Left Mic Issue? Please Help!

[NoddingTurdFAN]

Hi Everyone,

Hope y’all can figure this out.

I got out my old Minidisc masters from some shows I recorded back in 2000. These were all done using a Sharp Minidisc unit with Sony mics (don’t recall the model). They were recorded via the Line-in on the Sharp.

Haven’t looked at or traded these masters out – now that I’m transferring them digitally (Onkyo MD Deck via optical cable to PC Zoltix soundcard) I noticed an issue common to these recordings.

In layman’s terms..because I don’t know any better…it appears that the positive side of the left channel is brickwalled. If you look at the below screenshot you can see that the upper portion of the left channel doesn’t ever hit those nice peaks that the lower portion of the L channel or the entire R channel does. Would it be accurate to say “the positive db of the left channel is cut off?”. When I isolate the L channel and play it back compared to the R channel it doesn’t sound as bright and sounds a little dead. If I play with the Graphic EQ filter I can bring it to life with some effort. What I’d like to do is see if anyone can tell me how to find out if it’s a specific frequency and above that’s being killed. That way I can make a common adjustment for this batch of recordings I’m transferring.

I’m not really into remastering recordings and prefer to send the unadulterated ones out to traders for THEM to make any adjustments they see fit. I’m no expert – just want to try and figure out the problem so I can “fix” the file.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

[Five]

could just be a difference in the two capsules... can you upload a 20sec FLAC sample via yousendit.com / rapidshare.de? I'm guessing the best you can do is eq the left so it sounds balanced, if I can check a sample I can get a bit more insight.

[NoddingTurdFAN]

Done:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...FA87C471925081

Thanks for checking this out.

E

[Five]

I see what you mean with the slightly flattened peaks... eq imo is not the best way to go. open up the entire show and give it an amplitude boost, with the L channel 2db higher than the right. I boosted the sample you provided 9db in the left and 7db in the right and the RMS power is pretty much matched in the stats, also the peaks are about the same visually. Boost the whole show at the same time, if there's a few higher peaks elsewhere in the show you might have to go 8db in the left and 6db in the right... just do the same for the entire show.

since you're not experienced with eq you're liable to do something you will regret a couple years down the line. the recording sounds decent, just needs a boost & balancing, no eq (as described above).

[NoddingTurdFAN]

Excellent! Thanks 5!

E

[NoddingTurdFAN]

I got the stats on the entire show - Left Peak Amplitude is -6.19 db and Right Peak Amplitude is -5.25 db.

I DO NOT want to increase the amplitude above 0 correct?

E

[Five]

correct!

try +6db on the left and +4 on the right

checks stats, also paying attention to RMS and let me know how it goes

[NoddingTurdFAN]

Ended up coming out great. Thanks for the help!