Something rarley talked about here. Live recording SET UPS!

W

weatherbill

New member
Been checking out live recording set ups on a budget to record bands live.
Mini disk seems the most bang for the buck. been checkin em out on ebay, for about $100 on winning bids (the sharp ms722)., but why don't they just make a portable CD burner instead of mini disk and then having to convert mini disk (MD) over to CD????
Man, they can do it. I think they're just milkin the cow on this.
The two big MD makers are Sony and Sharp.
The characterestics of the two well known.
Sharp's rival units to the Sony, the bass comes out better, but the Sony they say is clearer without the bass up in the MD recordings.
They've got some $300 ones that look really reall nice.
None of them are made with phantom power though. That's why I'm looking into a direct CD burner with mic inputs. JVC makes a $299 model new, but now wer'e talkin more dollars. Seems like thats the best way to go, just strait to CD, if you have the money.but then again, for me to have a portable phantom powered unit, I'de have to buy the Marantz for like $899, but maybe I can take my blue tube pre amp with phantom p and a mini disk player and get good recordings, unless the mini also needs phantom power. I'll have to experiment by hooking up my phantom mics thru the blue tube, then into a regular recorder and see if that does it, otherwise, id'e have to invest in good mics for the MD recorder that don't have phantom power.
ANY ADVICE AND EXPERIENCE IS WELCOMED...........CHECKOUT WWW.THEGROOVEAGON.COM
 
Live Recording

I've been recording concerts for years onto a Sony DAT walkman. I buy the 90 meter (3 hour) DDS tapes for about 3.50 each and you can get 3 hours of uninterupted music. Then I just copy that to my hard drive and burn CDs from that. Now I have a backup and a CD that can be copied easily. Mini Discs are only 70 mins long and I'm not a big fan of their compression. I much prefer the DATs because I'm not worried about cutting a song in half. That's just my experience, of course.

Bill L
 
I've also used a DAT-Walkman for years....a great piece of gear. Where do you get 3 hour tapes for $3.50? I didn't know they had 3-hour tapes. You don't have any problems with the tape's thinness?
 
Most MD gear is consumer grade so they won't have preamps and such. Your best bet would be a DAT recorder like the boys recomended and a small preamp or mixer. You can also get battery powered preamps if you don't have access to power.

I would rather go with a multitrack HDR/DAW. You will have built in preamps and you can record a signal direct from the board as well as some ambient tracks.

It all just depends on your budget and quality level.
 
my kind brother i never use dats that have a run-time longer than 30 minutes. you're asking for trouble my funny freckly friend. snap! the longer the tape, the thinner it is. i've seen it happen enough to be sure enough I've had enough. sho' nuff! no splicing in age of digital tape.
 
comp usage

maybe im completely wrong... but why not use a mixer a nice SC and cakewalk or something? or that only a studio thing?
 
Of course MDs have preamps, most of 'em. I like the format for many reason, but it has its major drawbacks (compression, no uploading). I think some pro decks that have taken over the radio jounalism world have phantom power, but are big bucks. The little ones only have plug-in power (like 1.5 to 9 volts).

I wouldn't be investing in a DAT-Man rig these days. The format is on the way out - no new R&D going on from what I can tell - the machines are expensive and prone to breaking, and the tapes have limited shelf life.

Why don't you look into using a Nomad Jukebox 3. The built-in software mic pre doesn't cut it, but with an external preamp you'll get a satisfying recording using the internal A/D. With an external pre and A/D, you've got a portable 20 or 40 gig 16/44 hard drive recorder at a reasonable price, that also doubles as a good MP3 player.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Only for high impedance mics. Not low impedance and they don't have phantom power.
Click to expand...

They accept low impedance mics. As noted in my prior post there are a few "professional" MD units that have 48v phantom power (e.g., Marantz), whereas most of the small consumer portables send "plug-in" (low voltage) power.
 
laptops in the field

are really kinda sketchy at this point. i'd be pretty loathe to take my $3200 laptop to a concert where beer might get spilled on it. most have built-in soundcards which suck, and outboard preamps are going to be either USB or Firewire based, and those technologies are still "coming along".

that said, i've turned out decent recordings using a dell laptop, an m-audio mobilepre and a pair of mxl 603s's in both XY and ORTF positions. it can be done. it's just a bit of a pain.

until someone makes a small footprinted wav capture device, i'd rather use a dat and outboard pre (minime, sonosax, lunatec v2/v3, etc). less cash invested to have someone dump a budlight on.


wade
 
Re: laptops in the field

mrface2112 said:


until someone makes a small footprinted wav capture device, i'd rather use a dat and outboard pre (minime, sonosax, lunatec v2/v3, etc). less cash invested to have someone dump a budlight on.
Click to expand...

The NJB3 doesn't fit that bill?
 
DATs

sweetnubs wrote:
my kind brother i never use dats that have a run-time longer than 30 minutes. you're asking for trouble my funny freckly friend. snap! the longer the tape, the thinner it is. i've seen it happen enough to be sure enough I've had enough. sho' nuff! no splicing in age of digital tape.

Actually, I've been using 90 meter DATs for about 4 years and have yet to have a problem. I use a Sony DATman to record live shows (with permission, of course) and a Tascam DA-30 for clones. A friend of mine the archivist for the band Little Feat and uses the same Maxell DDS 90 meter DATs that I use (he actually turned me on to them) and has thousands of them. Many of the DAT heads I used to trade shows with also use the DDS 90 meter tapes. Of course, this is just my experience and your milage may vary but I have over 400 DATs. Some get played often and others have hardly been touched. I've had my Sony for 4 years and my Tascam for about 10 years, neither of them have ever been in the shop for anything. And they both have tons of hours on the heads.

Lt. Bob wrote:
I've also used a DAT-Walkman for years....a great piece of gear. Where do you get 3 hour tapes for $3.50? I didn't know they had 3-hour tapes. You don't have any problems with the tape's thinness?

I get them from www.tape.com (cassette house) or www.ttapes.com (Terrapin Tapes). I use the Maxell DDS 90 meter single pass DATs. I think the 10 pack is down to 31.00. They also have CDrs, DVDrs, DATs...just about anything you want. In the 4 years I've been buying from them, both have provided excellent service, fantastic price and they stand by their products. Again, this is my experience.

Bill L
 
I do live recording, here's my setup:

Protools 5.3.2
presonus 8 ch preamp
digi001 interface

i get 16 channels going into protools. great for rock bands. kinda works like this:

1 kick
2 snare
3 tom
4 tom
5 overhead
6 overhead
7 hats
8 bass
9 guitar L
10 guitar R
11 Vox
12 Vox
13 Vox
14 misc
15 crowd mic L
16 crowd mic R
 
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