[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.presonus…"]PreSonus | StudioLive 16.4.2[/]="http://www.presonus…"]PreSonus | StudioLive 16.4.2[/] I think this May be your ticket. It comes w some good software, studio one, and will work w.garage band. Anybody who downs garage band is just trying to convince themselves that there expensive piece of software they can't figure out was worth the money. People are under this dis allusion that if something is easy then it sux,or is somehow inferior. Garage band is perfectly capable of doing what you need it too, and studio one probably has more features, that u May or may not use.

your alternative to this would be an external mixer, and audio interface. This will require additional cabling as we'll. I think an all in one solution is what your after, and you can run sound for the show while you record,and not have one affect the other. A Mac mini would be fine and I probably a very safe bet, affordable, and barely a learning curve aside from the mixer.

this, or the mackie onyx get my vote. If you have a bit more money Allen and Heath makes a similar product as well.

Some of this depends on if your doing the live show too and if there is a house mixer. It's possible you could get a hard disc recorder, and take your signal from a pre fad aux or direct out.

K...

I'm asking this because I really don't know and am interested...

Does the Presonus also act as a multi channel/track audio I/O?

I guess what I'm asking is if it can bus more than just 2 channels/stereo to a computer/DAW via USB?

As Anthony mentioned in his post, one of the things he requires is the ability to bus 8 mics/lines to their own discreet corresponding track(s) in the DAW.

The Presonus, the Mackie Onyx, and the Allen and Heath units kmetal mentioned all allow you to send individual tracks to your DAW, via firewire. Number of tracks depends on the unit, but the Presonus 16.4.2 and the Onyx 1640i both allow 16 channels of simultaneous, independent input. I'm sure the appropriate Allen and Heath unit can do the same. I think Presonus also makes a 24 channel version. Not sure about the presonus or allen and health products, but the mackie allows you to record or bypass recording the EQ, inserts, etc., via a button on each channel, so you can do it on a case by case basis. And you can also return a signal from your DAW to the mixer, channel by channel, and use the faders to manually create a stereo mixdown.

Thank you for the responses. As DonnyThompson mentioned I do want to have the capability of collecting individual tracks on the computer. I suppose I naively thought a mixer with this capability would be less expensive, but it makes sense that this relatively new technology would exist in higher end units. I fund a lot of this program on my own and since I am a student in a credential program, I may or may not be able to afford a $1600 mixer. I am funding my computer purchase with a best buy credit card lol. Still I want the project to come out sounding good so I'll think about practicing with a less expensive mixer and an audio interface to see how tracks sound when comparing headphone mix to the recorded mix on the computer in band practices with the students. All of your posts were very helpful and supportive. You've saved me a lot of time! Please let me know if there are any more pieces of helpful advice.

The StudioLive 16.0.2 is "on sale" for $1000 at Sweetwater.com right now, so that's significantly cheaper than $1600, just fyi if you decide to go this route. It's a good unit, a number of people here use it and get good results with it.

If you go for the non-recording mixer and an audio interface, I recommend you don't buy a cheap mixer from the company that starts with B, you know who I'm talking about. I'm sure they make some things that are ok or useful in the right circumstances (and I own a few), but in my experience, mixers are not one of those things.

D-what as prong said is on the money.

im not sure that an interface and mixer is going to come out much cheaper than the "sale" presonus. Depending on the quality cables you use it could be a couple hundred just to get from your mixer to the discrete tracks of your interface. I'm not saying this is neceserally a bad route, because it allows the option of upgrading components like converters, and pres and eps on the board. But it is extrEmely hard to match the sheer features of the new digital boards. The RTA function alone is worth a lot to me personally. I don't own one but have used one a few nights a month at gigs for the past year. I just like the simplicity of it. 1 wire sends all your tracks back and forth. No rack mount anything. Is it a Midas? No, but for what you need it for it should be fine and it maintains a certain level of quality thru the entire setup that a component system might not be able to. And there less opportunity for things to go wrong like bum cables.

your gonna need some speakers to be able to verify what your hearing. Headphones are going to lie to your ears. You can get used to them but they are just not physically capable of producing certain frequencies which are very I portant, due to the size of the speaker in the . So while ya got ya credit card out... Add pair of monitors to your list. Some like some krk's or Yamaha has series, or my personal fav budget monitor the Alesis monitor one mk2 powered. All around 300 a pair.

have you thought of having a fundraiser for the board, or a "suggested donation" for the finished product? It doesn't have to even pay for your whole investment, just pick up the slack where your card leaves off. Just a thought.

