Extremely "Tinny" Vocals - DM 3200

[Jesse]

I am in a pinch. I was called into a school 15 minutes before the first showing of a play, asked to help with sound. Its the next day and there are 4 shows to go. I have about 6 hours until the next..

I am on a TASCAM DM-3200. This is not a board I am familiar with, but I am starting to get the hang of it after a little bit of time.

We are using 16 wireless mics of all flavors. I am having an issue with a tinny sound. I have traced it to the board.

I was having an issue on some of the channels and not on the others. For example, channel 1 sounded fine. Channel 16 did not, it had a very tinny and harsh quality. After plugging the wireless system from channel 16 into channel 1, the harshness was gone. I used the cable from channel 16 both times.

I did a hard reset on the board(which was a mistake), and now none of the channels sound good, they are all harsh. With every mic system. And it is beyond the point of a simple fix with the eq. I did all of the testing with a flat or nearly flat eq. I am pretty sure that i am missing a setting on this board somewhere, and I just can't figure it out.

If there was a suggestion, it would be great. Thanks!

Jesse

 

[captdan]

Wild guess: the odds of it being Operator Error are about 99%. The bad news is, there are several possible reasons:

1. Extreme EQ or compression added to some channels and not others...

2. Internal clipping caused by observing wrong metering (pre-fader instead of post -fader).

3. Channel(s) routed to one or more Aux channels as the originating channel is UNassigned from the STereo Bus.

4. Poor gain staging - starting with mic placement, continuing with boosted pre amp gain, then all manner of destruction occurring downstream...

5. Convoluted/messed up routing assignments. (This is a big topic).

6. Malfunctioning hardware, mic, cable, etc etc............

Suggestion: you need to learn the console, how it works, its block diagrams, and the various features which can either help or hurt your efforts. Unless or until that happens, guesswork on anyone's part isn't going to help. There are numerous posts on this forum which could put you on the right path. And reading the manual isn't a bad idea either.

CaptDan

 

[Gravity Jim]

Where are your preamp gain knobs set? Does the wireless system add gain and can it be adjusted? When you say "tinny," do you mean "contracted to a narrow band of upper-mid frequencies" or do you mean "distorted and metallic?"

 

[Gravity Jim]

Well, I'm going to guess he either figured it out or is putting on a tinny show right about now.

 

[cmaffia]

At the moment Charlie is humming "Tinny Vocals" to the tune of "Tiny Bubbles".