Question: recording live musicians / clipped audio

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

Tony Scharf wrote:
> the only solution is, unfortunately, very high sampling rate, very careful
> mic placement, and very high bit depth.
> 
> if you dont have that, here is one solution..
> 
> If you have a standard 8 input audio interface you are using, then why not
> use 6 stereo mics, and record each one at a slightly different level?   one
> higher, one lower, and one right in the middle, for each mic placement (so,
> yeah, your going to want to have a LOT of mics and a LOT of inputs..so its
> expensive).   Then, if you have any sections that clip, you have a
> (hopefully a sample and phase accurate) set of other tracks to crossfade
> over to during the louder sections. conversely, if you have sections that
> were very quiet and not capctured well on the low level recordings you can
> swap over to the higher level ones without needing to normalize or do other
> manipulations.

I often wonder if this is ever done, or whether, say, Deutsche Gramaphon 
prefer to use just unbelievably cool AD converters (I seem to recall 
reading somewhere that they prefer the single converter approach because 
then you can avoid mixer circuitry, etc... and this is something that 
rings a bell: transistor count (especially when op-amps are involved) - 
keep that to a minimum and use a really top end converter, and then 
you're singing).

After listening to Yamaha's early "prosumer" digital mixing consoles, I 
just fear any console, regardless of technology, and also any home-built 
stuff (which invariably relies on op-amps and plenty of -ve feedback, 
given the kind of hack EE I am).

A really good solution is tricky. A good challenge.

Tony (HB)