Suggestions for live recording system

sdauditorium

sdauditorium

Active Member
The facility I'm a director at (community/high school auditorium) has $7,000 to go towards the purchase of an installed live recording system. It's first purpose would be to capture recordings of high school band/choir concerts. However, I'd like to make sure we have the capability of doing more complex mixing to an expanded amount of events as time goes on.

If you're in a facility that has a recording system, what type of setup do you have (recording mics and their locations, how the mix is taken--aux send from your main mixer or a sub-mixer, etc.). Also, how do you like the results and flexibility it gives?
 
I can answer the question you ask by telling you what we have. This may not work for your situation.

We have a PM5D at FOH and an Alesis HD24 hard disk recording device contected via MY cards and Fiber optic. We can create any patch of any 24 channels and do a 24 track recording. In post production we just reroute the audio back through the PM5D and do a recording mix to stereo tracks as that is always different then the live house mix.
 
How much effort are you expecting to put into the recording/mixing aspect of your productions? $7000 will get you a pretty decent rig, depending on what you have available now. Are you wanting to multitrack everything for later mixdown or would you rather go live to 2-track to prevent the hassle of mixing later? If the previous, look at something like the JoeCo Black Box (JoeCo - Home of the BlackBox Recorder) as a 24 track recorder. Connect it via direct outs or insert points on your console, connect a USB drive, and hit record. Then you can transfer the wav files to your favorite DAW for mixdown, or do what hsaunier suggests and mix it on the same console you use for FOH.

You will want at least a pair of room mics for ambient pickup (orchestra or group ensemble, audience mics, etc). Placement, pickup pattern, and mic selection will vary and is hard to give advice over the Internet. If your room sounds good maybe go with omnis. This will give you a total room sound (both stage and audience area), to get more of either aspect you'll need to decide on placement. If you can do more than a pair then I would say cardioids closer to the stage and omnis in the middle of the room for audience pickup. As far as actual mic recommendations, you get what you pay for, so SPEND THAT MONEY!
 
Can you explain a little more about the use? Is this a standalone, portable system or are you looking for it to integrated with the house sound system, physical space and so on? For example, if you have a performance where you have a mic on stage, say for solos or announcements, then would you have both a house mic and a recording mic? Do you plan on bringing in the recording system and running cables on the floor for a recording session or are you thinking a system that is always there and always wired?

Also what do you currently have for mics and mixing? Some of the recommendations given rely greatly on the existing components, which may or may not be applicable to your situation.
 
museav said:
Can you explain a little more about the use? Is this a standalone, portable system or are you looking for it to integrated with the house sound system, physical space and so on? For example, if you have a performance where you have a mic on stage, say for solos or announcements, then would you have both a house mic and a recording mic? Do you plan on bringing in the recording system and running cables on the floor for a recording session or are you thinking a system that is always there and always wired?

Also what do you currently have for mics and mixing? Some of the recommendations given rely greatly on the existing components, which may or may not be applicable to your situation.
Click to expand...

The system would be integrated into the house system/physical space. It would be permanently rigged and the recording mics would be exclusively for that purpose. The system would always be there.

We currently have 4 SM58s, 2 Beta 58s, 4 SM81s, 4 Audix i5s, 1 AT C535, 2 Crown PCC160s, 2 AT 853Rx (hanging choir). We'll be picking up 2 Beta 57s this year yet and more mics next year. We also have 12 Sennheiser e845 handheld wireless and 16 Sennheiser body pack transmitters w/ Countryman E6i mics.

Our mixer is a 24 channel, 8 bus Mackie. We are looking to upgrade to either a 32-40 channel analog or possibly digital mixer with the next year or two.
 
I second the mention of the hd24. Two can be linked for 44.1/48 recording of 48 channels. It won't use up your 7k though so consider a recording split and board. I don't even know if the 8 bus has direct outs or if you'd have to cheat the insert points. Agreed that more info is needed. Will you do the mixdown with a daw or the house board? What's the purpose? I guess i'm assuming a multitrack recorder is what you're going for...
 
blalew said:
I second the mention of the hd24. Two can be linked for 44.1/48 recording of 48 channels. It won't use up your 7k though so consider a recording split and board. I don't even know if the 8 bus has direct outs or if you'd have to cheat the insert points. Agreed that more info is needed. Will you do the mixdown with a daw or the house board? What's the purpose? I guess i'm assuming a multitrack recorder is what you're going for...
Click to expand...

