Topic: What's Best Mic/Gear Setup for a Venue?

[stevetoney]

A friend owns a local venue and has asked for my opinions on what gear he should buy.  He wants to start recording the music that is performed at his place and wants to run a SBD/Mic matrix nightly.  I'll assume that he'd like a rig that's as no fuss as possible, because he already works his ass off and probably doesn't want to be messing with mastering something up on a computer the day after. 

He's told me that he's decided to buy a Tascam CD-RW901SL CD Recorder and has maybe $2K budget for the rest of the gear he needs, so lets assume that a hard disc or flash-based recorder is not part of this equation. 

Due to my own sluttiness, I could surely pass on some advice on mics, but I'm not really familiar with what gear is needed at the SBD (I'm thinking mics > preamp is it, since the Tascam unit has an ADC), so I'm not really sure how much of the $2K budget would be able to put towards mics. 

Any sound engineers able to give me some good feedback/experience on both what gear is needed and what specifically would be heavy duty / quality enough to stand up to nightly use on a $2000 budget?  Thanks in advance!

[ArchivalAudio]

I could lend some advice - but I'm sure others will have some
my advice is since he's your friend you should offer to run the gear, at least to start with then get it set so it is no muss no fuss..


--Ian

[Belexes]

That's a shame he hasn't decided to buy a 4 channel deck instead of a CD burner.  Could you convince him otherwise?

[udovdh]

a CD-burner!? 
Why not a DVD-burner and a DVD-A compatible player?
Less hassle:
- less discs due to more storage
- accepts 24-bit, more sample rates, channels
- bit perfect extraction (it is a backup as well)
- etc

[stevetoney]

That's a shame he hasn't decided to buy a 4 channel deck instead of a CD burner.  Could you convince him otherwise?

Belexes...I don't think he's set on the CD burner.  He simply told me that's what he's been looking at, so I decided to convey that in the message.  He DID in fact tell me he wants to do this right from the start, so if you have a better suggestion on what he should buy for the back end, please feel free.

Regarding the first comment about setting it up myself/helping out with my gear since he's my friend, that would be a great suggestion if helping him out was the only thing in life I have to do.  As it is, he's expressed his gratitude for what I've done so far, getting out as much as I can to promote the club and doing the recording that I have done.  Unfortunately, I have a good job and can't be out at the club until 2am nightly minding my gear as a goodwill gesture to help a friends club succeed, as much as I'd love to.     Also, he has his own sound engineers that he employs, so offering to broker (for free) the gear purchase does neither him or me any good.  I don't want to be responsible for whatever bad (or good) decisions are made when it's not my money that's involved.  I'm just trying to respond to a friend that asked for some advice, nothing more nothing less.

[stevetoney]

a CD-burner!? 
Why not a DVD-burner and a DVD-A compatible player?
Less hassle:
- less discs due to more storage
- accepts 24-bit, more sample rates, channels
- bit perfect extraction (it is a backup as well)
- etc

I'm pretty sure that the guy is probably just going off what he knows...perhaps what he's seen at other clubs.  This part of the equation is new to him.

Please consider this an open canvass.  I'd like to know what sound engineers might suggest is needed for a house system...mics to recording device...for capturing a good sounding matrix live on location for $2k on the front end and perhaps $1k at the back end...$3k total.  Thanks!

[NOLAfishwater]

CD burner sucks for several reasons. I would tell him to buy a used R4 or R-44. He should hang mics over front of stage aiming towards back towards where drums go.

This fostex unit is only 229. it is a minimal amount of money to invest and he can start recording for under $500 with an inexpensive pair of mics which can be powered from the 2 mic inputs. Plus it has removeable CF card so he can easily transfer his 2 channel 16/44.1 files for consumption.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/414598-REG/Fostex_MR8_MKII_MR8_MKII_8_Track_Portable.html#specifications

If he actually likes all the post work he can upgrade at a later date.



and for other people who want to tape he can add a patch bay for $135
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/357741-REG/Henry_Engineering_PATCHBOX_II_Patch_Box_II_.html

[rastasean]

Well I think the guy needs to get his priorities straight. If he wants quality recordings, it will take time to understand the recorder and take time to understand mic placement so if he doesn't have time for that, he should have someone else help him out or have someone else help run the bar with him. We didn't become great tapers by just buying microphones and putting them on stands, we had to listen in the club and figure out the best place for the mics not to mention all the research done.

