I need some Recording Live advice p l e a s e !

bvalentine · Post by **bvalentine** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:00 am

Now, I am familiar with the How to Record Your Band tutorials with a line out from a mixer but I need a little more advice.

My Christmas band Santa & His Lil Helpers will be having our 3rd annual show this year. It's blown way past anything we'd ever thought it would and this year we've been picked up by the largest venue in town. We'll be playing on the same big stage Snoop Dog and The Strokes played on. It'll be the biggest show I've ever played (which is both a good and sad thing). But anyway...

Some dude from the local television station is planning to film the entire show with a good digital beta cam. We'll also have another hand-held cam going so he can edit different shots. One thing he was wanting us to do on our end is try and get a decent Audio recording since loud rock stages usually over-blow video camera microphones. All though he is going all out with good equipment, he is NOT going to have a sound-guy (boom shotgun mic) there. He just doesn't have the resources. So he is relying on us.

I was thinking that I could just take my lap-top to the sound booth, run a line out of the sound board into mixcraft and just let it roll.

Another option would be to take my good condenser mic OR my pro-PZM mic.... run it up high on a mic stand in the back of the club and let it roll.

What would you recommend for this scenario.

PROS of the line-out: I would get a direct signal from the board and everything the sound man has mic'd.
CONS of the line-out: From my experience... what comes out of the board is usually very bass drum / vocal / bass guitar heavy. The reasons for this are obvious... but sometimes I have gotten good stuff off the board.

PROS for the single mic: it will pick up a good general room mix as well as crowd reaction.
CONS for the single mic: sometimes you don't know what you got until you go home. I guess this could be said of the sound board too. sometimes (it being in the back of the room) you get peoples conversations who are not paying attention to the band and who are trying to talk loud over the music.

What do you guys recommend? Anything I haven't considered?

http://www.myspace.com/santaandhislilhelpers

bvalentine · Post by **bvalentine** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:04 am

Another option would be for me to take my little mixer, mic the amps, the drums, and PA etc... but I am going to be super busy and will not have the time to be worrying all that stuff. I need something simple.

Also, I doubt the venue has a DAT Machine.

bvalentine · Post by **bvalentine** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:05 am

ALSO.... (sorry about this)

We play for about an hour. Is this going to be too much (too long) for Mixcraft & my computer to handle?

Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach.

YouTube · Post by **Acoustica Greg** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:58 am

Hi,

An hour should be no problem if you are recording at 44100 kHz 16-bit.

It strikes me that the coolest solution would be to tape it both ways.

Can you drum up another laptop?

Greg