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 auxillary 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

[Robert Lane]

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).

[Kipp Felice]

Robert -

It has been a while since I have been here, I thought there was an audio section but when I glanced through the list I didn't see it.

I will repost it in there (mods, you can close this if needed)

Thanks for the help