I'll apologize in advance for the wall of text.

The 'sticky' business of [="http://www.harryfox.com/public/DoIneedaMechanicalLicense.jsp"]mechanical rights[/]="http://www.harryfox…"]mechanical rights[/] to record something like this aside…

This is one of those deals where I wonder if somewhere in all of the greater Los Angeles area there isn't someone who already has the equipment and know-how to record a live event for you for a reasonable fee. They could record it and provide the raw tracks to you in a variety of formats and you can put in your time mixing and editing. If you provide a compatible external hard drive you could possibly leave the show with the tracks in-hand.

I certainly applaud your willingness to put up your own money to invest in the kids involved, but I wonder if you have added this all up yet. You're considering buying a computer, an interface or mixer of some kind, 8 or more mics, stands?, mic cables? snake? That's a lot of money, even for a noble cause.

In my mind the big question is, as was skimmed over briefly early on, how do you intend to integrate this recording system (or any other) with the existing PA system?

Your options are:

1) Direct Outs from the house mixer (IF it even has Direct Outs available) and all the required cables. Not all mixers have them.
2) Hardware splitters and all the required cables.
3) Double mic every source by putting your own mics on them. Putting a second mic on an instrument may not be a deal-breaker, but good luck getting people to sing into two mics simultaneously. (*see option #4) And don't forget for this approach you'll need your own mic stands and/or mounting hardware - in addition to all the cables required.
4) A combination of double-micing the stationary instruments and using splitters on the vocals.
5) IF your "after-school program" actually will take place at an elementary school AND they will allow it, physically replace the school's front-of-house mixer with your mixer/interface and mix the live show through it, while it records autonomously. Be sure to mark EVERYTHING you disconnect from their mixer, so you can put it back exactly the way you found it.

[ Depending on the circumstances, I have had to employ each of these options at least once over the last several months to record various events at local schools and universities ]

If this is a situation where every performance requires a new set-up on stage, you will need to re-position your mics for each act. Try to get a Stage Diagram for every act if that's the case.You will have your hands full, or need reasonably reliable stage-hands who can keep things sorted out for you.

The PreSonus 16.0.2 is a good fit for multi-track recording up to 12 mics. Channels 1-8 are mono mic inputs. Channels 9-16 can either be used as 4 stereo pairs, or 4 mono mic inputs. If you need 16 mic inputs you will need to go up to the new 16.4.2 AI for $2000, or try to find the recently discontinued 16.4.2 (non AI version) for several hundred less.

Both versions come with all the recording and editing software you will need. The (included) Capture software couldn't be easier to use. The (included) StudioOne software is probably more powerful, but comes with a learning curve. But as I understand it, if you're more comfortable with GarageBand you should be able to import the session into GarageBand and mix it there. (I haven't done it, and can't testify to it)

I would have no hesitation recommending the Allen-Heath or Mackie equivalent. I'm just better acquainted with the PreSonus hardware & software.

A laptop might be more convenient than the mac mini and required monitor. It does not need to be a cutting edge laptop, but it DOES need to have Firewire connectivity to connect to any PreSonus StudioLive mixer. Some other companies support USB recording.

If you're shopping for mics, avoid any of those dirt-cheap mics that come 3 for $39, 3 for $59. Generally speaking any mic worth having is around $100 each. "Cheaping out" on mics, mic cables, and mic stands will always come back to haunt you. Cheap mics sound terrible, cheap cables will fail after very little use, cheap stands are too light and will tip over slamming your mic into the floor. Map out the stage with dimensions to make sure your cables are long enough to get to where you want to go (don't forget the vertical run). Want to sit in the back of the room?… time to think about a snake. Again if it's a school, do they have wireless handheld mics that you intend to use?…. where are the receivers located? ( in a rack backstage, or at the mix position? )

I'm not throwing all this stuff out there to scare you out of doing it. If you're determined to do this... great. I just want you to wade into the fray with your eyes wide open. Starting from scratch, this is going to add up quicker than you might think. I'd hate to see you buy/finance a bunch of stuff and then not end up with a finished product you and the students can be proud of.

