Strange problems recording with 3 USB Snowball microphones

[kozikowski]

And there's a Desperation Method. Do the show in takes not longer than the time it takes for the effect to get serious. Yes, that will put a nick in your creativity, but that does work.

Movie cameras only hold 11 minutes of film....

Koz

[kozikowski]

That one microphone in the middle thing is not a dreadful idea. That will solve the crowding the microphone problem I found in the posted example. Even though there are three microphones, Jeff sounds like the Feature Presenter who's swallowing the microphone and Rick sound like he's sitting in a comfortable chair across the room. If everyone is the same distance from their microphone, I wonder if they're all working.
Koz

[inkswamp]

There is one out. Remove two of the Snowballs and that fancy software thing. Set the remaining one to omnidirectional (position 3) and put it in the middle of the table. Tell everybody to lean in and get cozy.

Koz

Thanks so much. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your feedback and taking the time to listen to an example of what I'm talking about. All the searching around I've done and I can't seem to find anyone else who has stumbled into this situation. Maybe we're the first.

We're going to be doing exactly what you just said for the next couple of episodes and then buying a small 4-mic mixer and some XLR mics. That cuts all the software out of the process and lets us record an actual audio signal. I think this was a case of using the wrong tools to get the job done.

[kozikowski]

That is going to put you at the mercy of the echoes and reverb in the room since you can't get close to the microphone without spilling the coffee of the person next to you. Maybe you could work that into the show.

You may hate it, but I guarantee all those multiple USB microphone problems will vanish.

And do post back when you decide what you're going to buy.

"You may not want that mixer. That's the one that catches fire on Thursday."

Koz

[flynwill]

By the way, Koz didn't mention it, but this should be "fixable in post"....

Or at least it should be assuming each of the microphones produced its own track in
Audacity.

Assuming that the theory (the mics drifting out of sync) is correct (and I believe it is)
it should be possible to do a small time slip of the channels to bring it back into sync.
Go to that 50 minute mark in your program, and adjust the relative timing of the
channels until the echo goes away. Note the differences, from that calculate the percent
change in speed needed, and then use the "effect -> change speed" on each track to
correct for the error in each of the tracks.

PITA I know but it will save the show.

The drawback with doing your mixdown live is that once the show is over the mix is
set. You can't go back and boost the level on Rick when he starts mumbling in his
beer easily. So I recommend doing several trial runs to be sure you are getting
a good mix (or best have someone other than the "talent" monitoring the
mix and making adjustments while listening through headphones).

The best fix is a sound interface with more than 2 channels, but if you read
the various postings on that subject here you'll see that also has a lot of issues.

[inkswamp]

We were using Virtual Audio Cable to route all three mics into one signal into Audacity so we can't adjust any of the tracks individually.

"Rick when he starts mumbling in his beer easily"

Hey, hey, hey... Rick never mubles into his beer. (BTW, I'm Rick.)

We just bought a Peavey PV8 mixer and 3 XLR microphones this week. Our next show is going to eliminate all these USB variables and put us squarely in the realm of traditional audio. I'm far more comfortable troubleshooting that as I have a lot of experience doing multitrack recording and the tools make more sense to me that Windows drivers and Virtual Audio Cables and USB, etc.

Thanks again, everyone for the help. It's been a hard lesson but I think it's positioned us to produce better audio and have more control over these things in the future.