Live recording O/S

[smash]

So...

A band I work with is doing 4 gigs in London, 4 gigs in New York, and then 6 gigs in Sydney - in late Jan/ Early Feb 09.

They want to do a Live DVD of the Tour, and asked me to quote on recording everything.

I spoke to the tour FOH guy tonight, who basically said nothing has really been set in stone yet, so basically I need to quote on
everything from Mics, Stands, Cables, Transformer Splits, etc etc.

I'm currently seeing my options as:

a) Hire everything in Sydney, and be prepared for a huuugggggeeeee excess bagage bill.
b) Hire in mobile recording guys at each venue, and thus effectively end up as a producer.
I'm chatting to abbeyroad mobile atm, but am expecting this to be an expensive option.
c) Hire the Recording system in Sydney for a month, but hire Mics/Cables/Splits etc in each venue.

Anyone know any good recording equipment hire/ location recording people in London and New York
you can recommend?

If anyone has any pearls of wisdom that would also be appreciated, the band in question is signed to a
***very*** independent label so it really is almost a self-financed budget level.

[heathen]

Or get them to play to a click track, film the overseas gigs and record the Sydney gigs, then ........... um yeah it is cheating but will be easier and cheaper.

This will be a seriously expensive venture, I've noticed in Europe the gear is even more expensive than here.

[Kris]

Get everything in writing. You could be left holding the ball (read:bill) if you don't get that stuff locked down early.

50% payment up front, daily rate and per diems.

In London I would contact the guys at Studio Care Audio - http://www.studiocare.com/store/hire. In NY I would call Record Plant remote.

I have dealt with them a number of times and they're switched on.

Forget Abbey Road. If your client is who I think it is the budget will be tight. I would probably go for a stand alone recorder, Radar or Ta@#$%/Alesis. Keep it simple.

Are you responsible for the audio and the video record or just the audio? It's a mammoth undertaking. Anything you take with you will need a carnet to get into the country. If you need someone to take care of the video, call me.

[Kris]

.

[smash]

Hey Guys - Why is everyone up so early?

It would make much more sense to record only in Sydney. It would probably make more sense to do a studio album too... However, another band whom this band has a friendly rivalry are just putting out a tour album... so therefore so should we..

I actually know their engineer quite well, so I may end up hiring their mobile rig for the recording. Just won't tell the band....

PS- Pm'd you Kris - yep you were right about the client.

I actually have been looking down the RADAR route - I can pick up a RADAR rig for about half the price of a HD rig, and by all accounts seems to be more stable, and sounds better. The other option I'm looking at is to take a MB Pro, with a Symphony Mbl System, however I really not a huge fan of recording to laptops, so I'd probably want to make sure that I had a spare also. Starts to get complicated :-(

[Chris H]

How many tracks you recording? I prefer the G5 for live recording especially when doing more than 16 tracks. The Radar seems the best option you have available. IMO

[smash]

At this stage about 30... but I'm hoping to get that down to 24.
There are 8 Vocalists and 4 Guitarists....

[Damien]

smash please give me a call. you are hiring to much stuff. the mics, etc are part of the production bit. you may want to add a few, but you dont need to supply all....
if you work with the production people you will have little excess. they can or already providing most of what you will need. or can supply the rest for little additional cost (much less than excess baggage)..

what is the production, who is providing.... if its a digital console, or better a digidesign console this can be really easy. if its old, or small club shows its messier.....

please feel fre to call me i can help.

damien
0412 354 254.

[TimS]

I know what I did last month was alot lower key than your bands upcoming tour, but I recorded Pennywise at their Luna Park Big Top gig in April with a PT system and my laptop.
They had NO budget and decided to do it on a whim - lucky it worked out great and the video company were stoked with the quality..
FOH was a D-Show (Digi) which made things very easy to do. 18 direct outs recording 60mins of audio for an upcoming DVD release towards the end of this year.
F/W connection taking direct outs and had the raw sounds ready to go off for mixing.
Was really quite simple and inexpensive.
However, I gather your requirements might be more demanding than mine..
Tim..

[smash]

Hey Kiddies.

The difficulty is that none of the FOH spec has been organised. I spoke to the FOX mixer, who is apparently also specing the NYC system, in London they are using the house system, and he has no idea what desk they are using, which venue is being used, which mics they have, etc etc.

