Live Music Recording

[ultrachrome]

I'm looking for nice, low-cost portable recording solution to record my band's practices and performances as well as others live performances.

Mini-disc? MP3 recorder?

Can anyone recommend any sites?

[Da5id4Vz]

While the products shown here:

http://www.zaxcom.com/audio/devas.shtml

are likely far from the price range that you are considering, I do think that with a little bit of work and some PC parts that it would be very practical to build an audio HD based recorder for not too much money.

If size is the dominant parameter, start looking at things like the Shuttle SS-51 bare bones case and Mo-Bo, and if money is the dominant parameter, jeesh there are all kinds of PC's out there, new and used with more than enough horse power for no a lot of money.

Record uncompressed, burn CD's.

[MarcelvdG]

Second-hand DAT maybe? I know it is gradually being replaced by hard disc recording systems and minidisc (unfortunately), but you can still buy tapes at some shops, and at least DAT doesn't use any form of psychoacoustic data reduction. That's particularly important if you want to do something with it later that involves psychoacoustic data reduction, like having it transmitted by a broadcast station with a digital line between studio and transmitter, putting it on the Internet as an MP3 file, or transferring it through a radio studio to radio studio ISDN link with Musicam data reduction.

[Da5id4Vz]

Bargains can be found for software:

Get Pro Tools FREE and experience the power and flexibility of Pro Tools. Using your computer's built-in sound capability, Pro Tools FREE offers up to 8 tracks of audio and 48 tracks of MIDI, real-time plug-ins, and many of the same editing and mixing features the pros use.

www.protools.com

See the download section.

Many soundcards also come bundled with some software that will perform similar tasks. (As well as supporting win 2K and XP)

[ultrachrome]

Ideally, I could fit the unit and all necessary equipment into a small bag and run off batteries.

I did some googling and it sounds like MD is not ideal even ignoring the compression. It seems that writing is sensitive to vibration.

DAT is interesting and I forget that I have a P2-266 laptop with an aborted Mandrake install on it. Couldn't get the video to work properly.

I don't think that I want to build a SFF PC for recording but then again I was considering a VIA ITX system as a harddrive playback system. Only problem is having to drag around a monitor and keyboard.

Maybe I should look harder into DAT.

[purplepeople]

Try to find an old unwanted Nagra reel-to-reel recorder. These are totally state of the art analog 1/4" units and some people do not know what they are worth.

:)ensen.

[Pjotr]

Hi,

Indeed just use you Laptop and ad some recording software AND a good USB external soundcard. Look at M-Audio and U2 for reasonable priced and good USB soundcards. De M-Audio Duo has a nice 2 channel mic amp build in + 48V phantom power but needs AC power.

Still have my old Sony WMD3 DAT Walkman and it serves me well for simple recording on location. You can shake it like Samba’s and it keeps going.

Cheers

[IanHarvey]

Originally posted by ultrachrome
Ideally, I could fit the unit and all necessary equipment into a small bag and run off batteries.

My Nomad Jukebox records in 16-bit, 44.1Khz stereo direct to disk. See:
http://www.nomadworld.com/products/jukebox/features.asp

If you don't mind (a) rather fiddly 3.5mm stereo jacks and (b) needing a computer to do anything with the audio (except simply playing it back, of course), it's probably just right.

Cheers
IH

[Sawzall]

If you are going to do recording, and as long as its not like a reporter where you have to go running from place to place, I really support the idea of laptop based recording. First off, its modular. As you grow, you can add additional items like better sound cards. There are several versions of 8 or 16 track ADC available for a reasonable price. 4 channels is easy. Good software is available. You can build a pretty impressive rig.

And you can add on drive space too. Trust me in that you will need it - you want to stay as far as way from a lossy compression as possible.

I recently got to play with a really high quality dat here at home. Good stuff and it still works if two tracks is enough for you.