Live Recording Help

[BFSfullsail]

Here's the deal:
I am recording a christmas concert for my church. They will be using 60 mic lines. I am obviously gonna purchase a unit with lightpipe out on it for the 001 to bring my inputs up to 16. Any recommendations for gear besides the Digimax? Also any ideas on doing submixes before I hit my 001? I obviously can't take all 60 inputs at once. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also I want to shout out to all my fellow Full Sail alumni from Nashville, Tennessee.

[NannerPuddin']

60 inputs? Are they direct micing an entire choir and orchestra?
I just did a live recording at my church last night of Beethoven's Mass in C, with a full choir and orchestra, along with 4 solists. I used a combination of ambient mics for the choir and orchestra, and direct mics on the soloists. Kept the number of mics to a minimum and also took advantage of the great acoustical properties of the sanctuary.

So, what kind of instrumentation will this conceret entail? Will it also need sound reinforcement? Does your church already have a board it is using for reinforcement?

NP

[BFSfullsail]

I guess I should add some details. They are doing a human christmas tree with 12 mics on the choir. 20 single instrument mics. Drums are electronic giving me 4 signals from that. Severel lavalier mics for drama actors. Several mics for soloists during the music. A couple of audience mics. Each signal is being sent to 2 places. One goes to the live sound console for house and one goes to the broadcast room for television and taping. I will be setting up in the broadcast room because all of their signals come in on patchbays. I was thinking about using their extra auxes on their consoles to do submixes. Any better ideas? Also gear purchasing advice is much appreciated.

[BFSfullsail]

One more question. In regards to the SP/DIF connections. Are they "either" "or," or can you have signal coming in on the mic inputs and signal coming in on the sp/dif connections and them be seperated. Sorry if I sound confusing. Basically do I have to make a decision between the mic inputs or the sp/dif inputs?

[Sugarite]

The S/PDIF input are independent, meaning you can have a total of 18 inputs on a 001. Here's the list of gear relevant to your situation:

8-in 8-out ADAT lightpipe a/d converters:
Alesis AI-3 - a/d and d/a on par with 001, $350, $250 used
RME (can't recall model) - better a/d and d/a but still shy of a Lucid AD2496, $1200

2-channel a/d (no d/a):
Lucid AD2496 - popular versatile choice $750
Apogee Rosetta - excellent tone, but has character of its own $1250

Considering the caliber of mics and amount of cross-talk you're going to have in this particular situation, the Alesis AI-3 and Lucid AD2496 should fit the bill and certainly the budget.

As for submixes, gang the choir to 2 tracks, and all instruments except soloists (if any) to 2 tracks, and surely 2 tracks is enough for the drums. You might consider recording the audience mics to DAT to free up some tracks. That leaves 12 tracks for soloists and actors.

If you're familiar with the performance you should be able to punch soloists and actors in and out to maximize the inputs if there's more than 12, maybe have another DAT recording the soloists ganged to one track and actors ganged to the other just as a back-up in case something crucial is missed from a mis-punch, to be blended in afterwards to cover.

Otherwise, I'd just rent a Tascam MX2424 for 42 tracks total, but you'll still have to do a submix to bring the track count down to 24, but at least you don't have to get it right on-set.

[BFSfullsail]

Well the plan is to be at rehersals. I will be in town for 4 of them. Hopefuly that will give me enough time to get basic submixes down. I was thinking about the Alesis piece. Thanks for the info. More is appreciated.

[Doug Ring]

Well, why don't you leave the full-on mic rig to the TV people and go the minimalist route with your own rig?

Stereo pair for the choir, stereo pair for the instruments, maybe another pair for ambience which will also get the audience, and then with your add-on boxes you'll have 10-12 channels left for soloists and actors.

Don't be intimidated into matching everything TV do - remember they want close perspective on everything to match their pictures. You're trying to preserve the ambience of the event as heard by the audience on the night. Sometimes less is more!

Try it out at the first rehearsal and prepare to be surprised!

[BFSfullsail]

I'm not really interested in keeping the essence of the "live" sound. I will probably stack the choir and orchestra several times. Plus I only own 1 mic. I do however think that the TV side of things could do better with less mics but you have to understand none of these guys have any formal traning. The reason I am recording this is because they can't get a good sound.

[BFSfullsail]

By stacking I meant I will be doubling the choir with itself to make it fuller. I basically meant that to mean that it will have a more studio appraoch o it. The TV guys work for the church. They have a broadcast room in the church with a 120 input console and crap like that. They have the coolest gear but noone knows how to take advantage of it. They had a contractor put in the system and they basically jsut push faders all day.

[Doug Ring]

They have no formal training, they can't get a good sound and they're going to put up 60 mics? [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

Oh well, good luck!

Seriously though, if you're working for the TV guys (although I thought you said you were doing this for your church), you could get them to lend you some extra mics for your rig. A TV station should have a few spare mics of decent enough quality. I still wouldn't rule out a minimalist approach. My background is radio and I've done lots of symphony orchestra broadcasts with 8-10 mics, including some for soloists.

BTW, I'm not clear what you mean by "stack" the choir. If you plan to record all the rehearsals and combine the files at the end to sound like four choirs, the timing will never be together unless they play to a click track. Excuse me if that sounds like teaching you to suck eggs, but maybe you could elaborate?