[Scott]

HI,

Every Monday I handle the desk for a band playing in a small but
accoustically
friendly night club. We want to do an album but don't want to pay
exhorbitant
studio fees. We're in the Middle East and they don't have much money.
The plan
is to buy a portable-as-possible I/O setup to connect with a good
borrowed
computer, which we'll probably run Cubase on. The software doesn't
matter
so much. What is important is the need for about 24 inputs (or more if
possible) -
with up to about 20 of them being mic inputs (a mixture of condenser
and
dynamic). I'm going to place them in different parts of the space,
with visual
contact and some separators. This is better than it sounds because I
have
access to the club one evening a week and accoustically it's
surprisingly good,
with treated walls, etc. Also everybody will be playing at once, so
there
won't be much overdubbing at all. Anybody screws up and we all play
again!

Anybody have any reccomendations for an interface/interface combo that
will
do the job? There seem to be plenty out there, but none with 20 mic
inputs.
How can I address that?

Thanks,

Scott

[Mike Rivers]

Scott wrote:

Every Monday I handle the desk for a band playing in a small but
accoustically friendly night club. We want to do an album but don't want to pay
exhorbitant studio fees.

Is the club band-friendly? Can you record there, either a bunch of
live shows or at times when the club isn't open to the public? If they
have a suitable mixer and mics, and you plan to record "live" (with no
overdubs) you can record straight to stereo with a little
experimenting. If the band is good and you get a good mix, you can do
your recording at very little cost.

The plan
is to buy a portable-as-possible I/O setup to connect with a good
borrowed
computer, which we'll probably run Cubase on. The software doesn't
matter
so much. What is important is the need for about 24 inputs (or more if
possible) -
with up to about 20 of them being mic inputs

Now you're talking about money if you want them to go to be recorded
to separate tracks for later mixing. But using the club's mixer, all
you need is a decent stereo interface for the computer, some time to
get the balance right, and enough takes so that you either have a good
one all the way through or you can edit between takes to put together
a good complete version of each song.

[Scott]

On Feb 1, 8:06 pm, "Mike Rivers" wrote:
Scott wrote:
Every Monday I handle the desk for a band playing in a small but
accoustically friendly night club. We want to do an album but don't want to pay
exhorbitant studio fees.

Is the club band-friendly? Can you record there, either a bunch of
live shows or at times when the club isn't open to the public? If they
have a suitable mixer and mics, and you plan to record "live" (with no
overdubs) you can record straight to stereo with a little
experimenting. If the band is good and you get a good mix, you can do
your recording at very little cost.


Now you're talking about money if you want them to go to be recorded
to separate tracks for later mixing. But using the club's mixer, all
you need is a decent stereo interface for the computer, some time to
get the balance right, and enough takes so that you either have a good
one all the way through or you can edit between takes to put together
a good complete version of each song.

Mike, thank you for taking the time to reply.

What you describe is my present option, but we're looking at
alternatives, hence my enquiry. Because
the place is small, the monitoring and the PA and the accoustic
percussion are all factors in the sound.
I've had to do a lot of experimenting to get an ok mix. Also, I don't
have any flexibility with a recorded
stereo mix. I want to work with more gating on individual channels,
for example. I also have only one
stereo lexicon unit which I use for reverb on vocals and occasionally
percussion. With a multi-track
recording I can do much better than this. I also only have 4 channels
of compression in the club. The
mixer I have is a small Allen and Heath, with a Soundcraft sub-mixer
for percussion and drum kit
channels. They sound ok but I want to be able to experiment. We don't
mind a digital-sum mix and I'm
confident I could make one sound good.Or I simply output back through
the club's mixers and mixdown
to stereo. The club is not prepared right now to beef up the rig with
extra rack units- they don't need to.
I'd prefer to get the I/Os and a computer and take away as much as
possible for us to have fun with. To
be honest, it's as much about fun and experimentation as it is about
quality.I believe I'm onto something
if I can get the right box(es).

Sooooo, any ideas on cost-efficient interface setups I might be able
to use?

Scott

[Mike Rivers]

Scott wrote:

The club is not prepared right now to beef up the rig with
extra rack units- they don't need to.
I'd prefer to get the I/Os and a computer and take away as much as
possible for us to have fun with.

Sooooo, any ideas on cost-efficient interface setups I might be able
to use?

For something like this, I'd go for a stand-alone hard disk recorder.
The Mackie MDR24/96, if you can find one that hasn't had the (original
equipment) analog I/O cards pulled out, is a great bargain. It's
simple to set up, gives you up to 24 input channels, and it creates
Broadcast Wave files so if you want to use a computer for mixing, a
couple of hours (let's be reaslistic about this - it's not instant)
will get the files from a session transferred. Even if you buy a brand
new Alesis HD24, you won't get as many analog inputs of workable
quality for less money.

There are tricks to making these recorders easier to use along with a
computer. For example, you can get a Firewire or USB interface for
their removable disk drives to make file transfer easier, or, if you
want (at least in the case of the Mackie) can open projects directly
in their Tracktion program simply by attaching the removable disk
drive to your computer.

There are a handrul of 8-channel computer interfaces that are all
about the same but it sounds like you'd like to record more than 8
tracks, so that means getting multiple interfaces and making them work
together, as well as work with your computer. And that's more haywire
to set up.

[Scott]

On Feb 3, 4:51 pm, "Mike Rivers" wrote:
Scott wrote:
The club is not prepared right now to beef up the rig with
extra rack units- they don't need to.
I'd prefer to get the I/Os and a computer and take away as much as
possible for us to have fun with.
Sooooo, any ideas on cost-efficient interface setups I might be able
to use?

For something like this, I'd go for a stand-alone hard disk recorder.
The Mackie MDR24/96, if you can find one that hasn't had the (original
equipment) analog I/O cards pulled out, is a great bargain. It's
simple to set up, gives you up to 24 input channels, and it creates
Broadcast Wave files so if you want to use a computer for mixing, a
couple of hours (let's be reaslistic about this - it's not instant)

Aaah-ha! Thanks! Are they still in production? I'll check this one
out.

Scott

will get the files from a session transferred. Even if you buy a brand
new Alesis HD24, you won't get as many analog inputs of workable
quality for less money.

There are tricks to making these recorders easier to use along with a
computer. For example, you can get a Firewire or USB interface for
their removable disk drives to make file transfer easier, or, if you
want (at least in the case of the Mackie) can open projects directly
in their Tracktion program simply by attaching the removable disk
drive to your computer.

There are a handrul of 8-channel computer interfaces that are all
about the same but it sounds like you'd like to record more than 8
tracks, so that means getting multiple interfaces and making them work
together, as well as work with your computer. And that's more haywire
to set up.

[Mike Rivers]

On Feb 4, 6:46 am, "Scott" wrote:

For something like this, I'd go for a stand-alone hard disk recorder.
The Mackie MDR24/96

Aaah-ha! Thanks! Are they still in production?

No. Both the MDR24/96 and the HDR24/96 (same guts but with firmware
and software that allows graphic editing with the addition of a
keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and, no, you can't convert an MDR to an
HDR easily) have been discontinued. They show up for sale on eBay and
occasionally other places of ill repute fairly regularly. I've seen
MDRs go for as little as $400, but $600-800 with analog I/O is a
fairer price.

The Alesis HD24 is still being made and sells for $1300-$1400. The
High Resolution version (which sounds better even at 44.1 kHz) sells
for $400-$500 more. I believe there is still a similar Fostex
multitrack hard disk recorder still in production, the D2424LV. It has
its fans (fan?) around here but I've never used one. They're also
about $1500.