Wanting to Record Live Shows...

A

abbo69nz

New member
Hey There Guys, wanting to call on your expertise.....
I am the Drummer in a 2 piece Rock covers band and Am wanting to start recording our Gig's.
I am wanting to purchase some equipment that will enable me to record all our inputs to separate tracks on my Laptop, Firewire isn't a option as my laptop doesnt support it, which leaves only USB 2.0....
I use 4 mic inputs for my Kit, ( 2 overheads, snare and kick) I also use one mic input for backup vox, and My guitarist uses one mic input for vox and two mic inputs for micing his guitar amp, which means we use 8 analog mic inputs. We also use a couple of things that use just nomal line in connection.
I was looking at the alesis USB 2.0 Multimix 16.... also a phonic helix board with USB 2.0 but it seems they are discontinued now...
Any other Options that you guys can reccomend??

Also One big thing is how do I intergrate this new piece of equipment into my existing setup so it runs the same..... I have a mackie profx 22 board that I use at present and Love it and want to keep that running everything
heard FOH etc and was wondering how to intergrate the new board into the setup just to handle recording purposes, sorry for the big speil, just a tad confused and music shops in my country seem hopeless!!
thanks
 
We've got the Alesis multimix 16 at work and have used it for this exact purpose and.... well, it's ok. it does the job. it's nothing fancy and it feels quite flimsy, but for recording 16 tracks simultaneously and acting as a simple FoH mixer for small shows it's fine. however, to integrate it in to you system would be difficult as it's kinda meant to be the FoH mixer and multitrack AI in one. if you still wanted to use the Mackie as the main FoH mixer you'd have to come up with some clever way of using the aux and sub outputs to feed the alesis individual tracks. This isn't impossible but, from a quick look on the mackie website, there's only 4 groups and 2 aux's so you'd only be able to get six individual outs and, as you'd have to hard pan tracks to put them on individual buses, you'd then have to set the main outputs in mono or you're stereo mix would sound very odd.

There's a couple of options i can think of;

1) replace the mackie with something with direct outs on each channel and buy an 8 input or more audio interface (this would be the way i'd go personally)
2) Buy the alesis or phonic and use that as both FoH and the recorder (of which you'd probably sacrifice some of the FoH capabilities i.e no swept mid on the EQ, no graphic on the main outs, possibly lower quality preamps, less rugged)
3) if there's a PCI express slot on your laptop, buy a firewire extension and look at the various firewire mixer/interfaces
4) as step 3, but replace the laptop with something with a built in firewire slot
5) Compromise and just use the USB on the mackie for stereo recording (my guess is you've tried this and want more control)
6) Pick up a handheld recorder and place it in the room (again, less control but there are some people on these boards who have gotten very good live recordings from such devices)

A mixing desk with direct outs shouldn't be too hard to find and, second hand, can be picked up for a very reasonable price, and 8 channel audio interface's can be found at a reasonable price. however, this does limit you to 8 tracks but is probably a cheaper route than buying a bigger firewire desk and either a firewire expansion or a new laptop.

The firewire desks, notably the Behringer X32 and Presonus Studiolive range, really do very well at precisely this application.
 
Get yourself an Alesis HD24 (and the FirePort), build yourself a set of insert tap cables and get a used tower with Firewire (for transferring your audio files at home). When the ProFX stops working you can use the HD24 with your next board.
 
abbo69nz said:
Hey Mate thanks for the reply!! much appreciated.
Hey I just stumbled upon this article
Using an Insert Jack as a Direct Out | Late Reflections – the Silent Sky Studios Blog
and was wondering if i could use this technique as i don't use any of the channel inserts on my mackie.....
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the type of cable I meant. You can get guitar cables of the appropriate length and replace one end with a TRS. Or you can build your own from bulk cable and plugs. Tip of the TS goes to tip and ring of the TRS, TRS end goes in the insert. It will work the same with tip-send or ring-send inserts. If you happen to be using an insert just put a Y-cable at the input of the inserted processor instead of using the insert tap cable.
 
hey mate thanks for the info...
Would using instrument cable from the insert of each channel then running that into a line input of a recording interface work? assuming I only insert the cable halfway in...
Just had a play round with my mixer before, I inserted a spare guitar cable halfway into the insert jack (connects quite firmly) then ran that to to the l channel of my 2 channel interface i currently use and it seemede to record fine and also my vocals still went to the FOh speakers which is what i want.
 
abbo69nz said:
hey mate thanks for the info...
Would using instrument cable from the insert of each channel then running that into a line input of a recording interface work? assuming I only insert the cable halfway in...
Just had a play round with my mixer before, I inserted a spare guitar cable halfway into the insert jack (connects quite firmly) then ran that to to the l channel of my 2 channel interface i currently use and it seemede to record fine and also my vocals still went to the FOh speakers which is what i want.
Click to expand...

