Best way to Capture sound from a mixing board

[Kipp Felice]

I will try to keep this short.

We are planning on an equipment demonstration for 400 people and will have 4 people with wireless microphones. All 4 of them will be sent through our mixing board for the PA.

We will be filming this (a production company) and I want to capture each person's audio separately. From our mixer I can use the 4 auxiliary outputs. The guy here at our local music store suggested we use 4 TASCAM CD-RW900SL, 1 for each person.

1. has anyone done something like this before? If so, how did you do it.

2. Can I use the recorded sound from the Tascam in Soundtrack pro or final cut?

3. Is there a less expensive/easier alternative then the Tascam

Thanks for the help

Kipp

[Kipp Felice]

Here is what Robert said from my initial posting in the incorrect forum -

Hey Kipp,

First, we have a category on this forum dedicated to audio called, "All Things Audio" in which our resident audio gods could answer this with more authority than I however...

You neither want nor need (4) separate CD recorders at all and I can't imagine why your local shop recommended such an arcane and redundant solution.

All you need is a FireWire audio interface that has at least a 4-channel input that you can take directly off the board either as a TRS or XLR out and into devices such as the Presonus Firebox or any of the dozen or so other models out there. Check out zZounds.com - Musical Instruments Music Store. Shop for Guitars, Drums, Amplifiers and Equipment. or, Musician's Friend | Your Online Music Instrument & Pro Audio Store | Best Prices, Great Service to get an idea of the models and costs.

From that device you can send into and map the channels to go into any multitrack recording software such as Deck, ProTools etc. however many of the FW interfaces ship with multi-track recording software so you may not need to purchase anything else if you don't already have a multi-track recorder.

It's important that you stick with a FW interface because USB will have latency (audible delay) for a multi-channel setup which will make it very difficult to monitor in a live-capture session.

As I say, there are people on the audio forum category with much greater experience than I especially in these setups so you should have the moderator move this post there and let those guys chime in (no pun intended).
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[Rick Reineke]

The Zoom H4n is probably the cheapest dedicated 4-track audio recorder on the market. There are many other 4-tracks, depending on your budget. If recording with a computer make sure it's stable and have some kind of a redundant backup, even a mono or 2/2 mix is better than nothing.

"The guy here at our local music store suggested we use 4 TASCAM CD-RW900SL, 1 for each person."
How bizarre!

[Garrett Low]

Hi Kipp,

what Robert suggested is probably going to be your cheapest solution. Alesis use to make a very inexpensive 8 channel mixer with FW out. I use that to do multichannel recordings onto my laptop. The only issue is that you will experience audio drift from your video when pulling it into your time line so some adjustments will need to be made to get it to sync in post.

I also have a Tascam field recorder that has TC so that I can jam sync it to my camera's TC. But of course that is much more expensive and requires you to have a camera that can send TC or have a separate TC generator and have the ability for your camera to Genlock to it.

Another super cheap way to capture the four channels is if you have more than one camera you could run each person into one channel on two separate cameras. Not what I would do but it would work and depending on if you're going to tape you could miss some audio at tape changeover.

There are a lot of decent 4+ channel A/D converters out there if you have a laptop that would be your cheapest way or if you don't you could consider renting something like an Edirol R-4 (or R-4 Pro) or a similar recorder from Sound Devices.

Garrett

[Jay Massengill]

Some additional questions: How many cameras (and what model) are you shooting with? If the answer is 3 cameras and they have good audio, then you could record all 4 people to separate tracks and have two more tracks for a mix from the mixer as well as an ambient mic. The main problem would be sending the signal to far-flung cameras since this is a larger venue.

How many minutes will this demo run?

As people have mentioned there are a number of ways that you can do this recording.
You could go the CD-R recorder route that has been discussed, but you would only need 2 of them with each recorder having two people on two separate tracks ($500 x2).

You could also use a variety of music-type multitrack recorders. They are inexpensive but again you'd need two of them since the less expensive ones are limited to two simultaneous tracks for recording ($150 - $250 x2). The Fostex MR-8mkII for example has two balanced line-level inputs and two of them together would work.

The Edirol R-44 4-Channel Solid State Field Recorder is a good dedicated 4-track recorder at $995.

A firewire interface connected to a dependable laptop has also been mentioned and probably would be the easiest solution as long as your laptop and software perform without a problem!

[Garrett Low]

On thing I should have stressed was that no matter what system you choose to use for your recording you need to test it first and also leave plenty of time for set up on the day of the event to work out any bug in the venue. Also, are the 4 wireless setups the venues or yours? make sure you have enough time to make sure you don't have any conflicts with the signals. Running 4 wireless mics at once can be tricky if you are in an area with limited frequencies available. Again, give yourself plenty of time to set up and test the equipment.

Garrett

[Kipp Felice]

As of right now we are only hiring 1 camera, maybe 2.

The demonstration is not scripted, some of the presenters may talk at the same time, that is why I wanted to capture them all individually (if possible).

The wireless microphones are ours, they Shure SLX14 with countrymans.

I am looking into the suggestions posted so far. I was trying not to have to use a computer with the system. Just starting to look into this so I may be jumping the gun by assuming some of the options listed require a computer.

Thanks again for the suggestions -

Kipp

[Richard Crowley]

That music store must have a bunch of those CD recorders to dump. Can't think of any other reason for such a bizarre suggestion.

Go to Nashville and rent a multitrack recorder and do it right. Trew Audio shows a top-of the line Sound Devices 744T 4-track hard drive recorder for $100 per day. There should be several good audio equipment rental places in a city like Nashville.

I used a Zoom R16 recorder a few months ago when my big recorder broke. It made quite good 8-track recording to an SDHC flash memory card. Street price $400.

Yes you can take an uncompressed (WAV) recording from any of these kinds of recorders and drop them into the audio tracks of any proper video editing application.

[Kirk Candlish]

You need 4 discrete tracks, so rent a 4 track recorder.

You can't beat dealing with these guys:

Trew Audio Rentals: Rent Recorders in Nashville Tennessee

Depending on the camera hired, you might be able to get timecode out of it to the recorder. The Fostex PD-4 or the SD744T are you options. Though DAT (Fostex PD-4) is outdated in some respects, it's also a potential archive if you need it.

[John Willett]

Two options really:-

The best one is to use a JoeCo Black Box plugged directly into the desk. This is exactly what it was designed for.

Or - if it's only 4-channels and no more:-

The Edirol R-44.

The Nagra VI (which I use), the SD 744T and SD 788T will also do the job very well, but at a higher price. These last three all have timecode.

[Kipp Felice]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I was a little skeptical when the guy suggested the four burners, not really from the price but more so from the size of each.

This is the first time we are recording the sound separately.

We looked into the R-44 last night and talk to a sales associate from them. It seems this will work just fine.

I am going to also look into the last couple items that John W suggested before we pull the trigger.

Thanks again for the help

[Marco Leavitt]

I like Jay's suggestion of recording the separate tracks to your cameras. Much simpler and less problematic workflow it seems to me. This sounds like a multi-camera shoot, so assuming it is, you have plenty of tracks. You already have four auxilary outputs on your mixer. It kind of seems like you are making this more complicated than it has to be. Another option not discussed is renting an auto mixer for the job.