Recording Advice Wanted

[Parrot Squawk]

I see an opportunity to do some mobile recording here in town for some garage bands and solo musicians.

I'd like an idea of what my equipment might consist of.

I am just going to be catching the stream of the instruments and vocals and not doing any mixing. I don't consider myself qualified for that yet...but hope to be able to do that too.

I am looking for some moderately portable gear that won't require me to sell my wife.

I may even have a band as a partner to get some better gear.

I am looking at things ranging from:
Yamaha AW4416
Boss BR 1180CD
Fostex VF160

Am I headed in the right direction?

Thanks

[therage!]

Are you absolutely sure you want to go with a stand alone DAW? Have you weighed all the pros and cons of stand alones versus a PC Based DAW?

If your going to track a band are you planning on trackind acoustic drums? If the answer is yes then you've got some serious money to spend on microphones.

Have you considered getting a good quality preamp or plan on using what comes with a DAW?

here's a good starting point...

http://www.studiocovers.com/

[Parrot Squawk]

the interest I have gotten was for low tech.

I was going to take it off whatever their boards offered (1/4", XLR..)

If they want to MIC the drums..fine..I am not going to be doing the "production" side of it..just providing them with the raw tracks for them to work with.

[toby.I.]

if your doing mobile those yamaha muilitracks certainly are pretty good. only 8 i/p but, as i found, it teaches you to get a good sound on a few mics ( plus you only have to buy 8 mics!). if you teamed that with some relativly cheap external pres ( a pair of those TL 4 channel things, or a focusrite octopre etc..) 2 or 3 decent chinnese/ korean made condencers, and 57's you should have a pretty versatile mobile rig.

if your just taking the outs of there board then you can ditch all the mics and pres and stuff.

Yamaha do two don't they? i'd go for the smaller ( cheaper!!) one with eight faders, as from what i recall they don't have alot of difference between them!

[StevenLindsey]

If all you're going to be doing is recording a stereo track out of mixing boards, you certainly don't need a 16 track multitracker. I'd look at a mini disc system or, if you want to doctor the stereo tracks up a bit with reverb or compression or such, I'd find a used Korg D8 or a Tascam 788 cheap. Then you could later add some extra tracks to the stereo recording if you or your customers wanted. Then run your final mix out to a cd burner and voila! You did say lo tech. You could just run straight into a CD burner like a cheap Phillips or TDK. Just have to make sure you've got a pretty good mix on the band's board or it would sound pretty bad. You could get a couple of condenser mics like, say, some Octava MK 012s, Shure SM81s or Studio Projects C4s, a nice two channel preamp, like an RNP or a DMP3, maybe a compressor - a behringer composer or an RNC and then run your mic'd stereo mix into a CD burner or a 4 to 8 track recorder in stereo. That would likely give you a better "live" sound. There are several ways you could go.

[Parrot Squawk]

Some replies and questions:

Steve: Thanks.. The reason that I am going multi-track is to take the line out from each channel of the mixing board of a live gig and to take a bunch of line-ins from a rehearsal/demo gig.
I think this accomplishes what I want to do and what you described in the end of your post.

TheRage: Lugging a computer around is not what I wanted to be bothered with. Please expand on the pros and cons of PC versus Standalone.


Compression?
Is this car talk?? I don't understand using compressors.

MIC's not my job.. if they want to record they are gonna need MICS (which they should have anyway)

Thanks all

[StevenLindsey]

I suppose you are assuming or you know that all of the mixing boards with which you will be operating have direct outs or at least inserts on all channels?? If so, a multitracker will work for that. If they don't, you will only have the stereo mix to record.....well maybe some auxillary outs...

But, what I was saying about using mics...... that would be a better way to capture what the band really sounds like to an audience member.

just some thoughts.

[Parrot Squawk]

Originally posted by StevenLindsey
I suppose you are assuming or you know that all of the mixing boards with which you will be operating have direct outs or at least inserts on all channels?? If so, a multitracker will work for that. If they don't, you will only have the stereo mix to record.....well maybe some auxillary outs...

But, what I was saying about using mics...... that would be a better way to capture what the band really sounds like to an audience member.

just some thoughts.

I thjink you are assuming that I would only be taking line level inputs from instruments ...

Most of the cases would be taken off of mixing boards..

MIC's are the correct way to go for true sound IMHO...and I will use them as long as they exisit


now.. back to my question on recording equipment...any suggestions?
Thanks again

[faderbug]

'TheRage: Lugging a computer around is not what I wanted to be bothered with'

ever concidered recording with a laptop and a descent multichannel audio interface?

[Parrot Squawk]

Originally posted by wetteke
'TheRage: Lugging a computer around is not what I wanted to be bothered with'

ever concidered recording with a laptop and a descent multichannel audio interface?

I had...but I don't have either.

Thanks for the input, though..