I would ask around and see if there is anybody who you might hire. There are a million musicians in your area, someone will be able to recommend a mobile recording rig. You're not looking for Westwood One, you just need somebody with a good reputation for recording bands at the club level. It should greatly improve your odds of getting good raw tracks to mix. It could save you a bunch of money and/or debt. And it might prevent the bleeding ulcer worrying about the thousand things that could potentially go wrong. You can still sell the finished CDs, and with the money you save by NOT doing it yourself, you can pay the [[url=http://="http://www.harryfox…"]mechanical fees[/]="http://www.harryfox…"]mechanical fees[/].

If this is the only application you would have for this equipment twice a year, it would make sense to investigate renting/hiring. If it's something you want to get into on a more regular basis, you might be well served by watching a pro (or semi-pro) do it once or twice before your baptism by fire.

Sorry about the ebook, but this is meant to be food for thought. I hope it helps.

Best of luck!! It sounds like a great cause!

free DAW software . [[url=http://[/URL]="http://ardour.org/"]ardour - the digital audio workstation[/]="http://ardour.org/"]ardour - the digital audio workstation[/]

Phew, that's a lot of information. To be honest I never thought of hiring someone to record us. That could be a good idea, but unless I can get someone to do it for next to nothing or nothing lol, then I'll probably end up doing it myself. We're up for a new drum kit this year which I'll buy since our program must purchase only new equipment (city department regulation) and I don't want to waste our budget on overpriced new drums (I'm a craigslist junkie and Los Angeles is a goldmine for good cheap instruments). Therefore I'm not sure I'll be able to afford paying a pro to do this - although you never know, we'll see. I might add that my friend I work with and a couple volunteers are the entire parent's night event's AV team - we'll be putting on recordings for dances and videos through a projector. Just for reference - we're a small outdated school (built in the 1940's or so) in a very poor area of town - the auditorium's "house system" is equivalent to a practically inaudible home theater surround sound system hooked up to a CD player. We have a lot of work to do and we'll have to set up our own equipment anyway, so I'm thinking that by the time we do all that, connecting a computer and recording hopefully will be a small part of the process. We go on last after all of the other students do dances and cute kid stuff and then we have about ten minutes to set everything up (it will be hooked up and pushed to the side of the stage during the other students' performances). That said, our sound was great last year in my opinion and the kids have amazing talents and my co-worker and I have a lot of experience setting up instruments to sound nice and arranging music to sound nice - although I can say we've learned more working in this program than in any band.

Here's the deal with the program I work for: it's a general after school program funded by the city (I'm actually in Long Beach). Our segment of the program met with the big boss today who approves purchase orders. He's willing to give us a $2K spending limit. With that I would like to get two powered speakers for use as stage monitors (we already have a stand alone Bose L1 PA for the house sound which appeared in our program somehow before I started working there - but the thing is loud and sounds good) for about $400 a piece and some mics beyond what we already have that we'll need for rehearsals anyway as well as the necessary extra cables and mic stands. This year we're bumping it up to four vocalists per song and will have a choir for one of the songs choruses with a few additional mics. That means I have about a $700 budget for a mixer. I will fund the computer purchase myself. That is a whole other ball of wax, but I heard that Apple may be coming out with a new Mac mini with significant upgrades so I'll wait for that. The real thing with that is for editing video and syncing it to the audio recording from various phones, video cameras etc. for the parents' to have as a souvenir for the night and to promote our program in hopes of getting some funding from people who actually have money for things like which have been mentioned above lol.

The mixers I'm looking at in the budget right now are the Mackie 16VLZ4 and the Mackie ProFX22. I'm leaning towards the ProFX22 because it has reverb for vocals and a few more channels. I have to purchase equipment I can get a Sam Ash btw - another stipulation of the city - I have to get three price quotes from brick and mortar stores in the area and the guys at Sam Ash around here are the best in terms of service and the store has the best selection. We'll need a mixer soon for having all of our vocalists rehearse with live drums and instruments - the songs we're doing this year will take a lot of rehearsals to get all of the timing right and we'll need a mixer for the whole time with the number of vocalists we're having this year. I'm pretty much used to running live sound after having worked in this program (started it actually four years ago lol) and at church.

