Studiospares Forum

Would love some suggestions as to a fairy simple way of doing live sound recordings

We have an Alan and Heath PG 12 mixer and a mac laptop with garage band - what's the best way to connect should we go via an external box or just plug the line outs into the mac

Will we get a good enough result to be worthwhile - we would like to be able to give our clients a recording straight after the gig

Be gentle I'm no expert in recording!!

 

 

 

Hi.

We will get a reply to you asap.

Thanks

Mike

Hi,

You could simply send the audio from your mixer as a stereo mix into the line in of your mac and achieve a usable result. This would save you buying an external audio interface.

An interface would come in useful if you require more than 2 tracks to be recorded or played back.

Hope this helps,

PG

the line in on the computer(mac)is a minijack though,my line in lasted about a month after continuous plugging in and out so I would get an interface, you don't have to get a big complicated thing we do 2 chan units that use the usb socket(a bit tougher)for about £30....dead simple :-)

or you could use one of the solid state recorders we do...edirol ro9hd,zoom h4/h2 ... would be quicker and more reliable than taking the mac out and about and you can transfere the files onto the mac when you get home.

 

richard

Many thanks guys

Good tip about the mini jack - have had a few quality issues with apple

 

Anyone out there done this kind of thing and if so what was the quality of the result like?

 

Optimouse

 

 

 

Hi Optimouse, Generally if you take a stereo mix straight of a live desk you end up with a mix that is not  particularly listenable as the mix is done for the purpose of sounding right in the room, generally you'd end up putting more vocals and drums into the PA, which would then be reflected in the recording. For instance there may be a guitar amp turned up quite loud so you would end up only putting a small amount of it into the PA meaning it'd be too quiet in the mix. Might be wise to consider getting a soundcard with 4 inputs, 2 of which should have mic preamps, put two toom mics into the channels that have the pres and mix these two with the dry stuff from the mixer.
Cheers,
SJM

Thanks for that reply -I was concerned that it would not sound good think will get some kit  and have a play - will post experiances here

 

 

Optimouse

Optimouse:

Would love some suggestions as to a fairy simple way of doing live sound recordings

We have an Alan and Heath PG 12 mixer and a mac laptop with garage band - what's the best way to connect should we go via an external box or just plug the line outs into the mac

Will we get a good enough result to be worthwhile - we would like to be able to give our clients a recording straight after the gig

Be gentle I'm no expert in recording!!

 

It depends exactly how serious you want to be about this, what your budget is and so on.

you're using the word 'clients' - are you expecting to be paid for the service, for instance?

Ideally you'd be taking mic splits (in addition to channels from the desk that might be effected) and recording it all multitrack to something (such as the HD24 / HD24XR from Alesis). Or you could take direct outs from the desk to a multitrack (don't know the A&H desk you've got).

If it's a critical recording, then you should ideally have reduntant backup for everything (so running at least two recorders in parallel).

There are a lot fo variables you need to have a think about - what is it you're trying to achieve is probably the first ;)