Help needed with recording problem

[Mike Honey]

I'm full of Bronchitis at the moment so its not an ideal time to record, but I'm so bored!! Anyway I usually record direct into my analogue portastudio and then digitise to my computer via Polderbits and have always been pleased with the result. Today I tried recording with my new tonelab, again direct into the portastudio. Prior to recording I had a great shadows sound with a nice echo. Whilst recording I monitored via headphones and everything was fine. However on playback the echo had gone!. after several adjustments still couldnt hear echo in the mix. Any ideas why?

mike

[JimN]

Were you, in fact, using a mixer? If so, is it possible that you were listening to one particular pre-fade mix whilst another, separate mix, was being fed to the recorder's input?

That sounds the most likely explanation.

Assuming that the delayed part of the signal was definitely made available to the recorder, then the only logical explanation would be that some sort of noise gate threshold software was damping the signal below a particular level, thus appearing to silence quieter parts of the recording.

Of the two, I'd put the money on your listening to a different mix from the one fed to the recorder...

JN

[Mike Honey]

thanks jim for the suggestion. I always use the headphones via tape cue rather than the monitor mix so i had to write that one off . after a bit of thinking I came up with the fact that prior to buying the Tonelab I used the effects loop on the portastudio (never had need to adjust the strength of the effect signal but the capability was there). With the tonelab the echo is built in so all the signal is directed into the porta input. I edited the delay signal and made it stronger and it seems to have done the trick! The echo is far too strong for gigging now but ideal for recording

mike