At this point, we're looking at doing the mixdown with the house board. The main purpose of recordings would be to create CDs that could be dispersed to radio stations for playback (especially holiday concerts), educational purposes for the band/choir, and archival recordings.
 
I guess I'm confused now... this is for the recording of band/choir concerts, but you're looking to upgrade your 24 channel 8 bus to 32 or 40 channels, possibly digital console. My question would be... what are you doing with all those channels? Seems you could go one of two ways with your recording philosophy based on your room & setup.

1) the room is built for the types of things you're doing - band & choir concerts - and things sound good on their own. The PA just provides reinforcement for announcements or something. That means you go with a few well-placed mics to pick up the ambiance of the room, along with maybe a solo mic or two (or mic by sections whether choir or band or orchestra) that you just send to tracks to beef up your recording.

but if your room is more PA-centric...
2) You close-mic things because the room doesn't support these 'acoustic'/natural activities well, and you use your PA to reinforce the band/choir/orchestra, and mic things accordingly. This is a very different setup & will require lots of mic'ing (with the according hardware, lines run, and expertise/experience).

I would argue if you're having to take the #2 approach, it would be worth considering just changing the room to fit the purpose. Of course, $7K won't get you very far into the possibility of changing room shape, seating areas, acoustical treatment, etc

Either way I suppose you need a multitrack recording device. Your 8 bus appears to have balanced direct outs, you'll need a 24 ch TRS-TRS snake to hook up an HD24 if you go that way.

Sending the multitrack (HD24 or not) back through the board for a remix is certainly easy, but to remix for broadcast it would be better to dedicate a listening space for this purpose instead of listening to the remix in the PA or headphones (especially if your system is more of the #1 style). Having a computer/DAW to remix the tracks on in a studio-type room (built & acoustically treated appropriately, with nearfield monitors, etc) might be the best way to approach this.

-Blanton
 
sdauditorium said:
The system would be integrated into the house system/physical space. It would be permanently rigged and the recording mics would be exclusively for that purpose. The system would always be there.
Click to expand...
sdauditorium said:
Our mixer is a 24 channel, 8 bus Mackie. We are looking to upgrade to either a 32-40 channel analog or possibly digital mixer with the next year or two.
Click to expand...
sdauditorium said:
At this point, we're looking at doing the mixdown with the house board. The main purpose of recordings would be to create CDs that could be dispersed to radio stations for playback (especially holiday concerts), educational purposes for the band/choir, and archival recordings.
Click to expand...
Maybe we should start with that what you might be just fine for archival and perhaps even educational purposes would often not be considered acceptable for promotional or distribution purposes. And that relates to both the quality of the recording and the licensing (does any existing licensing cover your recording performances and distributing those recordings to commercial broadcasters?).

Based on what you have said, would typically look at two potential approaches. One is to use the direct outputs of your existing console (or preferably to add mic splits) to create a multi-track recording that can be mixed and edited later. The other approach is to have a separate, dedicated recording mix that is, as Blalew noted, preferably physically located outside the performance space. However, you seem to be envisioning a third option that appears to be creating two different mixes, or more if they are also creating monitor mixes, at the same time on the same mixer. I don't know the skill level of your operators but trying to mix a large ensemble for the house and simultaneously create a high quality recording mix with additional recording specific inputs could be very challenging. Is that a realistic expectation for your operators?

A related secondary consideration is whether having separate house and recording mixes would be difficult to support with the personnel available or whether it might instead offer additional opportunities. If you have trouble finding techs then adding the requirement for one more may be less than ideal, however if you have a number of people wanting to be involved then having separate house and recording mix roles might be beneficial.

