Recording Live?

[MisuerDomino]

How exactly do bands record live? Or even more accurate, how do people who go to dave shows get recordings of it? I'm in the school type rock band, and we're playing at the St. Baldrick's day pep rally next week. We're really good this year, and have a pretty rocking line up, and wanted to try to record our set this year. My question is how may this be done, the simplest way possible, with good sound quality? Thanks in advance.

[cerpin_taxt]

If your entire band is going through a sound board you can just ask the sound technician for a patch and plug it into a recorder. I've done that for my band with decent results. If there's not a board you can set up a mic somewhere but it's going to sound like shit unless you drop a fair amount of cash on a decent mic. Handheld video cameras work pretty well too.

[VanHorneDog]

just make sure your source is away from the crowd.

[werkinsnake]

Put a decent condensor mic in the middle of the crowd and you should be ok.

You can tap into the PA mixer, but the live sound levels will be less than ideal for recording situations. The other option is to have a digital workstation and to split off every mic cable that goes into the PA and put it into the workstation for a later mixdown. This is ultimatly how professional live tracks are recorded. As long as you get a good signal, and don't clip, you should be ok.

For simplicities sake, just use the condensor mic idea and plug it into a CD burner of some type. Just make sure that you do not bring the signal up too high to where you are clipping, and keep the EQ (if available) flat.

[unccrombie]

Put a decent condensor mic in the middle of the crowd and you should be ok.

You can tap into the PA mixer, but the live sound levels will be less than ideal for recording situations. The other option is to have a digital workstation and to split off every mic cable that goes into the PA and put it into the workstation for a later mixdown. This is ultimatly how professional live tracks are recorded. As long as you get a good signal, and don't clip, you should be ok.

For simplicities sake, just use the condensor mic idea and plug it into a CD burner of some type. Just make sure that you do not bring the signal up too high to where you are clipping, and keep the EQ (if available) flat.
i just have the pa kiddies give me my own mix, works fine for me. i run that into my laptop

[Gladstone]

If your band rocks and you ever get your hands on a good multitrack recording of one of your shows - you may contact me and I'll mix and master it for you free of charge. :)

[MisuerDomino]

My friend that I asked this same question to said he has a condenser mic, so I'll probly just borrow it from him. It's just the high school pep band thing that does the school functions like pep rally's, but I think we're pretty good-our singer is kinda meh, but otherwise we're not half bad. If we do get this working, I'll be sure to contact you =D

[jamjumpin]

You can tap into the PA mixer, but the live sound levels will be less than ideal for recording situations.

Most mixers let you send different levels to a phono out which is how we normally do it. You just have to trust the engineer to get those send levels right because usually they can't be arsed because they're being paid to mix a live sound not sort your personal recording out.