Thanks for backing up my hunch that the headphone out will not necessarily be indicative of what the recording sounds like going to the computer. I'll be using rehearsal time to be rehearsing my recording techniques for the parent's night concert. I figure if I treat recording to a computer from our live sound system like learning a new instrument then I'm pretty sure I can have a good idea of what it might sound like by the time I get everything dialed in on the night we record.

The DAW software looks pretty interesting - I'll check into that when I get a new computer. Someone had suggested getting a multichannel interface and using a computer as a mixer, however once I (hopefully) start teaching full time next year, there's not necessarily a good chance anyone else that works at our school will have a good enough computer to do this and I may not be able to make it on enough days of the week to make my computer available for use. Basically we have to go with a physical mixer.

So if there's any more advice I'm all ears. The budget is pretty tight so even a $1000 mixer is out of the question. I know it would be great to have some higher end gear, but I can work up to it if our students are having a lot of fun and our musicianship continues to improve so that we gather interest as a program from people with money to grant us with. Please remember the equipment and recording we're doing this year is already going to be a huge upgrade to parents' recordings on their cell phones and video cameras from years past. I just want to do our students justice with my recording based on what I can afford. I think it will come out good, but please keep those ideas coming. Also, should I start a new thread in the mixer area for mixers, or is it alright to continue this post here? Also, sorry for my lack of knowledge about how much this equipment would cost - I hate to be a time waster - I thought I'd be able to hook up an iPad and have at it! Wow I was wrong - maybe in years to come though. Thank you!

Again, sorry about the bulk of the previous post. The devil is in the details, as they say. You can continue posting here in this thread, we're still more or less on topic. Anyone who can help will find it, and have all the details of your project in one place.

You're doing admirable work and I hope you don't think I'm trying to discourage you from doing it yourself.

So this will be a very brief note: The Mackie ProFX22 will only record 2 tracks via USB. The VLZ doesn't have any computer connection that I know of, so you're kinda back where you started - as far as getting the sound into a computer to mix later. Consider the Mackie Thump TH-12A for powered monitors at $300 each (as good as most in the price range) and add the $200 difference to your mixer budget - up to $900.

I'm leaning towards the ProFX22 because it has reverb for vocals and a few more channels.

Don't buy any mixer based on it's internal effects as a criteria. ( short of perhaps some gain reduction to reign in transients that may occur...)

If you're going to end up mixing this in a DAW platform, you'll have a slew of effects that you can add during the mix down phase.

You should always record without effects - again, short of perhaps some compression to tame peaks or loud sections - because if you do record with effects, you've now "printed" the track with that effect in place and once it's there, it's there.... you can't get rid of it.

During the performance recording, your concentration and focus should be on tone and levels, not effects.

As Hawk mentioned, live recording, especially of this type, can be a huge task, even for someone who knows what they are doing, let alone for someone who has little-to-no experience at it.

There are other options to consider:

1.) as Hawk mentioned, consider hiring a remote recording service, at least for the first time.
This will serve two purposes. The first is that you'll end up with clean, raw tracks that you can mix yourself after the fact (also referred to as "post"), and the second is that you'll have the opportunity to watch someone who knows what they are doing, which could gain you a lot of knowledge and be helpful when you decide to pull the trigger and do it yourself.

2.) Hire in a remote recording engineer as a consultant. Because he/she isn't bringing their own rig as they would in option #1, it could be cheaper, but you will still have access to this person's knowledge, to consult and advise you.

3.) Instead of multi tracking 8 to 12 discreet sources, consider doing an actual 2 track live recording, using one of several stereo mic techniques, to capture the entire performance as opposed to recording every single source on its own. Now, this method requires 2 things: the first is that the room itself needs to sound okay. The second is that the PA mix needs to sound good, because you're miking the performance from out front.
But, if the room sounds okay and isn't a giant cave/echo chamber, and you've got a nice FOH mix out front, you'd be surprised at how good a live 2-mix can sound... again, if the room sounds okay and if your attention is focused on mic quality and correct placement.

Note: even if you stay with the discreet 8 to 12 channel/track recording plan, you should still save two tracks for a 2 track (stereo) live mix, also referred to as "FOH" (Front Of House) to get the ambient/live sound. You could then mix this stereo live mix in with the other discreet tracks, to taste, and finding the right balance between the two could make for a very nice recording as well.

