, since they are the same
unit? (g)

Thanks in advance....
Bruce

(MandoBazaaro) wrote in
om:

Hi all...
I love the sound of a BA6A on a single channel of stereo buss
material, but I only have one unit...
What are the issues involoved with running the left channel through
the unit and straight back to digital tape (DA38's), and then running
the other channel through the same unit and back to tape, creating
(theoretically) a stereo 2-buss mix though a pair of BA6A's?
I can't see any syching issues, but how about phasing issues?
Seems that the units would be well-matched, since they are the same
unit? (g)

Thanks in advance....
Bruce


The stereo image will bob around like billy-oh. When something in one
channel only causes compression, anything in the centre will seem to shift
in the other direction. That's why dual comps have a link switch and good
mono comps tend to have some way of linking the gain reduction with a
similar unit.

Having thought a bit more about it though, if the RCA has a sidechain input
(don't know the unit well myself), you could send a sum of the lef/right
into that on each pass, and get the same gain reduction over time on each
track...

In article , Mike wrote:
(MandoBazaaro) wrote in

Hi all...
I love the sound of a BA6A on a single channel of stereo buss
material, but I only have one unit...
What are the issues involoved with running the left channel through
the unit and straight back to digital tape (DA38's), and then running
the other channel through the same unit and back to tape, creating
(theoretically) a stereo 2-buss mix though a pair of BA6A's?
I can't see any syching issues, but how about phasing issues?
Seems that the units would be well-matched, since they are the same
unit? (g)


The stereo image will bob around like billy-oh. When something in one
channel only causes compression, anything in the centre will seem to shift
in the other direction. That's why dual comps have a link switch and good
mono comps tend to have some way of linking the gain reduction with a
similar unit.

Okay, let's say you have four tracks of a multitrack deck available, and
two of them are your mixdown.

You play back the whole mix, sum the two channels to stereo and put it
into the sidechain (and on the BA-6A, you will have to do some cut and
paste work to make a sidechain input as I recall). You take channel one
and put it into the BA-6, then record to a third channel.

Then you do the same again with channel two, recorded to channel four
with the sum signal into the sidechain.

Personally, I think the BA-6A is WAY too heavy-handed to use on a full
mix, but that may just be me.
--scott


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

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in
:


Okay, let's say you have four tracks of a multitrack deck available,
and two of them are your mixdown.

You play back the whole mix, sum the two channels to stereo and put it
into the sidechain (and on the BA-6A, you will have to do some cut and
paste work to make a sidechain input as I recall). You take channel
one and put it into the BA-6, then record to a third channel.

Then you do the same again with channel two, recorded to channel four
with the sum signal into the sidechain.

Personally, I think the BA-6A is WAY too heavy-handed to use on a full
mix, but that may just be me.
--scott



Yep, figured that out 2 seconds after pressing 'send' hence my followup
post!

In article writes:

I love the sound of a BA6A on a single channel of stereo buss
material, but I only have one unit...
What are the issues involoved with running the left channel through
the unit and straight back to digital tape (DA38's), and then running
the other channel through the same unit and back to tape, creating
(theoretically) a stereo 2-buss mix though a pair of BA6A's?
I can't see any syching issues, but how about phasing issues?

First off, there's a chance that you could send the phantom center of
your stereo image wandering all over the place. When using a "stereo"
compressor, gain reduction of both channels is controlled by the same
thing - one channel, the sum of the two channels, or whichever channel
happens to be the loudest. However the control source is derived, it's
applied to both channels, assuring that whatever's in the center will
stay in the center. By comprssing each channel separately, you lose
this.

If you don't mind digging into the compressor, you might be able to
feed it a gain reduction signal from the outside world rather than let
it get it from the input (or output) of the compressor. If that's
possible (well, everything's possible - if that's feisable) you could
make a mono mix on a spare track of your multitrack recorder, then use
this (in both passes) to control the gain reduction.

As far as phasing issues, this is a function of how well your recorder
stays in sync with itself. You can run a quick test without the
compressor. Record the same thing on both channels, then record the
playback of one channel in one pass, the playback of the second
channel in a second pass, and listen to the two re-recorded channels
in mono to see if it's solid. If it is, you shouldn't have a phasing
problem with this two-pass approach. If it isn't, they you'll have a
problem.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

In article znr1067472205k@trad, Mike Rivers wrote:
If you don't mind digging into the compressor, you might be able to
feed it a gain reduction signal from the outside world rather than let
it get it from the input (or output) of the compressor. If that's
possible (well, everything's possible - if that's feisable) you could
make a mono mix on a spare track of your multitrack recorder, then use
this (in both passes) to control the gain reduction.

A great idea, but the BA-6A is a feedback style limiter, which means
that the output stage's plate voltages are compared to a reference
voltage with some diodes to form the gain reduction signal that's fed
back to the input stage. These output stage plate voltages are sort
of high, so it isn't really practical without adding a lot of extra
circuitry to stuff some signal other than the actual output voltage
into the detector.

One other possibility would be to run two passes through the BA-6A but
use a sum and difference matrix. In this scheme, you'd prepare a L+R
signal and limit that, and then prepare an L-R signal and limit that.
Dematrix it and you get left and right channels limited just as they
would have been limited by a vertical / lateral disk cutting limiter.

The center of the stereo image won't wander with this sort of limiter,
but the stereo width will change along with the program. This sort of
arrangement was pretty common a long time ago for disk cutting, so
it's probably a desireable sound anyway.


Have fun,

Monte McGuire

"Have fun"...

That I'm doing...
Thanks all for the very informative info....
I'm not really using the BA6A for all that much compression, but I
sure love the way room mics sound when run through this thing, and
that's basically what this recording is that I'm working on...
Again, thanks to all...

Bruce

MandoBazaaro wrote:

That I'm doing...
Thanks all for the very informative info....
I'm not really using the BA6A for all that much compression, but I
sure love the way room mics sound when run through this thing, and
that's basically what this recording is that I'm working on...
Again, thanks to all...


You know, in this age of 5.1 surround systems everywhere, it is probably
heresy to say it.

But there's really nothing wrong with mono.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote:

You know, in this age of 5.1 surround systems everywhere, it is probably
heresy to say it.

But there's really nothing wrong with mono.
--scott
--

Thank you.

-jw