Cave Dweller said:
I use a MOTU 24 I/O for live recording. i have a PC racked up and in a case. it's a little more bulky than a laptop, but i don't really mind, and 24 inputs on one interface is really handy.
I do see a pretty big problem with what you are trying to do. most live consoles have their direct out post EQ and Post fader. Any changes the soundman makes on the board will affect your recording. this is not good. If you're trying to do something that will be released to the public, you're going to have trouble.
the best case is to have a mic splitter, and be able to independantly control your input levels. otherwise you'll have to tell the soundman when you have too much/too little level, and this is going to be a problem for both the live sound and the recording.
Hey Cave Dweller,
how do you like the MOTU 24 I/O?
That's the route I'm going to be going, and just wondered. It seems like the best method on the market for getting a large number of channels into a PC. I don't necessarily want to be stuck using MOTU's Mic Pre's, so I'd like the ability to use anything available....plus, it's hard to beat that price!
I agree with you about the Mic Splitter....but a lot of guys wouldn't want the hassle of going through that, and most people wouldn't want to kick out the money to buy a splitter.
I built a 16 channel splitter several years ago, and it was a big pain in the butt to make...my last big soldering job, actually, but there have been a few times when I was really glad to have it.
My entire front end is all rackmounted in an Odyssey rack, and I'm building a patching station to go in it, which will allow me to have extra sends and patch points on each channel.
I'm trying to work it so that I can wire my recorders inline, and be able to push a button on each channel to route my dynamics processors either before or after the recorders - that way I don't have to keep "repatching"... sort of like an active patch bay.
This all serves as both my lifve and recording rig. Then I have 2 other racks - one is all power amps (Carvins FET 1000's - blech!
Not bad really- my girlfriend bought them for me in 1994, so I can't complain too much. But I'd sure like to have some
Crest CA9's and a CA18
), and the recording rack has a pair of DA-38's, with
a DA302 DAT machine, a 6-channel headphone, and a CD burner in it.
I like the convenience of "Plug and play".... I hate patching a ton of things in, so my entire system is "pre-wired", all I do is hook up a Snake to the FOH Rack and I've got 16 channels with Compressors and gates already patched in (Behringer 4X units, and a couple of dbx 166a's), and the effects are all wired to the submixes, which allows me to use the actual effects sends for either individual headphone mixes if I'm recording, or for 4 individual monitor mixes from the FOH position.
It took me months of planning before i actually plopped down the money for it, but it seems to work well for me....but I'm dying to get a Crest rackmount mixer....Jesus I hate that Mackie EQ....the EQ bell is just wide enough and deep enough to screw up a lot of frequencies at once.
Tim