full band live recording-which interface?

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steveyankou

New member
I'm considering buying protools M powered 7 for my home computer. My band rehearses in the basement and I want to be able to make live recordings down there, (we're talking at least 11 microphones). I understand that I need an M-Audio hardware interface. I'm trying to figure out which one I need but I can't seem to find one with 16 simultaneous analog inputs. There are some that claim to have like 32 inputs and there are 2 XLR jacks and then like 4 stupid midi inputs that each represent 8 midi channels or something. I don't want to put any mics through a mixer that isn't on the computer. I want to hit record, have the band play a song, and find a track for every microphone in the room. I'm just looking for an interface that can do this for as cheap as possible. I don't care about effects or virtual tracks or anything, just 16 xlr inputs and a connection to my computer. please help!
 
The real question i..

Do you really need 16 simultaneous inputs? I use the zoom hd-16 to record live bands, and I've never needed to use more than 8 simultaneous inputs. What are you recording?
 
well, I'm thinking 8 drum mics (2 overhead, hi-hit, bass, 3 toms, snare) then guitar, bass, keyboard. That's 11, but I want some wiggle room, maybe 2 mics on a guitar amp, plus we do lots of extra percussion stuff. On the last record we made, for example, I hit a live electric bass repeatedly with a maraca, so I needed to mic the maraca and the bass amp at the same time. We use a 3 foot section of highway guardrail as a percussion instrument on a number of songs. Sometimes we use extra drums, you know, etc.
 
I have an M-Audio Firewire 1814 (which only actually has 8 analog inputs) that I use for live recording, and until I got two of them, I was always wishing that I had more channels. Even very simple bands (two guitars, bass, drums, singer, backup vocals) require way more than 8 channels to really capture everything. I find that I can always work with 16 channels though....so anyway, I didn't even know that M-Audio made a device with 16 analog ins - I thought 8 was the most. If you can't find what you're looking for - two 1814s works really great for me.

If I could offer you only one tip for recording live, it would be to make damn sure the guitar amps are LOUD because when it comes time to mix your recording, there's nothing worse than having tons of bleed on your guitar tracks Recording loud, loud amps is very effective for getting just guitar on the guitar tracks. Well....a horrible band is worse, I guess, but you get what I'm saying, lol. If the amps being so loud messes up the mix for the show, then you could try getting a direct feed out of the guitar amps preamp out or even the effects loops send and then after the show play that signal back through the amp and record the output - it may be cheating, but it works great, lol.

edit: I just reread your post, and see that you don't want to use any other preamps (I use the preamps in my Allan & Heath board for when I record live bands)....so nevermind. The 1814 is one of those with only two xlr inputs. Good luck finding anything short of a full blown digital console with that many mic preamps (xlr inputs) in it....let us know if you do, heh.
 
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Well...to be able to use all 16 of the channels, you need at least 12 external preamps of some kind. For bass guitar, you could just use a DI box, so then you would only need 11 channels. Same for keyboards, you could use two DIs for a stereo keyboard signal, and that would it down to 9 preamps needed to fully utilize two 1814's analog inputs. Like I said, I use the preamps on one of my mixing boards (whichever one I'm using at the time) for all the live recordings I do for bands. If you go the mixer route (which may be a bit of overkill since all you wanna do is record) you just route each channel's signal out to one of the line ins (the quarter inch jacks on the back of the 1814).

What would be cheaper and make more sense for your application is just to get a preamp strip. In fact, you could get one of the M-Audio Octane preamp strips and one 1814 and you would have ten preamps total (8 in the octane, and the two on the front of the 1814) and you would still have the 6 analog line-ins (because the Octane has a lightpipe output and the 1814 has a lightpipe input, so you wouldn't have to tie up all your analog ins like I do, thus necessitating two 1814s for me). Then with those remaining 6 analog ins, you could use one for a direct in bass, two for a direct in stereo feed from the keyboards, and have three left over for whatever else you may have that doesn't need a microphone to be recorded well. I hope that's not too confusing...

Basically what I'm saying is that if you were to get the Octane preamp you would only need one 1814. You'd run the 8 channels from the Octane to the 1814 over a lightpipe cable (those snazzy fiber optic cables) and you would have ten total mic preamps (xlr inputs for microphones), and 6 additional line-ins (quarter inch inputs for bass, stereo keyboards, electric-acoustic guitars, and whatever else you may have), making a total of 16 A/D convertors - all of them M-Audio - and I bet you could work with that....

Hope some of that info helps!
 
