Recording Live Shows

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Phosphene

Phosphene

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What do you guys use to record live bands--I'm talking minidisc recorders...something you can hide (if you have to) and isn't too bulky? Are those Sony Minidisc recorders any good? Do they have mics on them? I'm just sick of this GE tape recorder.....it sounds like rat farts.

jeremiah
 
I used a walkman-style MD recorder for years to record live stuff, and I think the quality is fine if you're not trying to be too professional about it. I recently upgraded to a HD recorder, and it's noticably better, but if it's just for your personal use, MD is fine.

I prefer the Sharp units over the Sonys--you can change recording levels on the fly, and they have some cool features. They usually don't come with mics unless you get some kind of kit.

Just be aware that the A/D converters aren't great in the portables (so you lose a little quality there), then the data gets compressed when it gets written to the MD (so you lose a little quality there). There's also no digital out, so when you play it back to move it to your PC or whatever, it has to decompress and interpolate the audio (so you lose a little quality there), then run it through a D/A converter to send it down the wire (so you lose a little quality there), where it then goes through the A/D converter in your PC (so you lose a little quality there too). It's remarkable to me that it comes out as good as it does after going through all that, but it will never sound like DAT or uncompressed HD.
 
I have heard some recordings that others have made with md recorders. The biggest problem is that your microphone position is rarely optimal and you pick up way too much bad crowd noise. The thing is that when you are their your brain ignores most of the crowd noise yet the microphone picks it up and it seems more noticable when listening to the recording.
 
got ya....cool.. ill look at the brands... Ill look at Sharp a digital out would be nice. yea, anything would be better than what ive got now and ive messed up 2 John Vanderslice shows because of it.
 
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Hey Phosphene, are you a bootlegger? Do you know what they do to you and your recorder if you get caught?
 
Sony PCM-M1 Dat recorder, it's about the size of a cassette walkman and won't compress the audio like an MD recorder. My favorite mics for taping shows are a pair of DPA 4022's on an XY stand... works great.

Later,
musik
 
digital outs must be too much to ask. oh well. its probably best that they arent on there so i can use my Rosetta.

Ive never looked at these things before and im assuming that none are made with built in mics. if they are i bet they suck anyway.

yea i bootleg about twice a year. if im caught, they will probably set me on fire and hang me from a tree and take pictures. Besides, I record bands who generally don't care about filming/recording/photos.

thanks for the ideas and warnings.
 
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Korg PXR4 Pandora has a built in mic that doesn't totally suck, but for much better sound, it rocks with a Sony ECM-MS957 one point mic.-Richie
 
Thanks Richard. I see you all over this forum with lots of good input.
 
Phosphene said:
yea i bootleg about twice a year. if im caught, they will probably set me on fire and hang me from a tree and take pictures. Besides, I record bands who generally don't care about filming/recording/photos.

thanks for the ideas and warnings.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but that's on a good day... be careful.

I use two Shure SM81's into a Symetrix 302 dual microphone preamplifier into a DBX 1066 dual compressor/limiter/gate into a Tascam CD-RW700 CD recorder.
 
Phosphene said:
yea i bootleg about twice a year. if im caught, they will probably set me on fire and hang me from a tree and take pictures. Besides, I record bands who generally don't care about filming/recording/photos.

thanks for the ideas and warnings.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but that's on a good day... be careful.

I use two Shure SM81's into a Symetrix 302 dual microphone preamplifier into a DBX 1066 dual compressor/limiter/gate into a Tascam CD-RW700 CD recorder.
 
Phosphene said:
yea i bootleg about twice a year. if im caught, they will probably set me on fire and hang me from a tree and take pictures. Besides, I record bands who generally don't care about filming/recording/photos.

thanks for the ideas and warnings.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but that's on a good day... be careful.

I use two Shure SM81's into a Symetrix 302 dual microphone preamplifier into a DBX 1066 dual compressor/limiter/gate into a Tascam CD-RW700 CD recorder.
 
When my daughter's band plays gigs with house sound, we can usually persuade the sound engineer to give us a mono feed to a Sony mini-disk recorder. It ain't the greatest, but we get the house mix recorded.

The downside to the Sony product is it is FRAGILE. Ours got dropped a couple times during a session, and the lid will no longer latch. Buy an extended warranty for the Sony. You will need it.
 
Sorry for the multi-post... I don't know how happen and it's to late to delete them now... sorry.
 
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