I wouldnt spent on mics if you already have people with the PA set up, what I would do is if they have a mixing board with the capabilities of some Bus, specialy 8 if possible, just get you premix from the main board and routed to you gear and get ready to rock, you just need to make sure that you have a good premix so it sound good when recording it to your DAW.

Just a thougth, good luck.

Zoro. :)

Hey thanks for the quick response.

The guys I know with a PA have a very limited one (my 1620 itself it worth as much as their entire setup!). Their mixer definitely does not have a bus, and if I'm going from band to band, I need to have my own gear anyways to make sure I dont run into problems with bands not having enough gear. know what i mean?

Any more thoughs?

Then if you are buying the gear for miking get a couple of 57's, c1000's, and a beta 52A for the KIK, these are great for live miccing and recording drums, plus you don't want to have 1000"s of $$ on just mics on a stage with strange people, you know.
Additionally regarding the bass and keyboards is always good if you run them with a Direct Box instead of miking, for guitar the 57, vocals the Beta 58A or the 87 C.

Best regards Zoro.

Any reason you say a Beta 52a over an AKG d112? Any experience with the AKG? The numbers are a little bit better, but I'm pretty unfamiliar with all of this. I love my C1000, so I'm a little biased. :P

I've only got the 8 xlr inputs (4 drum mics, 3 vocals, guitar = all 8 xlrs will be used), so I'll need to find a good way to go thru a 1/4" cable into the mixer.

I think that the beta 52 have a great low frequency response and you are right I am not familiar with the AKG. If you ran out of inputs you will probably then need to purchase a analog mixer and premix the drums in stereo and that way you'll have another 6 channels available for the rest, and :) yea the c1000's are great isn't.

for kick mics dont discount the audix d6 either. i have used both it and the beta52 on different occasions and they are both great mics. im using the d6 abit more tho at the moment....

*edit* dont forget snakes, etc as well... */edit*

twon

i dont want to premix drums because the best part about the onyx line is that each input shows up as a seperate track on the computer. so being able to eq/pan/mix each drum seperately is what makes a live recording become studio quality. (y)

thanks for the help ya'll!

... what this about snakes?

a snake is a multicore cable. the question is where are you going to be sitting? will you be on the side of the stage? snakes will let you sit further away, and will make cable runs more easy to deal with. you could put the box from the snake on stage and the other end would plug into your stuff

oh, yeah thats the plan... probably a 50-100ft. know any good places to get a deal on one? i'm not sure if i trust myself to build one.

where are you located?

near buffalo, ny

About snakes...

You will need to determine whether you will need a single isolated or dual isolated split.

What that means is that you will be supplying the entire interconnect from FOH, optional Moitor Beach and your tracking rig.

The direct feed either goes to FOH or Monitor world. (Whoever is supplying phantom) to ensure that musicians on stage don't get the crap shocked out of em' when they step up to a mic while playing an instument.

I opted for a 48x8 dual ISO Whirlwind w/ Jensen's. 2-300 foot trunks, and 3-25 foor fans. By far, the most expensive piece of gear I own. Then again, it IS the heart of the entire tracking chain. Garbage interconnect means garbage tracks.

HTH,
Max

How do I determine what kind of split I need? I will simply be micing the entire setup, plugging mics into the snake, and then snake into mixer. The mixer has firewire out into the computer, which takes each mixer channel and turns it into a seperate track.

I dont' know what FOH or Monitor Beach means. Sorry i'm such a newbie!

F.O.H = Front of house ... as in where you sit and listen/mix/ in front of the desk. ....

oh yeah duh, i should have known.

well for now i'm not going to be doing any FOH work. I'm strictly recording. Once I get the hang of it, I'll probably work my way into doing sound as well. One thing at a time though ya know?

thanks for all the help guys. I've got a pair of SM-57s coming and bidding on a beta52a!

You're looking at this much too simplistically. You need to share the microphones, on stage, for the band, with the PA system. Which means you need to invest in a transformer isolated splitter box. Good-quality splitter transformers will sound good. Cheap junky ones are not worth wasting money on, so don't. You'll also want to make sure that your splitter has "ground lift" switches, to eliminate ground loop hum, which you will quickly discover will become quite unbearable. So, you may even need to purchase a Fuhrman transformer isolated balanced power distribution for yourself? You think this is easy? It absolutely is not! You only need to derive a 2 track stereo mix, for live television or live FM radio broadcast. Otherwise you should multitrack and mix after-the-fact because if you're trying to do this with headphones, in all likelihood, it will come out sounding like crap! Now go take some more recording courses and think about this again, carefully.