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Indeed that would give him 16 preamps for about the same $$ as an 1814 and an Octane, which would only give him 10 pres, but does all of this presonus stuff work with Protools M-Powered? He wants to use that software, and that's the whole reason he's looking for M-Audio... Not that there's anything wrong with Presonus, in fact, all the Presonus gear I own is pretty damn nice. And not that there's anything terribly great about PT-M-Powered - isn't it just a really crippled version of the already crippled PT-LE? I don't use ProTools, so I may be wrong on this (Cubase/Nuendo user here), I was just trying to help him find what he was looking for....
 
steveyankou said:
well, I'm thinking 8 drum mics (2 overhead, hi-hit, bass, 3 toms, snare)
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Cut this down to the OH (recorderman), snare and kick, get anything other than Protools and a 1010. PT does nothing for a home recordist than handcuff one to a short list of interfaces. The more mics you use, the more nasty, basement reflections you'll record, the sadder you'll be at mixing time. I try to record the minimum number of tracks I can get away with.
 
Right on...

ermghoti said:
Cut this down to the OH (recorderman), snare and kick, get anything other than Protools and a 1010. PT does nothing for a home recordist than handcuff one to a short list of interfaces. The more mics you use, the more nasty, basement reflections you'll record, the sadder you'll be at mixing time. I try to record the minimum number of tracks I can get away with.
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I never use protools, so I have no comment on the last part. But dropping down to the recorderman method would save you a lot of inputs. But, if you actually wanted to record 8 separate drum tracks (I think it's a waste...) you could always take a mixer—assume you have one for live getup—and mix the drums down to stereo on that. Of course, you won't be able to mess with them much later, but since you're doing a live recording who cares anyway.

I dig your idea of playing on giant found pieces of rusty steel, but, I do have to ask—why in the world can that not be overdubbed?

Check out dEUS doing weird stuff in these links...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JSkAhnHg3MQ&feature=related
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o9FAVfxR5s0&feature=related

overdub that stuff :cool:
 
TyphoidHippo said:
Indeed that would give him 16 preamps for about the same $$ as an 1814 and an Octane, which would only give him 10 pres, but does all of this presonus stuff work with Protools M-Powered? He wants to use that software, and that's the whole reason he's looking for M-Audio... Not that there's anything wrong with Presonus, in fact, all the Presonus gear I own is pretty damn nice. And not that there's anything terribly great about PT-M-Powered - isn't it just a really crippled version of the already crippled PT-LE? I don't use ProTools, so I may be wrong on this (Cubase/Nuendo user here), I was just trying to help him find what he was looking for....
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Ahhhh, didn't see that requirement. I guess your setup would be the best in that case. I'll never understand why people use software that, for no special reason, limits them to certain hardware.
 
stack two delta 1010's or go overkill and get a MOTU 24i/o, that's presuming you have an outboard mixer which is always the best way to go for live recording multiple tracks
 
I'd go with two MOTU 8Pre interfaces and either Logic Pro or Digital Performer. I've never been particularly impressed with Pro Tools---certainly not enough to lock myself into Digi hardware.

I wouldn't go with the FireStudio, as I've heard lot of folks complaining about random compatibility problems on both Macs and PCs (DICE II chipsets can be cranky). If you're stacking more than one interface, the 8Pre is a much better choice than the FIREPOD because it uses a lot less CPU power. With one interface, it's not a big deal, but if you start stacking them, the difference adds up. Plus, since you probably won't need the outputs from both units, you can use one 8Pre as an glorified ADAT preamp and your computer will basically see the pair as a single 16-channel interface, thus requiring even less CPU power.

The MOTU drivers are absolutely the best drivers I've dealt with on the Mac platform. They leave the M-Audio drivers in the dust, stability-wise, and I think they are actually better than the Apple-written drivers that the FIREPOD uses, which really says a lot about how much effort they put into making their drivers solid and high performance. :)
 
dgatwood said:
The MOTU drivers are absolutely the best drivers I've dealt with on the Mac platform...
...which really says a lot about how much effort they put into making their drivers solid and high performance. :)
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By virtually ignoring their windows drivers... MOTU is notoriously lacking in windows support... both in drivers and phone support... you can get them to work... with pretty good stability... but expect a lot of headaches getting there... YMMV
 
MOTU had a bad record for a while, windows wise and legacy support wise.

Their drivers are still WEIRD but they work now. MOTU and RME are the two to pick if you want the lowest latency possible under firewire. Their stuff is just correct in that department.
 
pipelineaudio said:
MOTU had a bad record for a while, windows wise and legacy support wise.
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Yeah... I've got to admit I haven't called them for at least ten years... back then their attitude was "got a windows problem... then get a mac... Thanks for your business".

But don't get get me wrong...I've got a few MOTU pieces... started out with a parrallel port midi express XT, upgraded to the MTP AV (USB) interface and have been routing through a 2408 mk2 for years now... I love them, I can't say enough about the routing capabilities of the 2408... these things are rock solid once you get them set up correctly...
 
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