recording device for live gig

[SalFromChatham]

Hey guys,

I have begun playing out a few months back, generally once a week. I would like to record a performance. Tomorrow night my acoustic duo is playing at a busy restaurant for about 3.5 hours.

What can I use to simply record the gig in good audio quality? What would last 3.5 hours? What would it record to?

I suppose I could just leave my iphone at the bar, and use the "memo" device, but typically my phone goes to sleep after a bit, and I doubt the quality is that good.

Advice? What have you used?

[Silly Moustache]

Zoom Q2HD or similar.

[lschwart]

I use a Zoom H4n for recording gigs. Simple to use and works very well. It records to an SD card and it's very easy to transfer files to a computer for editing and tweaking. A good stereo pair of onboard condenser mics and two more mic inputs for external mics if you want to use some.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H4nSP

Louis

[Shoreline Music]

I'll second Zoom. I've gotten really good results in a wide variety of settings (yes, Shoreline is a dealer).

John

[CaffeinatedOne]

Zoom is great.

But if your gig is immediate and you already have an iPhone, use that. A live gig is going to have all kinds of noise in the signal from people being there - talking, glasses klinking, someone drops a pan in the kitchen and so forth. So a really high quality, studio grade recording unit won't help much because it will pick up all the noise as well as the performance. You're actually better off with something that acts as a bit of a noise filter itself, which means slightly lower sensitivity is an advantage.

Plus, if you're playing through a PA, you'll be creating a mono signal anyway, modified only by signal leakage from stage volume. So a stereo unit will be very likely to pick up two identical signals - no advantage over one channel. Again, if you have an iPhone, don't get too knarled up in needing something better, at least for tonight.

In some apps, you can change settings so that even if the iPhone screen goes blank, it does not shut off and it continues to record. I'm experimenting with an iPad, which is functionally the same.

I've had pretty good tracking success with a free app called Voice Record Pro. It works well for tracking and will keep going for up to 8 hours on my iPad if I ask it to. I wouldn't use it for processing at all, but for recording it is great. It tracks in an MP4 format and contains an MP3 conversion routine, which makes the track more usable with other programs. It also has routines to email the track, post to Youtube, open it with other apps on the iPhone and so forth. Here's a review (trying to stay within the forum posting guidelines):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voic...546983235?mt=8

For a free app it tracks nicely. Here's a track from some early morning music committed by three friends and me last week - Friday the 13th at about 7:30 AM, at a local diner in amongst the coffee cups and plates of scrambled eggs. I tracked it by putting the iPad on the table, turning on the app, hitting record and forgetting it. An hour later I shut it off and later pulled out discrete tracks and cleaned them up a bit.

https://soundcloud.com/glenn-howland...-coffee-corner

[SalFromChatham]

Thank you all...

caffeinated... outstanding. I will try this tomorrow. I'll report back over the weekend.

[Andy Howell]

I always record any gig I am involved in from an organisation point of view.

I always use my Zoom 6 but the 4N would work just as well. They can take either a 1/4 or XLR feed from the amp or PA.

It is easy to epos the files to a DAW.

One trick that works. I set up the recorder to record in multi track mode. I take an XLR feed from the PA and position the inbuilt mics so that they capture some audience sound. Works surprisingly well.

[kydave]

Originally Posted by lschwart

I use a Zoom H4n for recording gigs. Simple to use and works very well. It records to an SD card and it's very easy to transfer files to a computer for editing and tweaking. A good stereo pair of onboard condenser mics and two more mic inputs for external mics if you want to use some.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H4nSP

Louis

I used this setup, with the Zoom H4n, 2 internal/2 external and had good results.

This is a sample of my band with the Zoom

Ginseng Sullivan

Hung the Zoom from a ceiling light fixture center stage so the internal mics picked up ambient sound, both unamplified and from floor monitors; placed the external mics on the wings picking up the mixed sound from the mains.

