On Location / Live Recording

[Liquid Fusion]

Hi. Getting ready for an on location / live recording

Asked to Record Classical Jazz Fusion Concert : grand piano - Ludwig drums - Electric Viola w/ Amp

AD/DA: Atlas Prism w/6 mic inputs
Available Mics: Neumann TLM 103 condenser - Beyer M88 - Sure SM57 - Rode NT1000

How would you setup the mics?

Do I need a powerful pc Laptop? Ex: i7 / 16gb ram / Win 10 64 bit? / Thanks

[Fergler]

Can you rent a few more?

I would grab the line out from the amp, use the TLM and Rode mics for the Glynn johns drum method, with the 57/m88 on the kick, and get 2 rental stereo pairs for the piano and stereo room. I don't know how your rental prices are but around here two pairs of Apex or Rode pencils would cost 10-15 bucks for the weekend, though of course you'll need stands and stereo adapters too. That leaves 1 mono mic over for spare.

You don't need a powerful laptop, just make sure to disable Wifi and anything else that could 'call home' and cause a spontaneous restart. Windows 10 is notorious for forcing you to update... so look into that.

If you really are stuck with those mics or can't rent, put one mic in front of everything in a nice balanced spot, such that you don't need any other mics to be satisfied with the balance of piano and kit and viola. Then use the remaining mics to capture each individual instrument.

[mschnell]

I suppose you could either do a "Room" based recording with just a decent Stero Mic (and maybe some support mic in the audience) without a decent way to do a "production" mix, or use a lot more mics (and a DI for the electric viola) and then be able to create a "sound" based on the multitrack recording.

In fact either 2 or 10 channels.

I recently did several similar recordings with very cheap mics and just a Behringer XR 18 as an AD, and I am very happy with the results.

-Michael

[TC7]

I'd say you could get by with six mics: two on the piano-lid open, mics out front (the bend) about three to six feet- three on the drums- your M88 on the kick and an X/Y pair above the kit-And one on the viola amp.

Get Valahalla Room ($50) for your mix and you will be set to make a very nice recording.

[Liquid Fusion]

Great inputs!!!!

If I have an external ADDA, do I need a powerful laptop?

Music processing will be done by the ADDA with the laptop simply recording USB to Reaper separate wav files.
How powerful a laptop do I need? What do you recommend? CPU i7 / 16 GB Ram / Solid State Drive?

I understand Reaper can't record on an iPad. That would be interesting.

[serr]

Originally Posted by Liquid Fusion

Hi. Getting ready for an on location / live recording

Asked to Record Classical Jazz Fusion Concert : grand piano - Ludwig drums - Electric Viola w/ Amp

AD/DA: Atlas Prism w/6 mic inputs
Available Mics: Neumann TLM 103 condenser - Beyer M88 - Sure SM57 - Rode NT1000

How would you setup the mics?

Do I need a powerful pc Laptop? Ex: i7 / 16gb ram / Win 10 64 bit? / Thanks

Find the sweet spot in the room for the best mix and place the 103 there. That would get the fullest fidelity capture. You just don't have the mics to multitrack it.

I suppose maybe the Rode on the piano (over the strings). The 88 in front of the drums (experiment and see what you can get). Or both the 88 and the 57. Pay attention to what projects weakest in the room live and go after that. Get a DI from the viola. These inputs are still going to be stepped on but they might serve as spot mics to help with balance in the mix.

If the room sounds great, the band plays in good balance together, and you get the 103 in a good spot you might get lucky and bring a full blooded recording home and those spot mics and the surgical abilities of Reaper might take care of the rest.

But I'd sure like to go out armed with mics and more channels if possible!

[Liquid Fusion]

Location = Victor Borge Hall / Scandinavia House NYC Concert hall

Laptop - I don't have a laptop. A powerful fast unit costs 1000.00.

Is there any inexpensive way to record wavs files from an ADDA?

[serr]

Any laptop back to 2006 (still modern-ish OS) or even older (not so modern OS) would do this extreme light weight recording job with ease. Pick up an old 1st gen Macbook Pro and a 120GB SSD for $150. (Something a little newer and a budget of $300 - $400 would be much more bang for the buck in the long run of course but that would be a low dollar minimum.) You can find a used audio interface with 8 inputs for under $200. Maybe an older MOTU unit.

