Hey, my son can record the choir.

B

Blckjck

New member
Hello all, thank you for sharing all the info I've been trying to process over the past few days on the forum.

I am a mobile DJ/KJ that has occasionally done some live sound reinforcement. I have been doing this for about five years. I have spent a lot of time learning about gain structure, levels, and such. I have always strived to learn as much as I can about something so I can do it right.

My mother is in a 20-25 member choir. They are doing a performance at a VA hospital. The room is 20 x 30 and they will be in a semi circle along a 20ft wall. I do not know the room acoustics or ceiling height. She asked me to provide PA for the accompanying music. Then a keyboard got added. The last addition was that they would like a recording of it.

I went back and forth between running my passive gear or active gear. For the size room I am going to run 2 Mackie SRM450 with no sub. I'm not spinning any electro house (pout). I am thinking that the choir will not need and PA itself.

My plan is to run the music source, keyboard, choir mic, and an announcement mic into my Mackie CFX12. From there I will take an aux send from each mic, and the two music sources from a set of subout's. These will go into my Tascam 788.

I only have dynamic mic's. The best of the lot is a wireless Shure SM58. The next in line is a wireless AKG HT40. The Shure has a much better gain.

I would like to use the AKG for announcements. The Shure I plan to put on a boom 8ft up and away from the choir. I will also be attaching a Tascam DR-03 under the Shure as a backup.

Anyone have any thoughts? Am I way off on this plan?
 
You might want to build a set of insert tap cables to record each input on the Mackie. That would make the recording completely independent of the live mix. Get some unbalanced instrument cables of the required length and replace one end of each with a TRS plug, with the shield to sleeve as normal but tip and ring both wired to the conductor. You plug the TRS end into the channel insert and the TS end into the recorder.
 
The aux sends can be done pre-fader. They will give the same level out as my pre-amp gain adjustment is for the mic's. Mic A to Aux 1 and Mic B to Aux 2. These would go to channel 1 and channel 2 on the 788. I'll dig thru my kit, I believe I have 2 DI boxes with a pass thru. The 788 accepts balanced inputs. I would like to keep as much balanced as possible. The tap cable you describe seems like it would kill the balanced input.
 
I appologize. I misread the last sentence. My mind pictured putting that cable before the mixer. I understand the cable you describe now. I may have time to make these tomorrow.

Does the mic placement sound like the correct setup?

Edit: Hosa GPP-419 : looks like this will be a cheaper solution as I already have some patch cables.
 
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Armistice said:
No chance you can beg, borrow or steal a pair of matched condensers, I suppose?
Click to expand...

The recording part was added on to the gig this past Monday. I picked up the 788 on Tuesday. Then spent the last 2 days learning it and best choir mic'ing options. Leaving tomorrow after work to drive 2 hours. The gig is on Saturday. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone I could borrow them from. If it was anybody other then my mother, I would have said no off the bat, LOL
 
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Blckjck said:
The recording part was added on to the gig this past Monday. I picked up the 788 on Tuesday. Then spent the last 2 days learning it and best choir mic'ing options. Leaving tomorrow after work to drive 2 hours. The gig is on Saturday. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone I could borrow them from. If it was anybody other then my mother, I would have said no off the bat, LOL
Click to expand...

If you lived in Sydney Australia, I'd lend you a set, but I'm guessing you don't... good luck.:thumbs up:
 
Armistice said:
If you lived in Sydney Australia, I'd lend you a set, but I'm guessing you don't... good luck.:thumbs up:
Click to expand...

Thank you, but no. I updated my profile to show my location. Sometimes I forget to update that, other forums turn out to be places I don't want to hang out.
 
The adapters functioned. I will be making a purpose built snake for my recorder. I also prefer soldered connections and less contact points. This was a short notice thing..

I was only able to purchase 3 adapters. The music had to be fed out of my AUX1. Everything recorded the way I expected it to. Mic placement was good. I had even pickup of the whole choir. My noise floor was a little higher then normal, but it was still low enough for me to have good signal and headroom. The only person that seemed to be able to hear it was me, so I'm okay with it for this gig.

I was held up for 15 min three separate times on the way to the gig. I had a 30 min setup time when I finally got there. Went live on time. The first song was without music, levels on the recorder were good. I didn't notice until the end of the second song that I was missing the music on the recording. I'll have to mix that in. The only other issue I had was intermittent click/popping on my vocal mic. I need to determine if it is the cable or something on the mic itself. It sounds like a connection issue..

Thank you again for your advice.
 
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