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Recording Mulitple Instrements Sepratly Live

S

spencer

Feb 22, 2006
797
2
37
#1
Ok in order to up the quality of my churches recordings I want to record each instrument sepratly. In order to do this I need to convert them to firewire straight into my laptop for mixing later. Is my only option a Mixing board with a firewire out? Or is there an easier way? If I go the mixing board way I will need at least 16$ channels and I found a good one for 400$ but just looking at my options..
 
#5
uber_goober said:
You can run 2 Firepods for 16 total channels. Then it just comes down to the DAW program you're using..and if you're hardware can handle recording 16 channels at once. As far as low overhead software, I love Ableton Live.
Click to expand...

would that be any better than my mixing board?

Hmm I forgot about my hardware needing to be able to handle that..

What do you guys think..

Apple Macbook
# 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 2-3GB memory
# 120GB hard drive1

Here are all the mics that I need to record..
Kick drum
Highhat
Snare
Tom
Tom
Symbol
Bass
Guitar
Piano
Piano 2 channels into one
And anywhere from 1-4 and/or choir mics [two mics into one channel]

So 16 channels is about right.. However this is for the monday morning service..

Wends nights [which are more important to me]
Only have the drums 6 mics
1 or 2 vocals
1 guitar
2 pianos
1 bass
and two choir mics [for micing audience.]
 
#6
The mixing board with firewire out is not the most efficient way to achieve the results you want. What you want is to convert up to 16 microphones to seperate digital signals on your hard drive, and the most straightforward way of accomplishing that is to get a couple of 8 input mic-pre rack units with firewire output. The Presonus Firepods are a great value for the "hobbyist" studio, and two of them will run you $1000. There really are no other options for under that amount of dollars for a digital mixer that will give you acceptable quality mic-pres, decent A/D converters and high enough sampling and bit rate. Unless you really can't afford more money and are willing to take the big hit in quality.
 
#7
I don't think the quality could be any worse than it is now..

Right now we run the mixing board with monitor 7 to a cd recorder. Useing headphones while they play life makes it really hard to mix and it is post Eq so whatever sounds best in the house is how its Eq'ed on the recording.. It will sound ALOT better even if I get the cheaper board..
 
#8
You know, you can do the drums with a kick mic and one overhead and control the various drums and cymbals with EQ at mixdown. This would leave you six channels for the rest. I use a Rode NT3 for the overhead. It actually works pretty bitchen. Then you could use a Boss BR1600CD to record 8 tracks at a time.
 
#9
hbarcat said:
The mixing board with firewire out is not the most efficient way to achieve the results you want.
Click to expand...

Curious about your thinking here. For his application, the OP will need a mixing board along with the Firepods for FOH. Moreover, running the mics directly to the Firepods first will complicate FOH and monitor mix sound w/ latency problems, so unless he steps up to Firestudio + an additional 8 pre unit, he has to keep a mixer in the chain.

Splitters + mixer +two Firepods would get it done, but so would a Mackie 1640 Onyx + Firewire card -- which would seem to be a more elegant solution.

hbarcat said:
The Presonus Firepods are a great value
Click to expand...

Especially since you can now pick up a pair at the major catalog stores for $800. If you are starting with a decent mixer and can build your own splitter snake, you'll probably be done for not much over $1000. As a point of comparison, a new Onyx 1640 + firewire card would set you back $1680. A Firestudio (which would let you dispense with the mixer if you don't mind working entirely out of your Mac) goes for $699, and you'd need to add pre-amps 9-16 in the form of another 8x pre equipped with ADAT outputs (~$250 for low end like the Behringer, ~$500 IIRC for one of Presonus's Firestudio friendly Digi preamps without all the bells and whistles, or $1000+ for higher end offerings).
 
#10
Sorry, I probably should have explained better..

My church has a mixing board already, I think its something like a 32 channel makie, what I was planning on doing was running an out from the board [on each channel sepratly [the 16 that I need] to this board just for the purpose of getting it converted to firewire.
 
#15
uber_goober said:
Regarding software, I'd honestly suggest checking out Ableton Live. It's handling of audio is the best I've seen (compared with personal experience with Logic and Sonar). It's simple to use, low in system overhead and a lot of fun to use.
Click to expand...

Ableton Live is fun, but I don't think it's the right tool for the OP's application... it's a bit too much for his intended use.

If you're just tracking and mixing stuff, I'd suggest something more like Tracktion. Easy to use, sounds good, works very well. Of course, there are a bunch of other options out there, and I own ProTools LE, Live, Tracktion; and have used/tried others (Digital Perfomer, Logic) and IMHO would say that Tracktion would probably be the way to go.
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c
 

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