Recording Concert live...

[johnnypraze]

What are some good options for recording 12-16 tracks in a live enviroment that is being played live via club/house system...?

We just need something to capture the sound.

We did a live concert a year ago at our church in which we ran out from the house board (Allen and Heath) to a 16 track digital recorder but we had a hard time getting good levels for recording while trying to keep the live sound good. We are somewhat limited in space.

We also only had 8 tracks to use simultaneously with that recorder.

I then dumped the 8 tracks into my DAW and mixed via Sonar.


Recording directly into the DAW isnt an option because I only have a Mia Midi (only 4 ins)

Ive thought about running from the board to a Alesis HD24 but thats $1500.

Any other options other then the Alesis?

Maybe a different Soundcard...? (we need atleast 12 tracks simultaneously)

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[rossM]

I have a Fostex LV 24 - Look On their website -its the cheapest way I could find of recording lots of inputs all at once - I know it does 24 tracks at 48k 24 bit simultaneously - it can do lesser no of tracks at 96 - if you want. See if you can hire one for a gig and try it out - I take a live feed out of the insert points of my SOundcraft mixer and this does not interfere with the signal going to the main out put busses - It does mean you loose the capacity to use the insertpoint on any channel - but you may be able to use the insert point on the subgroups to get around this, besides you have aux busses for effects anyway- unless youve used them al for stage monitoring - You need to short out the tip and sleeve on your insert cables to ensure that signal runs past the insert point (at least thats what I do on my mixer ) - Other mixers may be wired differently . I have wired up a loom which has 24 RTS 1/4 jacks on one end (with the tip and sleeve shorted out ) and mono unbalanced 1/4jack on the other end.

I then mix in analog off the 24 tr recorder, back through the mixer. You can go into a computer then and make a 2tr master at 44.1 16 bit for cd burning