Topic: I need advice and/or a taper on Dec. 22 in West Michigan

[nuthings]

I am in need of advice and/or a taper in Grand Rapids, Michigan on December 22, 2007. My brother-in-law's very fun funk/soul band will be playing their last show that evening and I would like to record the event. I do not yet have the hardware to do so myself and as this is their last show, I don't want to screw it up with rookie mistakes.  I'm not even sure I have the time to do my homework to buy an adequate rig at this point.

My goal, at a minimum, is to record all three sets that night on video - I do have access to a camcorder, it's not the best but it will have to do. However I would like to also have a good quality audio recording. The band has played this club for a number of years so I suspect if push came to shove, we could have access to the soundboard for audio recording or at least approval for an audience recording. I'll have to make a few phone calls to see if the club can/will record the audio from the soundboard for me which may be a tremendous help.

Ultimately I would like to be able to present the band members with a DVD and CDs of their last show as a record of the work they've done over the last half dozen years or so. Any advice, help, or suggestions (or offers to tape all 3 sets in exchange for your favorite beverage all evening) will be greatly appreciated! Please feel free to contact me directly or via this forum.

[NJFunk]

The easiest thing would be a SBD recording to a JB3 (Nomad Jukebox 3, which can record 16/44.1 CD-quality sound) or some other smallportable recorder.  However, before you can do that, you need to do a little research about the club.  The two primary issues are (1) how is the SBD mix for recording and (2) what kind of outputs does the board have.

Basically, the smaller the club, the less likely the board mix is to be balanced.  For very small bars/clubs, it is possible that the PA feed will only have vocals, horns, and a little kick drum and all of the guitars and amplified instruments will need no reinforcement.  A little bigger and the PA mix might be tilted towards vocals but at least balanced with all instruments (except maybe bass guitar, which is usually the loudest from the stage).  At larger clubs, all instruments will be mic'd and in the PA mix.  If the SBD mix is not balanced, then you'll want to look into mics instead.

The easiest and most common outputs are rcas (the kind on the back of your stereo for tape decks) from the SBD's "tape out".  All you would need is a rca => stereo mini cable for the JB3 and you're set.  However, some more sophisticated boards may have only 1/4" or XLR (the three pronged microphone jacks) outs.  You'll need to know for sure so that you can get the right set of cables and/or adaptors to use.

[nuthings]

Thank you for your insight - I now have a place to start asking questions.  This is a fairly small club so as you suggested, I suspect not all of the instruments are fed through the soundboard - horns and vocals for sure, keyboard maybe, guitar and bass not likely, drums yes/no.  Based on your comments, my best bet may not be through the soundboard but rather mics - if everything isn't fed through the soundboard, then recording from the board won't give me the entire band.

I can see I need to gather more information before I can determine my best course of action.  I've been trying to gather information from various sources as I'd love to learn how to tape shows.  I was hoping to start with this band (because a) they're fun, and b) they'd let me do it) but they decided to break up on me - how dare they not consider my interests first!  Thank you again for your help!!

[stevetoney]

I think I saw a Team Michigan group down in the 'Team Boards' section of this site.  Post a message there and you should find someone that would be willing to roll for you for beers.  If I were you and you REALLY want to make sure, get two people lined up a) in case one flakes on you because he will, and b) just to have two potential sources in case one messes up.  However, you're wise not to try to take this on yourself unless you can get this all done like NOW and do some practice taping before then.  If you can't do any practicing though, you'll mess it up when the time comes, for sure.  It's that Murphys Law thing happening.  So get two guys that are experienced lined up.  Obviously, the better their recording rig, the better your recording will be.  

Don't even bother fucking around with the SBD, because you'll end up disappointed with the end result and you won't be able to do anything to fix it.  A good audience recording is 100 times more interesting than a good SBD anyway.  Ooor, make arrangements for both the SBD and an AUD and do a matrix...now those are usually sweet sounding.

For video taping, if you want to add interest and a special touch, use your own camera and rent another from the local rent-a-center and do a two cam mix.  It might not cost you that much to rent the second camera.  DEFINITELY put both camera's on separate tripods and DO NOT try to take any video by hand-holding.  Again, it will be disaster...100% guaranteed.  

Then the best solution would be to invite a friend to man one of the camera's while you did the other, but I've done shows where I've controlled both camera's.  You just have to spend the whole night running between camera's and when you leave one unmanned, generally you'll want to have it panned out a little so if people move a bit, they don't move out of the picture field.

When shooting, do lots of pans and zooms for interest.  It's OK if you are only panning and zooming one camera at a time, because between panning and zooming...and swapping between camera angles in the master, there is enough action happening in the master video that when you mix the two video's together you can keep the master video interesting to watch.

Then after the show is over, you'll have two raw videos from two different angles, two source audio's from two separate sources.  If there are any glitches or dropouts in either of the source audio or video tapes, then you have the backup for fixing.

To add even more drama and interest to your video, take an nice digital still camera with you.  Take some shots of the band during the performance...take some shots of the venue outside the day of the show or the billboard with the band name in lights.  Take some stills of the bar or if this particular place has any trademarks (like emblems, pictures on the wall, blowup dolls hanging from the ceiling or whatever) take a shot of those....something to remember the place by.  Take pics of the managers of the venue and the people that are there...maybe since they've played there alot, some of the people are kinda special to your Bro in Law. 

Keep in mind when shooting stills that some of the stills might be used for a menu, so practice your composition a little bit...leave some dark space or center the subject a little to the side to allow for a menu to one side of the still shot.  Consider the colors and how that might affect the composition and how lettering will show up against the image in the background.

Spend a little time with Vegas and Soundforge mixing the audio and video together.  Use the HQ still shots for the backgrounds of the menu's or for your DVD setlists or whatever.  Voila, you have a semi-pro-grade DVD for not all that much invested.

[nuthings]

Wow...that's kinda like drinking from a firehose!  Thank you so much for the advice - I'll seek out the Team Michigan and see if I can line up a skilled taper or two and perhaps another camcorder.  The layout of the club is such that I may have trouble with multiple cameras - it's not very wide, the stage is small and set in the back and off to one side - but I can scope that out on a scouting mission.  Thank you so much for your advice!!!!!