Afl - pfl - wth?

[Dennis Fieger]

Greetings everyone, I'm new to this forum, please be patient. Would someone please be willing to explain why and how PFL and AFL features are used on the Tascam model 16 mixer and please keep the verbiage simple as you are corresponding with the village idiot :-( . Actually I am learning how to use this new board and struggle with this part of it. We record our shows and when listening to the tracks they are significantly different than what we hear from FOH mix. From what I can tell understanding how to use AFL and PFL may be the magic pill for setting levels and solving this issue. Thanks in advance.

 

[-mjk-]

PFL: Pre Fader Listen. Signals you are hearing (or maybe recording) are taken from a tap before the fader, and depending upon the device, may be before any number of other points in the audio path, such as EQ, compression, etc..

AFL: After Fader Listen. Signals you are hearing (or maybe recording) are taken after the fader.

There is no "magic pill" for anything audio. You have a sound reinforcement system and you are hearing the interaction of that system in the room along with the "stage volume" so naturally your recordings of only the stage instruments sounds significantly different than what you hear in the room as it's missing the reinforcement system's contribution to the overall sound (live location recording is an art/science unto itself). If you have spare tracks you should record a couple of room mics (but don't put those into the reinforcement system!) to capture something of the room sound. But it's never going to sound like it does in the room unless you record only the room and do it right.

Welcome to the Tascam Forums. Please familiarize yourself with the sticky posts at the top of the forums.

 

[Blue Monster 65]

Also remember that the recorder section does not record any of the mixer settings or effects when recording live. This can sound quite different than your live mix.

It’s only when you record a mix down of the separate tracks to the master that you can record your channel settings.

 

[David the Mixer]

Hi Blue Monster, please elaborate on your second sentence there, is there a way to bake in the channel settings into an individual track?

 

[Mark Richards]

Don't own one of these, but looking at the OM Block Diagram, Channels 1~14 go directly to the SD MTR Tracks 1~14 right after the compressor and before the EQ and FX circuits.

That makes sense because "Live" EQ and FX needs are not typically the same as those required for studio mixdown. Clean MTR tracks are studio SOP to provide maximum flexibility for the studio mixdown session.

The Block Diagram also indicates the always-record-ready 2-Track stereo master on tracks 15/16 captures the full mix (levels, pan, compression, EQ, FX) ("Live" or studio mixdown) as long as the Main L/R button is activated and the primary transport record button is engaged.

 

[Blue Monster 65]

Yes, David - the M16 (that I have) and the M24 (that I played around with before I bought the M16) are set up much like the way we used to work with tape. You have your board that you use to input your signal into your multi-track recorder without effecting it. Then, during mix-down to a separate machine, you run back through your mixer and use the controls, etc. to record the master sounding as you want it to. Does that make sense? It's kind of awkward sounding to me, but it says what it does.