The fostex unit is nice but what if he wants more inputs? Have you looked at the Zoom R16?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/600773-REG/Zoom_R16_R16_Multi_Track_Recorder_.html

[stevetoney]

^ Thanks Rasta.  Although I'll likely withhold lectures on priorities (LOL  ) I'd be more than happy to pass on to his sound engineer any helpful/informative experiences you may have with mic placement, gear suggestions, mics that aren't rugged enough for daily use, etc.  Thank you for the gear link.

[kcmule]

If he already has a console, I don't see why he'd have to spend $2k to
get a "good recording".

The club I record at frequently, I use a pair of Behringer C-2 for ambience
and a pair of TRS out from the console to my R4.  I get a secondary mix
from the house engineer (IOW, I'm not taking the house mix).  I don't
see the need for an expensive pair of mics for ambience alone.

I do dump the tracks to a PC and mix them in post but I'm guessing you
could do this on the fly to a burner of some sort if he doesn't want to
mess with the "post production".

[stevetoney]

This response is more in line with I think what the goals of the owner are.  I was also thinking along those lines...that a top notch set of mics aren't necessary for a great sounding matrix.  However, I'd also probably tell him that he might want to err on the side of better mics so that he could get a good sounding recording if, for some reason, the SBD side of the equation doesn't work out. 

I appreciate the input that folks are making that the CDRecorder might not be the way to go, but I was wondering how much that might be neglecting what I'd initially said, where the guy probably won't want to mess around with the computer in post and he probably wants to get a good sounding recording with minimal effort, so I'm not so sure at this point that it makes a difference to him about getting 24bit DVDs because he's probably just wanting something quick and dirty after each night's music is over, but that still sounds great...although I'd definitely remind him that DVD recorders might be a way to go because of higher resolution.

If he already has a console, I don't see why he'd have to spend $2k to
get a "good recording".

The club I record at frequently, I use a pair of Behringer C-2 for ambience
and a pair of TRS out from the console to my R4.  I get a secondary mix
from the house engineer (IOW, I'm not taking the house mix).  I don't
see the need for an expensive pair of mics for ambience alone.

I do dump the tracks to a PC and mix them in post but I'm guessing you
could do this on the fly to a burner of some sort if he doesn't want to
mess with the "post production".

[Todd R]

For ruggedness, there are a number of rackmounted, solid-state (e.g., SD card) recorders -- see Marantz and Tascam for example.  I haven't looked into it that much, but it seems the problem with these is they a 2ch devices for the lower cost ones, or if you want multi-channel units they can be several thousand.

Then there are lots of multitrack recorders that have control surfaces more like the Zoom linked above.  Must say, I know nothing about them.

If a portable recorder would work and rugged rackmount isn't needed, the new Tascam DR-680 might be worth considering.  He can record up to 6 channels, and then record the final 2 tracks as a mix track.  So with the one recorder he can record 3 sets of 2ch inputs (say stereo soundboard, on-stage mic pair, audience mic pair) and then record a mix-down of them all.  All the raw files are there if he gets an itch to really play around with post production, and he has a 2ch mixdown done at the time of the recording with no fuss.  The mixdown can be set to relative amounts of each of the L-R input pairs, so he can preset it for mainly soundboard and onstage, and a smaller amount of audience -- or whatever.

Get that and a few 16gb/32gb cards that can later be dumped to a computer.  Leave some money in the budget for some TB drives, at 8ch recording, he'll be racking up the data. 

The question of mics is a lot easier, since we all pretty familiar with them.  For cost vs performance, without necessarily the need for multiple caps and active cables and whatnot, I'd give a vote for some Audio-Technica mics.  Get a pair of AT4022 omnis for onstage and a pair of AT4021/AT4041 cards for aud mics.  $1000 for 2 pairs of high-quality, excellent sounding, and rugged mics.  Not to say that a couple pairs of Marshall MXL603's for a $100 a pair wouldn't do the trick if he is mixing in mainly a board feed.

[Gutbucket]

^^^
This

[fmaderjr]

the guy probably won't want to mess around with the computer in post and he probably wants to get a good sounding recording with minimal effort,

If he finds a way to make consistently good sounding recordings with minimal effort and without doing any post work with a computer, he ought to publish a book on how to do it. I can't imagine being able to do that myself.

[bgreen]

Keep it simple for him if thats what he wants. Get him an R-4 or R-44 with 2 AKG 414 XLS to run onstage to pick up what isn't put through the board along with pulling the mix from the board and whala.

If he wants to do a little more to get a little better pull, go for the 680 and add in two more mics (I like bright mics to to contrast the warm 414's) to add some width and depth to the recording.

I'm also going to tell ya that no matter what, to get a good polished sound, there is going to be post production work.

Shoot me a line sometime and we can chat, I am working on a project that may be a perfect fit for for his situation.