You could genuinely put together a small rig for a couple hundred dollars with some frugal sniping on Ebay.

You CAN patch an optical TOSLINK from a AD converter unit into the little audio input jack on a laptop (with a 3.5mm adapter). This would let you record two channels. Needs a laptop though...

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by Liquid Fusion

do I need a powerful laptop?

No.
I did recording of 16 tracks with Reaper on a very old Windows XP PC via ATAT and Firewire. No problems at all.

-Michael

[Liquid Fusion]

The Atlas Adda connects to a pc / laptop by USB.Good news that an older PC can do the job. At most 4 trks simultaneous recording.

[martifingers]

Originally Posted by serr

If the room sounds great, the band plays in good balance together, and you get the 103 in a good spot you might get lucky and bring a full blooded recording home and those spot mics and the surgical abilities of Reaper might take care of the rest.

If the Neumann is the main source, are you suggesting going for a purely mono recording?

[serr]

Originally Posted by martifingers

If the Neumann is the main source, are you suggesting going for a purely mono recording?

You might be able to get some stereo separation if the spot mics turn out to be useful. Otherwise yeah.

There's one mic there (the 103) that can pick up full range sound and importantly transient detail as well. Get that in the right spot and if the live sound was on point you could end up with a truly pro sounding recording. The spot mics might become very useful reinforcing some elements.

I assume this is a live in a room with no PA support gig (or you would be working with the live guy and have more mic choices and so forth).

Placement is going to be the problem for it. That sweet spot might be in the first rows of seats. You might be able to find an overhead like position with some height in front but still on the stage that both gets a good capture and is out of the way visually. Some big old mic setup front and center or in the first row with wires running back to the stage would be very awkward!

Hey you know what? Talk to the band members! They may have a mic or two between them.

If you could go in with another 4 decent small diaphragm condensers you could capture it very well and even if the live sound wasn't perfect. And have the ability to not only mix in stereo but 5.1.
- pair of condensers for drum overheads (get the whole kit, snare image centered, kick image centered if possible)
- 103 for center overhead (snare and hat should be right here, go for the same distance as the overhead pair from the snare)
- 88 on the kick
- pair of condensers on the piano strings
- Rode on the underside of the piano (couple inches)
- DI on the viola (from the pickup - there's an amp so they must have a pickup)
- 57 on the amp

That's 9 inputs. If you only have 8, drop the 57 on the amp. The DI is more important and you could fake an amp after the fact. If they are using an amp as their stage monitor and not with the idea of amp gain fx (like e gtr) it might be a compromise anyway.

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by serr

You CAN patch an optical TOSLINK from a AD converter unit into the little audio input jack on a laptop (with a 3.5mm adapter). This would let you record two channels. Needs a laptop though...

Needs a 15" laptop.

13" only has output. Unless you go far back in time, like the first Macbooks.

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by cyrano

Needs a 15" laptop...

This seems to suggest "needs an Apple product". Why suggesting to greatly add to the price tag ?
-Michael

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by mschnell

This seems to suggest "needs an Apple product". Why suggesting to greatly add to the price tag ?
-Michael

I'm not suggesting anything.

I fell for Apple's trap too and want others to see clear on the subject.

The MB Pro 15" has both digital optical in and out. The 13" only has an output. I don't know what year Apple invented that trap, since Macs have had these features since like forever. And it's a very stupid downgrade for the MBP Pro 13", since the chip driving the feature is the same, it's just the connector that got scrapped.

Besides, some Windows laptops do have the same combined 3,5 mm headphone connector with optical i/O, just like they use the same TRRS connector. But good luck finding out which ones, as it is only seldom mentioned in the docs.

[Studiodawg]

After reading these posts, the one thing I like regardless of the age, make, OS of the computer is to record to an external hard drive or a second hard drive that is installed in the laptop or desktop computer. I might not always adhere to that when I'm screwing around, but for this scenario...yes.