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Re: level setting

Subject: Re: level setting
From: Dan Dugan <>
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 11:16:53 -0700
Rich Peet wrote:
>I guess I was not clear enough in what I need.
>I have moved from multichannel laptop recording using de-correlated
>wide spaced microphone arrays to coherent full immersion surround
>recording.

What's your mic array?

>The results are wonderful and very direction accurate in a full 360
>degree field. But when I setup I need to define reference levels for
>each channel that I can see for use in post production.  This is
>needed to keep the immersion direction accurate.
>
>I can not point the mic at the sky, can not use a small radio as the
>volume changes as it is turned, and can not carry studio equipment
>into the field. I already carry 25 lbs into the field for a 3 hour
>record capability at 24/96 or 10 lbs for 16 bit atrac full day
>capability. Right now I am just setting levels based on a hold of the
>minimum valley gain and maybe that is good enough with a good quantity
>of material

I use a clicker for synchronizing multiple recorders, but clicks are
useless for level setting. Ambience-by-ear has always been my
quick-and-dirty method.

I have a little speaker with a distance probe on it that I use for
setting gain on multiple mics in my automatic mixing speech systems.
I feed it pink noise, though of course it comes out very limited
bandwidth.

I'm investigating how to establish some kind of standardized
calibration technique for ambience surveys of the national parks,
using people's various field recording rigs.

>I am starting to think that accurate level settings are not done in
>the music industry except by ear.

Correct.

-Dan Dugan


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