recording a live show

[Hughesie]

hey i was just wondering what the best way to record a live show would be

we will be running a Mackie 1604vlz as our main desk and i was thinking of using the aux's to run to a separate desk. what i would like to do is run to separate mixes using the same inputs. one for live mixing one for recording
can it be done?

[Peter]

You really have several options how to do this and each option has it's pluses and minuses.

If you have an extra board sitting around and lots of 1/4" TRS (Stereo) patch cables, you can plug the TRS cables half way into the insert plug for each channel on your primary (live) board and run that into the line in on each channel of your recording board, and then mix down your recording on that board and record the main outputs. This gives you the benefit of big faders for each channel for your recording but has the downside of being twice as many faders you have to worry about (If you make an adjustment on one, you'll probably need to make the same one on the recording side).

The other option, is to take a post fader AUX (or two if you want stereo) and record the AUX output(s). This way you set an initial level that will sound good in the recording (IE: the ratio of guitar to voice will probably be higher in your auxes b/c the guitars probably carry abit live) then you only really have to worry about making adjustments to the master faders and the recording will mimic it.

If you have an extra person who can run the live board (or the recording board for that matter) you are probably better off going with the first option, if your short handed, the second may be better.

There's not necessarily a huge point in running Auxes to another board unless you really want to have big faders, but with auxes you'll probably have to do most of your recording mixing with the per-channel aux knobs anyway. If you want two boards, and you have the cables, do each channel using the insert... and just be sure not to bump those halfway plugged in cables during the show!

[Hughesie]

the desk i was planning on using was a 6 channel desk i have sitting around, we do have two operators so option one would work

but we would be running more that 6 inputs though

i don't know the full setup yet but here is what we normally do

3x vocal handheld mic's for lead vocals
3x overhead mics
3 band mic's
2x radio mics
we also have another 16ch desk but it sits in the rack and we would normally run the audio to it for our main mix

also tell me about inserts?