Best AGC Safety speed setting for H120

[harpster]

I do stealth recording with my H120 and, as a result, often can't check levels during a show. I've had success with guessing levels, then letting the AGC Safety bump them down as needed. I've been using the fastest setting of 200ms. However, I've had some occasions where the mic input got moved, causing a spike which dramatically lowered gain. I have not experimented with other Safety settings. I'd like to find one that would prevent clipping, but not overly lower gain if I get a spike from jostling the cable. What works best for those of you who do rock concert recordings?

Thanks in advance!

[petur]

I've also been using 200ms and had the same issue you had, but not that much...
Maybe it is time to experiment a bit

[pabouk]

Did someone think of implementing a filter which would not pass similar noises (as microphone manipulation) to the AGC sound level evaluation? Do you think that it is possible to implement it?

[petur]

AGC is only looking at the peak level, not the actual audio

the time settings configures how long the level must be above -3dB (I think) before it gets into action. I'd have to look at the code again, been too long...

[pabouk]

Maybe it would be too much for the poor CPUs in the players but I can imagine a filter which could detect sounds which should be ignored for example according to their frequency spectrum and when the sound is detected the peak updates could be temporarily suspended.

[Llorean]

That seems pretty improbable. While the CPU may be fast enough, the real problem is that it's nearly impossible to identify sound types that should universally be ignored. The feature would be special case, and would require several profiles, one per "environment" such as recording different types of music, or a voice performance of some sort, or other things. Also, frankly, I'm somewhat against the idea of attempting to bloat the core recording code with features that are generally designed specifically for "stealth" recording, which seems shady at the least for a project that generally likes to make clear how much we respect licenses.

[bugg100]

I do stealth recording with my H120 and, as a result, often can't check levels during a show. I've had success with guessing levels, then letting the AGC Safety bump them down as needed. I've been using the fastest setting of 200ms. However, I've had some occasions where the mic input got moved, causing a spike which dramatically lowered gain. I have not experimented with other Safety settings. I'd like to find one that would prevent clipping, but not overly lower gain if I get a spike from jostling the cable. What works best for those of you who do rock concert recordings?

Thanks in advance!

I'd like to respond to the part about the cables being moved introducing noise......  Typically that is because a connection that has power (plug in mic power in this case) is dirty.  The usual culprit is oil from your fingers on the jack before you plug it in.  

To clean this use 92% iso alcohol (more pure is better - no 70%) and a gum/dental brush, it will look like a very small artifical christmas tree.....  Alcohol should not be allowed to run into player, so brush pointing up and player jack pointing down when cleaning the jacks......   Plugs should be cleaned and then touched on the metal parts as little as possible.  You should not get any static when fooling with clean cables and jacks.

If this isn't your noise source, sorry for taking your time!

Joe