Live recording engineer
Ms. Remy Ann David
and the Audio Oasis

whoa chill out, i think you must have misread something.

in my first post i said that i was going to multi-track and mix after-the-fact.

can you direct me to a place where i can read more about this stuff? I came here hoping to be able to learn something.

rockstardave,

what remy is saying is that all the microphones on stage need to go to multiple places; you need a feed from each mic, but so does foh. (monitors will need one too if there is a separate monitor desk). so you will need splitters. there is no point having 2 mics for each source on stage just so that foh and recording can have a feed each is there....? and definitely do what remy mentioned about transformers....

twon

ok thanks for the explanation twon. are there feedback problems or such when using 2 mics on a bass rig, for example? or it is just a hassle?

any places where I can read about splitters more in-depth too? i work with a lot of really small bands, that either barely have a PA or dont have one at all. so for now there's not mics on bass, guitars, nor drums.

but i'll definitely need to do some splitting down the road it seems..

thanks agian

Hi Remy,

Would you mind explaining how a transformer isolated splitter box works?

I've had limited sucess with taking the direct outs from the house board (Venice 320, d/o taken pre fader, recording 24 mono tracks). I'm interested in investing in something that will allow the record to run independant of the house system.

Thanks in advance,

Felix

Dear Felixcat, (I love kitties)

Sure, basically what you need to know is since there are many different types and varieties of transformers that run the gamut from power handling devices to video devices to audio devices. The audio transformers that are used for splitters are neither a "step up" or a "step down" type as the direct boxes do. Those kind of transformers can increase or decrease the gain of the signal and change the impedance of that signal when passed through it. The transformers that we will be dealing with here are unity gain or 1:1 and neither amplify nor attenuate the signal. There are also " active splitters", that I will not go into here as they are more adjustable, have microphone preamplifier's built-in and can cause a lot more grief.

Splitter transformers were originally known as telephone repeater coils as they originated in telephony. The ones designed specifically for this application are available as "line level splitters" and "microphone level splitters". So they are generally available in 2 varieties. What you will optimally want is the microphone splitter transformer variety. These type of transformers generally offer a single input along with 2 to 3 separate, isolated outputs. Because this is known as an "inductive process", it affords complete electrical isolation in that the input primary that the microphone will plug into is wound around an iron and/or nickel core and is not physically connected to the other " repeater coils" which are also wound around the poor and overlap the primary, in other words the multiple secondary windings which create the multiple isolated split outputs, are not physically connected to the input winding. In a sense, this is analogous to a common " Y " patch cord but with complete electrical isolation, which is the magic that makes it work properly.

Now I purposefully did not mention anything about the ground wire within the 3 wires of a balanced microphone connection. In a balanced microphone connection as well as with studio line level connections that are balanced, the ground wire is not really part of the active signal circuitry but is there merely as a shield. The balanced connection is actually within the 2 active wires that carry the signal differentially i.e. 180° out of phase from each other. And because the signal is balanced differentially, any extraneous noise that is picked up by the wire (since it is basically a long wire antenna) is instantly and virtually completely canceled out because the noise is common to both wires and not differentially balanced. That is a whole lot of blah blah to comprehend here in a two-minute lesson. I have simplified my explanation as much as possible.

Good microphone splitter transformers like from the Dean Jensen transformer company, Sescom, Whirlwind, etc. and other knockoffs are generally rather expensive on a per-unit basis. Crappie ones of course are cheaper and will do the same thing but not necessarily with the same high quality. Any kind of splitter transformers actually adds its own kind of artifacts/distortion, it's just a matter of how much you think you can contend with and still come away with a good sounding product. Perfectionist's hate these things. Me, I don't mind it much because it's the music and content that counts. For instance my splitter system is comprised of Sescom line level splitters designed to work at 600 or 150 ohms. I selected 150 ohms because that is the proper impedance to match with microphones but because they are line level splitters, they have greater low-frequency distortion at very low levels and are not as clean as a microphone splitter transformer since microphones typically put out very low signal levels. I contacted the company and talked to them about using these as microphone splitters and they said I would hear an excess of distortion at low frequencies. I thought, OK, so what if I'm recording a very loud rock and roll band?? In that respect the company told me they would probably perform adequately and to this day, 15 years later, nobody has ever complain and that is the bottom line. Why did I use line level splitters?? I got a big box of them, some used, a lot new and because I'm Jewish and they were on sale, I had to purchase them! That's what Jewish girls do when things are on sale. I would never use these things in a fine arts, orchestral situation since the low-level passages would be more affected by the distortion of these line level splitters that I use but then orchestras don't normally use PA systems either.

