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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: Nelle B on August 31, 2018, 07:30:26 PM
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I am seeing Tarja next week (Sept. 6) at the Patio Theater. I'd like to record the show, just as a personal souvenir. I know Tarja is quite taper-friendly.
Ideally, I'd like to record near the soundboard/mixing desk. Does anyone know where the soundboard generally is in a venue, and/or what it looks like so I can spot it out?
Thanks a ton.
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The soundboard/mixer is usually located at the center back of a venue. Either all way back or almost all the way back against the back wall of the lowest level, or sometimes in the front of a balcony. Some venues might have it off to the side, though.
A typical theater sized mixing booth might look like (this one is off to the side, not centered, but is a good example of what it might look like):
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ee/51/21/ee51219dd431f780d70596ed88698436--church-sound-booth-booth-design.jpg)
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Adding to this... not sure the layout of your venue, but the soundboard is often (but not always) in the ideal sounding spot. In the posted photo it is off to the back corner and a better spot (for audience mics) would be closer to the center, if at all possible. Of course if you are recording from a soundboard feed then it would be ideal to be as close to the board as possible (forgive me for stating the obvious) ;)
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Be aware that with the advent of boards that can be controlled remotely via a tablet or phone, sometimes the board is hidden off to the side or even behind the stage.
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Be aware that with the advent of boards that can be controlled remotely via a tablet or phone, sometimes the board is hidden off to the side or even behind the stage.
I always enjoy seeing a sound person walk center (or near my mics) and check the sound out.
bit of topic, but.....
Good idea to ask what cables/out put the board might have before going as well, varies a bit for different boards.
Any advice on if you get a mic/xlr out vs rca?
xlr can be real hot
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set up near a speaker stack
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Thanks for all the replies.
Saw the show last night. I spotted out the soundboard and sat right near it (maybe 8 ft away) the entire gig. But I could not hear anything coming out of it? Aren't you usually supposed to hear sound from the stage coming out of it?
Needless to say, on top of that, I don't have external mics so the recording is nice but definitely not what I was expecting. Any thoughts on what happened, or what I might have done wrong (other than not using external mics)?
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Thanks for all the replies.
Saw the show last night. I spotted out the soundboard and sat right near it (maybe 8 ft away) the entire gig. But I could not hear anything coming out of it? Aren't you usually supposed to hear sound from the stage coming out of it?
Nope. Sound comes from speakers. The SBD is how the engineer controls what kinds of sounds come out of those speakers
Needless to say, on top of that, I don't have external mics so the recording is nice but definitely not what I was expecting. Any thoughts on what happened, or what I might have done wrong (other than not using external mics)?
If you want to plug your recorder into the soundboard, you're going to have to:
1) ask the sound man for a "patch"
2) "patch" your recorder into the soundboard.
or,
3) use microphones to record the sound in the room.
In any event, I'd browse around this site for a while for some basic info, there are lots of good sticky threads about how to get started.