It's making my job difficult....

In an ideal world, we'd spec a D-Show, and be done with it.

[mfdu]

but i agree with Damien - surely all the stage gear is supplied by the production company?

apart from a couple of specialist items, surely you'd just need a splitter from stage to Radar-type-thingy (really, that's your best hardware option by the sound of it - assuming small clubs with no digidesign FOH)

i mean - the production company would be micing up the guitar cabs, drummer, singers etc for amplification inside the venue, yeah? so split the lines and mult to your HDDR. or am i just seeing it from the wrong direction?

c.mfdu

[mfdu]

sorry Smash. you posted as i posted.

so no FOH spec. surely they have a backline formula they know and like? i mean, sm57's etc, you know? so i still reckon jam a splitter on the lines and grab a fistful of signal diirect off stage. how different can it be?

(imaginary interview) "Yeah, like - we recorded this album in the semi-decayed belly of a blue whale, using exclusively PZM boundary mics to really get the impact squelch of the soundwaves striking the pustulent carcass. Then we tracked on an ISDN link via a Russian satellite to the main phone-tap system in room 13 of the ASIO headquarters in Orange"

hmmm.

c.mfdu.

[Andyc]

Hay smash, I have just done this for a project that was recorded all over the world in the last 2 years, this is what we did so hope it may help in your decision making.

We took our own rig and kept the cases under the 32kgs limit.
We took a rig of 3 RME octo pres's and a RME fireface with a laptop running Nuendo, this was pretty cool and gave us 28 ch of record. (the extra CH were very handy) It was also very light and all runs on switchmode PSU's that worked both 110v and 240V wich made it verry easy and no extra transformers etc.

I took some passive Y split cables (8ch looms) that we made up and just patched into the FOH or monitor board each night, we even used the plastic XLR conectors as they saved us a few extra kgs of weight. Where the local production could provide a proper transformer split I ran of a seperate output.

The band played with a click track each night and this was recorded for later lining up for video etc.

We also did do some tours to a dedicated hard disk recorder both the Alesis and Fostex 24 track machines, the only drawback was we had to loose some lines as we were use to the 28 lines on the laptop rig and we had realtime transfer to get the files back to tools.

We did carry a few "must have" mics. We tooke the Kit mics to keep it constant and also caried 4 audience mics. The audience mics we keept pretty simple and we had 2 at stage that also doubled for IEM ambience mics and the other 2 I took a stereo bar and just put them on a stand at the FOH mix position with me.

Now having mixed the project which was 30 songs I was verry greatfull for the constancy in the kit and audience mics.
( I also mixed the DVD in surround and the 4 audience mics were essential for this)

Hope this info is helpfull and fell free to contact me if you have any questions, I also have a contact in London of a guy who has a mobile record set up, 48 track tools with good pre's etc all set up in a large transit van;. He would be a resonable piced option in London.

Andrew

[smash]

Whilst that would definitely seem the most logical option...

I'm somewhat worried that as they are playing small club gigs of about 300 in both London, and NYC, and the venue's haven't been confirmed, that they could end up being a bit light on in the PA department. There's been once or twice I been to clubs and ended up with no mics for Cabs "just tell them to turn it up", and I really want to cover my basses/arse.

[Aearth]

Smash
You are a Logic guy so take a laptop Macbook pro with Logic, 2 Ensemble racks and a 8 or 16 Apogee AD. Then 2 x Lunch Box with pres......how cool is that, light as mate.


nIC

[Kris]

you don't know the client.

it should be simple but it never is.

[mal stanley]

An alternative and maybe cost effective approach....
spec consoles if you can with direct outs and record to a hard disk recorder..(which you may be able to hire)
this could be: a Sadie 64 or Sadie LRX which interfaces via an interface box and a laptop (both of which we use at the ABC)..plug in your external drive for mirror recording and away you go..I recorded recent Melbourne Jazz Fest concerts this way (though this was via a splitter..you could perhaps spec a splitter?...)
Or you could cart around an Alesis /Mackie or Ta@#$% hard disk recorder..a few options that might be cheaper...
And take or hire a few critical mics that you may want..drum o/heads etc...