Recording to laptop from mixer board

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JudahHoots

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I am the music pastor of a new church and we have a Yamaha 16 channel mixer board. I want to know if there is a way to record the full mix from the board to the hard drive of my laptop computer so we can make CD's of the service. Any advice would be greatly apprecaited. I'm kind of lost.....
 
What kind of outputs do you have on your mixer? USB? Firewire?

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JudahHoots said:
I am the music pastor of a new church and we have a Yamaha 16 channel mixer board. I want to know if there is a way to record the full mix from the board to the hard drive of my laptop computer so we can make CD's of the service. Any advice would be greatly apprecaited. I'm kind of lost.....
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The easiest hookup would be if your mixer haa RCA Tape Out jacks (I think it does, but I'm not positive), then you can get a cable from any Radio Shack that has L & R RCA plugs on one end (for the mixer) and a 1/8" mini stereo plug on the other. That stereo mini plug would plug into the Line Input jack on your laptop's soundcard.


HTH,

G.
 
That's what I do out of our board. RCA to 1/8 stereo plug. It's much better to use a quality A/D converter which will take the analog signal and turn it into a digital signal to feed into your computer. Most internal sound cards don't have the quality to produce great sparkling recordings. That being said I do all my recording on a notebook computer running RCA into the stereo input on the 16 bit soundcard. Not the best but it works. Good luck.
 
You'll also need some sort of software. There are plenty of cheap and free options around, and if you decide to buy an interface as a step up from your laptop's 1/8" line input it will most likely come with some sort of software.

Also, is the mix a complicated one with a full band and choir, or is it just an instrumental or vocal soloist, or maybe a small combo? Do you want the ability to mix levels after its recorded, or just simply record and burn? The levels of involvement and quality are what will ultimately determine how to approach it, and how much you'll likely end up spending on it.
 
You could also put a compressor between the mixer and the laptop. That'll keep it loud when it gets too quiet, and quiet when it gets too loud.
 
TravGRO said:
It's much better to use a quality A/D converter which will take the analog signal and turn it into a digital signal to feed into your computer.
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Here is a link to some pretty good converters made for laptop computers. They vary in price, and even the cheapest one is better than trying to go straight into your laptop. Most of them also come with the software you need to capture the audio signal:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=rec/search?c=9131

Here is a link for usb:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=rec/search?c=9115
 
Whatever you do, don't adjust the mic while standing in a batismal pool. :eek:
 
you don't have to go whole hog, but do get an external d/a/d converter with like 8 inputs. you might not need them today, but if your church undergoes any growth at all, you'll need it soon.

my little brother is the sound man at his church, they've got a mackie 24 channel something or other, and we've made some good recordings by submixing to an edirol fa-101 into a dell 9100 inspiron.

the first time the musicians overpower the lead vocalist, you're going to be glad you have a recorder with multiple inputs so you can salvage the recording.

if you get an 8 channel recorder (like the FA-101) you can do the following:
1) You
2) praise and worship leader (and anyone else not in choir with a mic)
3-4) choir submix
5-6) guitars and keyboards submix
7-8) drum and bass submix
 
I have one of these:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=rec/search/detail/base_pid/700714/

and use it with pretty good results. It's just as good as the digital converters on my ADAT (which, by reputation, are not supposed to be great)...I can't really hear a difference between the two. To capture rough mixes coming out of your mixing board, I would think that this would work fine with some software.

And the post above is good advice as well, for a more deliberate recording, you can adjust the levels of all instruments later (when you can hear them in more detail) to get a better sounding mix. But that's also more complication and more money for more converters.
 
Thank you all so much for your input....I'll let you know how it goes. :D
 
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