That will work and I did it for years, but it's risky. Although Mackies tend to have strongly sprung ring contacts that hold the plug fairly well it's still prone to accidents. One time (on a Behringer MX3282) one of my assistants saw a partially inserted cable and pushed it in muting the channel. It took a while to figure out why that channel didn't work. That's not the kind of aggravation you need during a gig.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
That will work and I did it for years, but it's risky. Although Mackies tend to have strongly sprung ring contacts that hold the plug fairly well it's still prone to accidents. One time (on a Behringer MX3282) one of my assistants saw a partially inserted cable and pushed it in muting the channel. It took a while to figure out why that channel didn't work. That's not the kind of aggravation you need during a gig.
Click to expand...

Haha na you certainly don't need that mid gig! Fortunately we are only a two piece and I handle all the mixing and setup connections etc so that shouldn't happen.
I was just looking at my PC that I have inside the house and it appears to have a firewire connection.. on control panel / system / device manager it shows i have a texas instruments 1394 OHCI compliant host controller???? Does that mean it has firewire? If so I can use that in my studio/ live gigs and then get a firewire interface... What would be a good one that would allow me to plug up to 10 line ins to record to seperate tracks on my computer> most i can find only have 4 line ins and 2 xlr ins
 
A more sanitary way to do this:

Get the Alesis mixer (or any other mixer/interface with the right number in inputs) but also get a stagebox/snake that does a split for you.

Yes, you can use a single mixer for recording and FOH (we've all done it) but you pretty quickly run into issues where any minor tweak on the gain trim knob of the single mixer affects your recording. Keeping everything completely separate is a better way to go if you can afford it.
 
When someone else is mixing I like to use my split into my own board. When I'm mixing I would rather have one set of gain knobs to worry about. A separate board and its gain controls would make me more rather than less likely to get something wrong. Fiddling with the gains mid show screws with the monitor mixes (done from FOH here and probably by the OP). If I do have to adjust the gain it would be because someone changed their level enough upstream of the board that changing the gain makes it right for the main mix, the monitor mixes and the recording. I would have to fix it in post either way.

Since I have all the inserts filled with compressors I use splits on the send side of the insert cables to feed the multitrack. I leave the compressors engaged but start with the thresholds up and the makeup gains at +3dB so I can be conservative with the input gain and still have good level downstream.
 
Personal preference I guess--I much prefer to have my FOH board and recording board totally separate.
 
Justsomeguy said:
We've got the Alesis multimix 16 at work and have used it for this exact purpose and.... well, it's ok. it does the job. it's nothing fancy and it feels quite flimsy, but for recording 16 tracks simultaneously and acting as a simple FoH mixer for small shows it's fine. however, to integrate it in to you system would be difficult as it's kinda meant to be the FoH mixer and multitrack AI in one. if you still wanted to use the Mackie as the main FoH mixer you'd have to come up with some clever way of using the aux and sub outputs to feed the alesis individual tracks. This isn't impossible but, from a quick look on the mackie website, there's only 4 groups and 2 aux's so you'd only be able to get six individual outs and, as you'd have to hard pan tracks to put them on individual buses, you'd then have to set the main outputs in mono or you're stereo mix would sound very odd.

There's a couple of options i can think of;

1) replace the mackie with something with direct outs on each channel .
Click to expand...
the Mackie has inserts on the first 10 channels so they can be used as direct outs.
 
Lt. Bob said:
the Mackie has inserts on the first 10 channels so they can be used as direct outs.
Click to expand...

So it's a 10 channel board with an assortment of deliberately hobbled pseudo channels. Sad. I never did like the CFX and DFX series, and the ProFX is only marginally better. At least you aren't stuck using the submix groups to get channels into the main bus. Without wasting aux outputs for record sends I can see getting no more than 12-14 channels to the multitrack.
 
Hi there, I purchased a M-Audio Profire 26/26 firewire interface today for a really good price.
I am planning to use that connected to my computer (which i happily discovered is already firewire capabale) then using the insert of the channels i want to record on my mackie desk, to the input of the profire, I worked out I only need 8 tracks to be recorded at same time 4 for drums, 2 vox 1 guitar and 1 bass.
And its got got expandable options too if the band gets bigger which it likely to dues to aquiring another guitarist.
looking forward to having a play around with it tonight
 
bouldersoundguy said:
So it's a 10 channel board with an assortment of deliberately hobbled pseudo channels. Sad. I never did like the CFX and DFX series, and the ProFX is only marginally better. At least you aren't stuck using the submix groups to get channels into the main bus. Without wasting aux outputs for record sends I can see getting no more than 12-14 channels to the multitrack.
Click to expand...
yeah, I gotta say that I also hate it when mixers have fewer channels than they claim.
I have a Soundcraft board that they called a 16 channel board but it was actually a 12 channel board with 4 stereo channels. I knew that when i bought it of course but having it described in their blurbs as a 16 channel board used to irritate me. It's a freakin' 12 channel board DAMMIT!!! :mad:
 
Well, "10 mic inputs and 2 stereo inputs" isn't too bad if they're up front about it. There are a lot of uses where those 2 stereo inputs would be useful.

However, it does annoy me when they count a stereo input as "2 inputs" rather than one stereo input.

Mackie's not the worst on this by a long chalk though. I read through a Behringer mixer blurb once and they came up with some kind of silly channel count on one of their smaller mixers...by counting each stereo input as 2 inputs then adding in the Tape Return, Aux returns and FX return.

Now THAT is cheating!
 
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