Topic: In-house permanent rig

[Thom Joad]

Figured this was the right forum, if not, mods feel free to move. (already posted in the "Team FOH" thread)

My buddy is opening up a small theater in about a month.  For a grand opening present, I would like to give him an in-house recording rig.  I've only ever payed attention to remote recorders, and such don't know about all of the possibilities of the AC powered world.

I won't be there every show to run it for him, so I'll need something that he can just push one button at the beginning of the show and turn it off at the end of the night.  I'm thinking he won't even have time to set levels.  Is there any sort of "auto-leveling" feature on any recorder?   

He's getting an Allen & Heath board (not sure on the model) and I figured I'd set him up with a 4-track recorder and a set of cheap house mics. and have a permanent matrix set up.  Or do I only need one house mic?

My budget is ~$500.

Thanks in advance - Matt

[run_run_run]

C4s and a r-44 , but 4 track your over 500 I would think

[easy jim]

Who would mix the 4 track recordings?

Probably better off getting a small 4 channel mixer w/ two mic inputs (+phantom) to take the line feed from the board and mix with the mics to a 2 track recorder.  You could do that with an R-09, or something like that, a $100 4 channel mixer, and maybe a pair of PZM mics mounted above the stage.  Considering it's a small theater, stage + SBD is probably going to produce generally more even results than SBD + room with respect to differing types of music and stage volume levels.

It would not be too hard to set a basic mix level that would only require minor tweaking from time to time if a band/performer with significantly different stage sound ends up playing.  I know of a couple places using a set up like this, for instance search for Moe's Alley on the LMA and you should find several sources from an in-house set up using Realistic PZM mics mounted above the stage and a cheapo Behringer 4 track mixer.

[NJFunk]

Who would mix the 4 track recordings?

Probably better off getting a small 4 channel mixer w/ two mic inputs (+phantom) to take the line feed from the board and mix with the mics to a 2 track recorder.  You could do that with an R-09, or something like that, a $100 4 channel mixer, and maybe a pair of PZM mics mounted above the stage.  Considering it's a small theater, stage + SBD is probably going to produce generally more even results than SBD + room with respect to differing types of music and stage volume levels.

It would not be too hard to set a basic mix level that would only require minor tweaking from time to time if a band/performer with significantly different stage sound ends up playing.  I know of a couple places using a set up like this, for instance search for Moe's Alley on the LMA and you should find several sources from an in-house set up using Realistic PZM mics mounted above the stage and a cheapo Behringer 4 track mixer.

There's a venue around here that has Rode mics mounted above the stage, a little 4-track mixer, and a stand alone burner.  The burner might be even a better idea than the R-9 because if you don't like the band, you can give them the physical media (which costs $0.30) and never have to worry about post production.

[Thom Joad]

I guess I should have put more emphasis on the "easy to use" necessity of this rig.  He has a computer in his office (above the SBD, in the old projector room) that will be on during the shows, so I'm thinking of setting up simple software based approach:

SBD (maybe + mics.)> TBD > PC.

If there is a mic or two, I don't want him to have to even set levels. I just want to be able to say to him "open this program, double click here, click record, come back after the show and save, shut down." 

Sound quality doesn't have to be stellar, but has to be decent enough to listen to.

[TNJazz]

As soon as you add mics it gets more complicated.

Just run SBD -> any basic M-Audio firewire unit (I think there's a FW Audiophile in the YS for $100 right now) to the PC.  $15 for CD Wave and some long RCAs out of the REC OUT on the board and you're good to go for about $150...

If you want to add mics later, a pair of C4's with omni caps on stage sent to 2 unused channels on the board and out of the REC OUT gets you a pretty decent matrix with no hassles and you're still under your $500 max budget...