Thread: Recording Live
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Old 01-28-2019, 01:35 PM   #36
serr
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Join Date: Sep 2010
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OK, just read post 21 above.

If this is a small/medium room where mostly the only thing being reinforced by the PA is vocals with drums and amp'd instruments more or less live and if you have splitters for the vocals, then it could work well.

I think the X32 might still be the cheapest way to mix live and get 16 channels of audio into the computer. Now if one of the stand-alone capable units (flash card using) comes along for the right price... OK. No argument if it works. Looking forward though... if you could have the inputs + the ability to mix live with it and better convenience for the same price, it would simply be more bang for the buck. That's all I'm saying there. The digital system lets you save sessions like a DAW. Coming in with monitors already dialed and the basic mix rough'd in can be slick. Just a few tweaks and off you go. You'll have a few hundred gigs of multitrack from dozens of shows before too long. The computer is only recording so you can leave the latency high and use a light weight machine.

I understand there is obnoxiousness with pricing and availability in other parts of the world too! Sorry... all I can do is look at the prices in front of me here and the XR18 listing for $500 is hard to ignore. I'd think the Midas mic pres on that would better those on a Zoom product too? If the prices are upside down where you are or straight up unavailable... well, there it is. You might be able to find a couple old MOTU 896 units on Ebay for about $150 each. 8 mic preamp units x2 for 16 tracks. Make an aggregate device and off you go. Thay have word clock I/O and you could go 96k if you wish. (48k at 24 bit is just fine though FYI.) You'd only need a light weight computer for just recording. Set the latency high because you aren't mixing anything live. Aging units though. The firewire chip fails in some of these after all these years. Could lead to a lot of screwing around... But that would be the absolute cheapest.

As for the fidelity question, a lot has changed in the last 15 years. Used to be that only the higher end stuff delivered for mic pres and AD converters and anything budget straight up sucked. That's changed. Many budget units have a base line of genuinely professional sound now. Class A boutique stuff will maybe stand up to more heavy constant use and still deliver in the extremes (eg. lower level signals and such). But if you can set your mic pre level reasonably well you might be none the wiser. That lowly Soundcraft combo board/interface I mentioned makes good recordings I have to admit. And I was used to my True Audio preamps and Apogee converters.

Last edited by serr; 01-28-2019 at 08:47 PM.
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