recording live performances

W

westg8

New member
Ok, here's the deal. My old high school puts on a yearly event called the Concert 4 Life which helps raise money for AIDS research. My band is playing there as well as 9 other local bands. The committee informed us that they were hiring a sound guy to do the mixing and what-not. I was thinking, however, that it'd be cool to record this event. I'd personally want to hear what our band sounds like from an audience standpoint, as well as maybe distribute the live recording to raise more money. Anyway, i would assume this would be a fairly easy thing to do. All we'd have to do it plug in a tape recorder/laptop/HD recorder to the line out of the sound guy's board, correct? Is this common practice for a sound guy to allow someone to do? However, we don't have any kind of portable recording devices. Would there be a cheap, yet good quality unit to buy? Or could I bring in my laptop and use that to record right to the hard disk? I was thinking that HD space would probably become an issue with 10 bands being recorded. Would a tape recorder sound too crappy - or are they relatively of good quality? Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Also, is there a way to get a good video tape recording of the event with good audio quality (without having to use the video cameras crappy mic)?

haha, ok this is my third time adding something. Couldn't you just connect the line out of the sound board to a video camera's audio input? This sounds to me like the best solution for a video of the performance - any suggestions would be great.
 
It depends on how good of a mix you can get off of a live mixer for recording. The smaller the venue, the more exagerated the mix going to tape (or whatever) becomes. Smaller room= more vocal and less instruments in the mix due to the fact that the sound man is basicly trying to get the vocals over the stage volume. More vocal in the mains than instruments. In a VERY large venue, the entire band makes it to the PA so a off the board recording sounds more mixed. If you have a multi track recorder available for this, grab a stereo send from the board and also put up a stereo pair of mics at the mixer as well which will record what is heard in the room (the whole ensamble) and mix to taste. Just my humble opinion.
 
You can consider renting a digital recorder from a store like mars music or someone that rents good equipment. And yes you can tie in to the board being used. It would take a tremendous amount of disk space on a laptop or any hard drive for that matter to record 10 bands, would'nt go that route.
As for the video, yes you could record the audio from the board.
It would be much cleaner than the mic. But pretest so as you dont overdrive the inputs. Get the audio outs on the board set right.
 
thanks for all the replies thus far. I was looking at multitrack recorders and i found a 4-track for $100. I figure 2 tracks for 2 mics set up in the room, and then 2 for each channel from the board. But then i realized you can't record everything at once. So, maybe we'll look into renting something.

Also, it is done in a high school auditorium, so it is not really a huge place, but its not a basement or anything either. The only reason i'd want to get some output from the mixer instead of simply placing a mic somewhere to record everything is cause i didn't want all of that reverb that comes from that auditorium.

i'd like to hear any other ideas, though - if this doesn't seem like the best/cheapest way to do it.
 
Two PZMs taped to the wall - simple, easy to set up, doesn't screw-up the sight-lines, doesn't trip the dancers.

- Wil

PS: If you're interested, here's an MP3 of a number from a gig recorded using this technique:

St. Thomas
 
You might also want to look at additional mics to pick up the audience. That can then be mixed in as you wish. It's a nice effect for a promo demo. particularly if you want a "live" demo.
Good Luck...
 
Straight out of the mixer will sound pretty weird unless the engineer is mixing for the tape. Since he will be mixing for what sounds good where he is at that makes his location usually the best place to set up some mics.

Try to get some flat full frequency mics and X/y mic in front of the mixer. Unless he is off to the side then mic in the center of the room. Some cameras have pretty good stereo audio and might work.

Chances are that a high school budget production in a auditorium will sound crappy at best so I wouldnt worry too much about it. At least that was the case at my high school ;)
 
If you can get a 4-track setup one mic near the mix desk one straight out of the desk and two of the stage, see if the is any jack left in the PA's multicore so the leads wont be a problem coming from the stage.
 
thanks for all the replies. I'll be sure to tell my bandmate to bring these up at the next meeting on friday. Thanks for all the help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top