Another consideration. You apparently want the recording system, including permanently installed, recording specific mics, integrated into the existing space and house system. You also apparently plan to transition from the current 24 channel console to a new 32 to 40 channel, and possibly digital, console. You might want to look at how that would all work together in the long term. Specifically, between the recording functionality and the new console it sounds like you probably plan on adding a number of additional inputs. How are you planning on addressing the related expanded cabling and connectivity? If you need to accommodate additional cabling, new or modified connection points, etc. and perhaps even additional conduit or raceway, that could impact your budget. At the same time, since there are commonalities it probably makes sense to address any associated changes to cabling, connectivity, infrastructure at the same time for both the recording and console upgrade aspects.
 
blalew said:
I guess I'm confused now... this is for the recording of band/choir concerts, but you're looking to upgrade your 24 channel 8 bus to 32 or 40 channels, possibly digital console. My question would be... what are you doing with all those channels? Seems you could go one of two ways with your recording philosophy based on your room & setup.

1) the room is built for the types of things you're doing - band & choir concerts - and things sound good on their own. The PA just provides reinforcement for announcements or something. That means you go with a few well-placed mics to pick up the ambiance of the room, along with maybe a solo mic or two (or mic by sections whether choir or band or orchestra) that you just send to tracks to beef up your recording.

but if your room is more PA-centric...
2) You close-mic things because the room doesn't support these 'acoustic'/natural activities well, and you use your PA to reinforce the band/choir/orchestra, and mic things accordingly. This is a very different setup & will require lots of mic'ing (with the according hardware, lines run, and expertise/experience).

I would argue if you're having to take the #2 approach, it would be worth considering just changing the room to fit the purpose. Of course, $7K won't get you very far into the possibility of changing room shape, seating areas, acoustical treatment, etc

Either way I suppose you need a multitrack recording device. Your 8 bus appears to have balanced direct outs, you'll need a 24 ch TRS-TRS snake to hook up an HD24 if you go that way.

Sending the multitrack (HD24 or not) back through the board for a remix is certainly easy, but to remix for broadcast it would be better to dedicate a listening space for this purpose instead of listening to the remix in the PA or headphones (especially if your system is more of the #1 style). Having a computer/DAW to remix the tracks on in a studio-type room (built & acoustically treated appropriately, with nearfield monitors, etc) might be the best way to approach this.

-Blanton
Click to expand...

The room is definitely more #1 and conducive to those concerts. As far as what we're doing with all of those channels on our current mixer, we have 16 wireless microphone systems that eat up 2/3 of our current board. Add in the 10 wired mic inputs located on stage and channels needed for CD playback and our projection system audio, that kills our board. While we un-patch as needed, I would like a board that could accomodate all of our current lines along with open channels for future expansion. Eventually, I would like to add another 6-12 wired mic inputs on stage as we are looking to expand the shows we bring in.
 
Please give us an idea of budget. This is very much a "get what you pay for" kind of thing, so let us know what you want to pay and we can tell you what you get.
 
budget

I have about $600 for the pair of mics. Maybe a bit more since I already have a recorder in my stock.

I originally thought of buying three of the Countryman
M2HP4FF50W/ISOMAX-2 mics and hanging them center, left and right in front of our thrust stage.

But a friend who does some recording for us suggested a pair of small diaphragm cardioids attached to a stereo bar that would hang from the cats.
Maybe some Audio Technica AT4021.
 
Re: budget

WooferHound said:
What about using this recorder . . .
H2 Handy Recorder
the H4 would probably be better
H4
Click to expand...


+1 for Zoom recorders. I was searching high and low for a separate audio recorder for post production video work and Zoom's stuff just seemed perfect. Price is reasonable, User interface is intuitive, quality is excelent, and (on the one i was looking at) very useful aux in ports.

Going back to recording from a mackie's Direct Outs, My experiences say avoid them like the plague. Every mackie I've used the Direct Out's on, have given me dirty signal. There was always a buzz or hiss or something coming out of all of the outs. Maybe all the Mackie boards I've worked on were defective, That's just my experiences.
 
Re: budget

I think that for not much more than your stated budget you can get the upcoming 32 channel Roland mixer + a nice computer. (Donate the Mackie to a church in need - as many problems as those have had, selling one would weigh on my conscience, even if everything works at the moment.) RSS M-300 Live Mixing Console :: Overview There's also the 48 channel: http://www.roland.com/products/en/M-400 Or, if you are certain that 24 channels is all you will ever need, the Presonus StudioLive 24 mixer + a computer would run you about 2/3 of your stated budget. http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=59
 
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