RaneGain

[Johnno]

Anyone use Rane's RaneGain thingy for setting audio levels?

[MarkPAman]

Hmmm. I've not come across that before.

 

How useful to be able to hear distortion. ;)

 

Or am I missing something? :blink:

[Bobbsy]

I was about to post something similar to Mark but then a few synapses in my senile brain managed to fire weakly and I remembered that I've read the SynAudCon document referred to in the product sheet. As I recall, this is meant to be an aid to setting up gain staging with some degree of accuracy, especially in situations where you're using outboard with limited (or no) metering. The idea is to avoid the situations I'm sure we've all seen where, for example, the Aux out on the mixer is turned down to within a gnats whisker of the bottom stop, while the input on the effects unit is cranked right up.

 

Anybody who's been kicking around the industry for a while should be able to judge things better just by eye/ear but the idea of this unit is to provide an absolute indication of the maximum usable level anywhere along the chain to allow you to back off by a chosen amount of headroom. As such, I can see some uses...but whether I'd spend my hard-earned cash or just keep going as I do things now, I dunno.

 

Bob

[Ken Hughes]

Is this another tool to help the inexperienced remain inexperienced?

[Rob_Beech]

Is this another tool to help the inexperienced remain inexperienced?

 

I couldn't have put it better myself. I'm sure it has it's uses, and is good at what it does, but in the same way as the feedback detection systems in some of the not so loved graphic eq's it really doesn't help people progress.

 

Rob

[Ken Hughes]

Yes Rob; progress should be the keyword but I fear we're rapidly drifting away from that ideal.

 

Gadgets and gimmicks do little to assist the development of capable, amiable audio engineers who can do the business without the need to throw wobblers just because their favourite toys aren't installed in the FOH rack.

 

I'm certain most of you rental company owners have mixed a variety of stuff on less than satisfactory desks because it meant gigs went ahead with little drama; or the possibilty of cancellation.

Ok, the fee probably had something to do with the decision but my bet is that a sense of purpose and pride in getting the job done using whatever tools were available was equally important.

[RustyBrooks]

What a waste of money, do people buy (quite possibly cack like) this....???? You do a gig, you have a mic, use that for gain structure. If you are on a job where the mix engineers want to see a well set up gain structure, then something a whole lot more sophisticated than this is called for. Onboard noise generators fed back into an input?

 

Sheeesh.

[Simon Lewis]

To be fair to Rane, I suspect that they simply provided an 'all in one' kit for those who wanted to explore the maximum headroom available on pieces of audio equpment - as highlighted in the SynAudCon sheet. The method is a simplification from using an oscilloscope, and I guess it was aimed at those who didn't have a scope, but could get an audio source and a piezo horn together for a few quid.

 

In practice, perhaps it's not necessary for an experienced audio person, but it's still an informative and interesting thing to actually carry out. I used to include this as a practical exercise to demonstrate clipping and the importance of gain structure.

 

Whether I'd pay money for the Rane version is doubtful - I think I still have the 99p piezo around somewhere ;-)

 

Simon

[tall_phill]

So to add some depth to this discussion. What technique(s) has experience taught people to use to ensure Maximum Headroom through a system that are a superior alternative to the one advocated by Pat Brown and Rane?

 

Surely someone must have a better answer that simply using your 'eye/ear'.

[Shez]

Having a slightly sadistic fondness for maths, I tend to work out these things on paper / spreadsheet. Start at the speaker - work out the maximum input you can give it in dBu, then amp gain, then LMS settings. I'm probably in a minority here though :P

[Simon Lewis]

Having a slightly sadistic fondness for maths, I tend to work out these things on paper / spreadsheet. Start at the speaker - work out the maximum input you can give it in dBu, then amp gain, then LMS settings. I'm probably in a minority here though :P

 

Shez,

 

This is a good approach, but it does slightly fall down inasmuch the paper specification is not always what gets delivered in real life. Measuring - with a scope or a peizo device, or even using your ears - determines the actual clipping point.

 

Simon

[Shez]

the paper specification is not always what gets delivered in real life.

 

Indeed. I'll always build a couple of dBs of extra headroom in to avoid running anything flat out. And as with all these things, the ears get the final say.