Tracking a Live Show.

[Blake Long]

I'm going to be tracking a live album for a band in a couple days and I thought I would get some tips from the forum.

I will have a split snake so the FOH and I can use the same mics when needed. I've got drum and vocal mics covered. I've decided to run the guitar, bass, and keys direct. I will also have room mics pointed at the PA and audience mics pointed right at the crowd.

I've just got one real question. If I DI the guitar, and preamp it through my Presonus Digimax, will I have to buy some sort of "Reamp" box to reamp it? By the way, I will be sending out of Protools through the line outs of my 882 IO. Or can I just make a just pull a fader down in Protools enough to match the signal the amp is used to receiving?

[Barnabas]

A transformer isolated split snake (small transformer for each channel) is much nicer than a passive split snake. Transformers will keep your volume adjustmnets and the FOH volume ajustments from interfereing with each other.

Make sure your crowd mics are not too close to the crowd or they will only pickup the crowd around the mic.

For the guitar, it sounds like you are running the guitar sound to your PT system and then sending the guitar signal to the guitar amp on stage. Did I understand you correctly? If so, I'd use a direct box that has a 1/4" pass-through output so the guitar player keeps his regular setup (except the insertion of the DI) and doesn't have to rely on an output from you. Keep it simple.

Sometimes I add extra mics on the drums if the live drum mics are not exactly the best for recording or are not in the best position for recording.

Solo everything and listen for buzzes.

[vze24x2x]

This "split Snake" thing sounds pretty sketchy to me, why re-invent the wheel? Get a Two way Isolated splitter for however many channels you need to split. That's one direct side and one Transformer isolated side that should have a ground lift switch. whoever is supplying phantom power gets the Direct side. DI's for Keys & Bass are fine, but what's the deal with the Guitar DI? would the DI be post FX or something? why not mic the amp? is it one of those POD amps? If so, a DI would make sense. Room mics and Audience mics have always meant the same thing to me. I don't know anyone whose ever mic'd the PA. just hang (if possible) the mics 10 feet or so over the people. or use more directional mic and point the mics at them (rejecting as much of the PA as possible.)
-bk

[Blake Long]

I didn't get to read your replies until after I did the show, but it turns out that I did everything you guys mentioned anyway. Oh, except for micing the guitar amp. I used a Radial DI that I patched in after all the FX pedals, and used the parallel out from the DI to go to the amp. So didn't actually run the DIed signal through PT and then back to his amp at the show. I will be doing that when I mix. I think this will make for better isolation and make it easier to punch in flawed parts if I have to.

I ended up using most of the same drum mics that I would have used in my studio. And I have to tell ya, I was really surprised at how much isolation I got. I used AKG 451 EBs for the overheads and all they picked up were drums and a little lead vocal that was coming through the drummers wedge.

[DC11]

I'll be doing the same kinda thing soon. How was the overall experience? Was it hard or fairly basic? It doesn't seem like it would be that bad, but I'd rather not be in the middle of it before I realize that it is that bad