The Zoom also can take good size memory cards and you can vary the recording quality settings greatly, so as to have plenty of memory space, but still get decent quality.

[SalFromChatham]

Dave, do you just put this on a table or something out in front? How would it work? or do you feed one Aux out feed into the unit?

[lschwart]

I'm usually so busy with getting the PA set up and then trying to get into the right frame of mind for performing that I just put the recorder on a mic stand (it comes with an adaptor) out in the room where it will get a decent stereo image of the band and let it run. The battery can last about 3 hours if you're not running an external condenser mic with phantom power. Results depend a great deal on the room and the placement. Sometimes the recordings come out really nicely, other times they're just serviceable.

Here's an example of what it can sound like in a good room with a good placement:

https://soundcloud.com/lschwart/mstd...abah-10-4-2015

Here's a more typical "in a crowded, noisy café, placed somewhere it won't get knocked over" result:

https://soundcloud.com/lschwart/korkore-dzav-2-8-2014

Louis

[kydave]

Originally Posted by themissal

Dave, do you just put this on a table or something out in front? How would it work? or do you feed one Aux out feed into the unit?

Like I mentioned, I hung the Zoom unit from a ceiling light fixture, angling the mics midway between mouths & waists (to get "live" unamped vocals/instruments, although floor monitors were picked up, too).

The venue has the mains suspended from the ceiling and I dropped the external mic's over in front of them, with cables running across the ceiling from the Zoom.

Tip: In a room with dropped ceiling tiles, squish up the tile and run a cable tie through the support to hang things from. That's how I ran the cables across the ceiling to where the mains were suspended.

I've used the Zoom in a smaller, quieter venue without PA, also. In that one, I put the Zoom on a camera tripod about chest high in the middle (L to R) of the room, center isle, about 10' from our front line. No external mics at that use.

[jseth]

Thanks to a "head's up" here on the AGF, I bought a Tascam DR-05 from Guitar Center... they began listed at $180, but the price had been lowered to $59.95... and then Tascam gave a $20 rebate, and GC gave another $10 certificate...

So, I'm into this bad boy for all of $29.95! Amazing little device, either stereo or mono, a Y pattern of two small condensor microphones that seem to be fairly good sounding. Depending upon the size of the micro-card I have in it, it can handle MUCH more than your 3.5 hours...

You can use the mics or use a line input (stereo), like the send on a Mackie mixer...

I think the price has gone up a bit, but they are still great units... especially for those of us who remember what a cassette recorder cost, back in the day!

[SalFromChatham]

4 hour show. My back hurtssssssssss.

I downloaded and used VoicePro, as suggested here. It worked great. The sound however has a bit too much crowd noise, and I'm not sure there is anyway around it. If I want a better recording, I need to output from the PA directly I guess.

Anyway... here are two examples:

Clapton's Nobody Knows You https://soundcloud.com/sal-from-chat...body-knows-you

Drift Away https://soundcloud.com/sal-from-chatham/drift-away

[Fran Guidry]

Try miking a speaker instead of miking the room.

Fran

[kydave]

Originally Posted by themissal

4 hour show. My back hurtssssssssss.

I downloaded and used VoicePro, as suggested here. It worked great. The sound however has a bit too much crowd noise, and I'm not sure there is anyway around it. If I want a better recording, I need to output from the PA directly I guess.

Anyway... here are two examples:

Clapton's Nobody Knows You https://soundcloud.com/sal-from-chat...body-knows-you

Drift Away https://soundcloud.com/sal-from-chatham/drift-away

Yikes! Lots of crowd noise.

What did you use and where did you place what type of mics?

That recording of mine above was in a pretty noisy venue, but - as Fran suggests - mic placement gathered only a fraction of ambient crowd noise.

Going straight out of the board has its risks in a person getting off mic a hair, which live you don't notice, but the voice or instrument will simply drop off if the mic signal has nothing to send to the board.