Topic: Recommendation for board recordings/band on the road

[barthatronic]

Hello. I'm looking for a hardware recommendation for my cousin's band, The Impossible Shapes. They're leaving on tour in February and I'd like to set them up with an audio recording device (I'm keeping this very broad) to record their live shows, mostly from SBD.

I have experience with the JB3 and that's the right price range as well (relatively cheap) -- I'm looking to set him up for under $200. I'd like to make this rig and setup as basic as possible with the highest probabilty for great sound. I haven't been monitoring these boards for a while and I'm wondering if there's a better setup than the JB3 now. Any ideas or recommendations? What will I need beyond the recording device to make this work well? What should I expect to pay? I'm really looking (once again) to the resources of this board for some help. Thanks in advance for your help...

[svenkid]

probably get a set of rca to mini 1/8th

sbd on the ground could be tricky, new boards each nite, new sound guys that hopefully know what theyre doing.

[rsimms3]

Probably gonna want to take a laptop or computer to offload the shows each night just in case something happens to the JB3.  It would really suck to have every show on the JB3 without a backup and someone turn around and knock it off the sound board breaking it. 

[paltenburg]

I'd think (just from reading this forum) an Iriver H1x0 with Rockbox firmware is practically just as good as a JB3, so if you could find one of those cheap..

does anyone know exact differences between these (features, quality)?

[Weazel]

they have the same ADC so it should sound the same

[Brian Skalinder]

they have the same ADC so it should sound the same

Doubtful.  Typically, the analog design and implementation has a big impact on the sound, even if the ADC chips are the same - for example, the stock UA5 and MiniMe use the same ADC, yet sound very, very different IMO.  It's unlikely the analog stages are identical across both JB3 and H1x0.

[barthatronic]

Probably gonna want to take a laptop or computer to offload the shows each night just in case something happens to the JB3.  It would really suck to have every show on the JB3 without a backup and someone turn around and knock it off the sound board breaking it.

Great point. Those musician types aren't always the most careful guys either.

I've been looking for a JB3 on eBay and it looks like they're still holding their value well ($100-200). Seems like the extra batteries are getting harder to find as well -- they get a fairly premium price, I think. I'm still wondering if there's any other recording devices I should be considering -- would a Minidisc setup, although potentially less simple, be considered for reasons like the offload/backup problem mentioned above? Their sets tend to be less than an hour long...