The one other important thing regarding grounds is the " ground lift" switch. You have seen these on direct boxes and you switch them when you have unbearable ground loop hum. Well the same holds true for splitter systems. If you want the best sounding feed, within the splitter system, you CAN take a direct feed from the microphone, so you are not coming out of the transformer but are connected directly to the microphone. The splitter transformer is then also bridged across the microphone so it can feed multiple other sources that may not be as highly affected by the sound of the repeater coil transformers. If a ground loop exists and there is excessive hum, in the recording or within the PA system, you would throw the ground lift switch off to disconnect the PA/monitor system from your electrical ground. That would provide you with a clean sound and them as well. The PA/monitor system does not need to see the ground wire from the microphone but is good to have its ground shield intact as a preventative measure since its shield is grounded to the chassis of the PA/monitor mixers.

And there you have it the basics of the whys and wherefores of the use of splitter transformers in multitrack recording and PA/monitoring. So this is another way people can get together and have a 3 way and not catch any sexually transmitted diseases!

Split personality, without STDs
Ms. Remy Ann David

There's a company...WHIRLWIND...out of Rochester, not too far from you. They make a wide variety of snakes and splitters, all sorts of goodies like that. Check them out. Go to the MIX Bookshelf and check out live sound publications, as well as recording techniques. Anybody who thinks that an AKG C1000 is "sweet" has a lot to learn!!

moonbaby wrote: There's a company...WHIRLWIND...out of Rochester, not too far from you. They make a wide variety of snakes and splitters, all sorts of goodies like that. Check them out.

thanks for the tip, i'm thru rochester often.

moonbaby wrote: Anybody who thinks that an AKG C1000 is "sweet" has a lot to learn!!

thats why i'm here dick, thats the first thing i said.

Whirlwind also offers splitters that do not have any transformers within. Of course they are much more affordable without the transformers but They are barely adequate for splitting between the FOH and monitor positions as they really are just a " Y " connector and offer no electrical isolation! Don't make that mistake by purchasing the more affordable variety you will lose in the end.

Isolationist
Ms. Remy Ann David

OK rockstar,

Here's a coupla' more tips...

Google "mobile recording studio"
There's quite a few of us out here. Lots of variety of levels of capabilities, interests, specialities and expertise.

gearslutz.com - there's a group called Remote Possibilities
All that's there are remote folks.

Oh, BTW, I think you'll eventually find that most live AE's won't let you near their console's direct out's, if they even have em'. So, that's why it will be up to you to provide the interconnect system. We won't let ANYONE plug a thing into our systems unless it's on an isolated split. You plug something into a $30k console that fries something, and I can guarantee you that nothing short of a minor butt-whoopin' and a repair bill will be on the agenda from the gear owner.

If you're seriously going to try this, I'd at least rent a decent splitter for a gig or two to see whether you want to invest in this aspect of recording or not. You might be smart just to rent this stuff for awhile anyway, until you've earned enough to afford your own.

I invested in the W4. I'm not a huge fan of the Whirlwind mass connector, but the trunks are solid and the craftsmanship is excellent in every other aspect. But be ready to shell out some bucks. Maybe look into the W2 series. It's on the smallish side as far as channels, but should be quite serviceable for 24 track recording.

I've used Horizon splitters and they're OK. Never used a RAPCO, and there's always the option to roll yer' own. (I've been a tech for going on 30 years and I can safely say, I would think twice about it.)

Lastly, learn some manners, and realize that all of us have had to learn this for ourselves as well. Some (like Remy and moonbaby) learned it a tad longer ago than the rest of us... it's called experience. They already know their gig. These folks have EARNED respect. Show em' some.

So they may not tell you what you wand to hear. Tough shit. They're telling you what you need to hear. Listen, read and you'll learn quite a bit from the veterans. They/we (myself included) won't intentionally feed you a line of crap that would be counter productive to your foray into the remote world. We're trying to help. But, it just doesn't set well with me when someone who's quite experienced, kid's with you a bit and you respond by calling them a dick. That's just not cricket man. You ask for help, then you insult those very people you seek assistance from. Real smart... especially for a self-proclaimed newbie. Expect a rash of grief every now and then. You'll no doubt deserve some of it... some of it you may not. waaaaa. It ain't gonna hurt but a little bit. If you can't take a bit of grief in stride, maybe you need to rethink your desires and expectations of this industry.

I just came off the road after a grueling 58 hours. 20 of which was doing the actual gig. I was the goat this gig. I caught grief from everyone. From the owner to the client rep, to hands, and even the load-out crew... so what. It's all in fun.

Good God dude, row some hide, lighten up, listen up and you'll be a LOT better off.

Just a tad road weary,
Max