Live concert off the board?

[MarkPresti]

My buddy asked me if i would record his band's concert at musikfest over the summer. I was planning on running straight off the board and most likely into an mbox that i could acquire. would i get very good results from this? would there be a better way to do it - such as using my 001 (which would basically give me the same options).

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[dBHEAD]

You'd get the same mix as the live mix. This may or may not be good.

If you used the 001, and assuming the mixer had direct outs on each channel (or at least 4 or more busses), you could actually record individual instruments on different tracks using the 001. You would not need any preamps because those would be in the mixer. It would be very easy to do eight seperate tracks going into the 001 analog inputs. If you had an outboard ADAT A/D like the Octopre or Digimax or Rosetta 800, you could do 16 seperate tracks (8 analog ins on the 001; 8 from the ADAT interface).

[Ben Jenssen]

Most likely the mixer will have sub groups.
If you can persuade the engineer to group the tracks like 1/2-drums, 3/4-guitars, 5/6-keybrds, 7/8-vocals, then you could feed just the subgroups to 001 inputs 1-8. That would give you much flexibility in mixing later. You will, however, be recording the mixers eq and fader movements.

Good luck.

[where02190]

Talk ot whomever is oding sound, and ask if they have an open pair of post fader aux sends. they can send you a separate mix from the house that will follow the house fader moves, and could even add audience mics. I did hundreds of live recordings with John Scofield this way

[MarkPresti]

It's a ska band that i'd be recording. 1 trumpet, 2 trombones, 1 tenor sax, guitar, bass, and vocals. I'm guessing that the board is pretty high quality because Musikfest (musikfest.org) typically doesn't F around. To me it sounds like the grouping would give me the most flexibility afterwards, correct?

[soundboy69]

What, no percussion...hard to do ska w/o drums (not that I've tried, or anything)...

[MarkPresti]

GOod call. my fault on that one.

1 trumpet, 2 trombones, 1 tenor sax, 1 guitar, bass, drums, vocals. i completely forgot about that one (guess i took it as a given!) sorry 'bout that!

[Torgo]

I would definitely try to set up a few strategically placed room mics, as the sound coming directly off a live board can be pretty weird...vocals, drums, and bass tend to be WAY too present, and guitar sounds get washed out. Mixing in some room sound with the board signal helps give a clearer picture of what the audience is hearing. Just be sure that the mics are set up or hung in places where drunk and happy punters don't slam into them!

[JFreak]

i would take individual tracks with your 001, if you can borrow/rent an external 8-track preamp somewhere. that will add to total of 16 channels. in addition to that, i'd ask foh-engineer to make a submix of crowd mics and record that also.

if you run out of the 16 channels for individual instruments, which will likely be the case, you can borrow an mbox & extra laptop from someone and record the crowd with that system. it only takes some time to align the crowd track to the 16 channels in mixdown.

but it all depends; if you only want the stuff that goes from console to the PA, then mbox will be enough.

[where02190]

Wiht a lighpipe preamp or even line interface (such as the AlesisAI-3) you now have 16 inputs.
kick
snare
2x toms(submix)
2x cymbals(submix)
bass
guitar
tpt
trombones(submix)
sax
2x backing vocals vox(submix)
lead vocal
2x audience mics

Add a spdif interface and you gain 2 more to use as needed.

Make sure to have plenty fo HDD space. 18 tracks at 24/44.1 will use up around 20gb of space for a 2 hr show. Test run the rig, make sure you'll have no problems.