windwords7 said:
This will be 5-10 musicians playing live sets. What do I really need to get started?? I was planning on building up my current computer signifcantly and then just going with an Digidesign Mbox. I woud love to hear your input. Can I pull this off with an Mbox a computer and some SURE sm58's??
What would you do?
Are you doing FOH and recording, or just recording? Because if somebody else is doing FOH, then just tap their board for some sends.
I've done the volunteer large ensemble church recording, doing FOH & monitors at the same time. It keeps me up nights. Here is how I did it one time:
(all mics references are Shures, some mine & some the churches, largely by coincidence)
5 singers, one was also piano. Drums, bass, guitar, flute. I used 57s and 58s, one for each singer. I stuck a 57 in the piano (odd but the usual studio 81 treatment sounded like poo). I used an 81 for drum overhead, B52 for kick, and a 57 for snare. Bass ran direct for recording only, guitar had another 57, and flute had an 81. I recorded to an analog four-track and used a single monitor channel. Monitors had vocal, piano, flute, and guitar. Four tracks were vocal, key (very important for this group), guitar/bass/flute, and drums. If I had eight like an ADAT, I'd have done stereo vocal, solo vocal, piano, flute, guitar/bass, drum OH, kick/snare.
Another time I did a Latino ensemble, that was like 20 singers in a semicircle, several guitars, panflute, some bigass bass drum, and a cello (?--go figure. Sounded awesome though). I used three or four 94s for singers, plus a couple of 58s for solos; 94s and 81s for guitars, cello, and panflute, and I think my B52 on the giant drum.
In your case, you'd need SDCs on mandolin, sitar, violin, flute, drum OH, acoustic guitar, a 57 or 58 on guitar cab, percussion/snare, something on kick (even if you don't need it live, you will for recording), You are looking at needing a 12 or 16 channel mixer, maybe even more, for live sound. If you don't have this stuff, rent it. Go you your local pro sound rental place and explain what you need to do.
Again if you aren't doing FOH, I'd got for about four to six sends from their board plus a couple of ambient mics of your own along with mics on anything the live guys don't bother with (bass, kick drums, all the drums?)
You could spend a lot of money on the PC and still be using a few SM58s. That wouldn't be my first choice. I'd look at getting a lightly used ADAT for $300 and worry about the PC side during mixdown, not tracking. Honestly if you can do the live sound and manage to change tapes during breaks, that's about all you can hope for the first time out.
The other philosophy is to set up a good stereo pair of mics (I wouldn't recommend 58s for that) and not worry about it. There's a lot to be said for that approach if the hall sounds decent.