Just a few thoughts to consider...

-d.

There's nothing wrong w an analog mixer, I've used plenty of mackies and they are fine. Just like it was stated above, you need some way to get your audio into your computer. This is called an interface. There is a ton of them out there, and which one depends on budget and requirements.

since your going to be using this a lot it seems, I wouldn't go w the cheapest thing out here, because a decent interface should last 5-10 years before going obsolete on a semi pro level.

it would help if you had a good idea of how many mics you need to record, and that will determine what your interface requirements are.

to expand on what D was saying, you could bypass all of this w. A imple handheld recorder like the zoom H4N, which sounds good. Use the built in mics at to mic the audience/show from the mix position, and use the mic inputs to stereo mic the stage, buff, polish and you should have something much better than they had last year. They also just cam out w a 6 channel version.

not trying to bombard you w words, it's just this isn't a yes or no question, so it's important to know what kind of requirements you have, and the expected quality of the end result.

ive done a few jobs that d was talking about as consulting, where I get paid a fee, and I either show people the system, hook it up, or just set the levels, or do quality control. Any combination of the above. So people will do it and you just need someone compete tent, whether a very serious hobbyist, a well in the know audio student, a weekend warrior sound guy, a young pro, there are many options.

but anything you can do to calm your nerves will help. Also there is a possibility depending on the time date, that a pro audio company would send someone down for free/significantly reduced rate, in exchange for sponsorship recognition, or an article in the paper. After all it could be a tax write off for them. In your area there's gotta be someone willing to put some time in.

My apologies if I've missed the punch line to the OP, I didn't read through all this but the answer is really simple to me.

Buy a PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2 and capture it all on your laptop then send the tracks to someone like me to get mixed (or do it yourself) and you are set.

Super simple and it works! I have one of these and you can get used 24.4.2 for around $1700.00 . Comes with everything you need.

audiokid, post: 409986 wrote: My apologies if I've missed the punch line to the OP, I didn't read through all this but the answer is really simple to me.

Buy a PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2 and capture it all on your laptop then send the tracks to someone like me to get mixed (or do it yourself) and you are set.

Super simple and it works! I have one of these and you can get used 24.4.2 for around $1700.00 . Comes with everything you need.

Well, that's the problem audiokid, he's trying to do this on a shoestring budget. Someone else suggested the smallest StudioLive 16.0.2 at $1000. He felt that was out of his price range - especially considering everything else he's going to have to buy to get off the ground. I suggested the Mackie powered wedges to knock a couple hundred off his other expenses to get him that much closer to the SL16.0.2 for a good start.

Update

So I think I can afford a Presonus 16.4.2 due to an additional grant I may receive through my credential program. I intend on buying a good used or new one on ebay with a case or locally if I can find one on CL. I'll be getting a Macbook Pro most likely since it seems like a good idea to have a portable computer for this. I'll be recording some practices with the students and our staff after work jam sessions weekly (or as often as our schedule permits) and mixing them down on my computer so I get good at it by the time our performances take place in July. I now have some questions based on all the reading I did about the Presonus 16.4.2 and the 24.4.2 - I decided the latter was a little overkill for our project - I count 16 inputs being sufficient in the worst case scenario, with an option to mix a choir into one channel through a little mackie 8 channel mixer I already have, freeing up 3 more potential channels. Based on what I expect the 16 channel version should be fine, but of course if a 24 comes up for the same price, I may consider it.

Here are my new questions:

1. I read on one review that seems to be conflicted by others that I would not be able to send reverb out to the stage monitors (I'll be using two powered speakers as monitors most likely). Is this true? It didn't seem to make much sense that this would be a shortcoming of the mixer considering how high-tech it is.

2. I plan on using the recording software that comes with the mixer - should this be sufficient for capturing 16 tracks simultaneously? If I am correct, I should be able to mix down later using other software if necessary, my main concern is capturing with the software here.

3. Is the cool iPad control for the eq / mixes etc. only available in a wifi enabled area?

4. Will I be able to control the mixer from my computer through the firewire connection in terms of the eq - I heard that this is hard to do without a computer because it's 31 band.

5. Any suggestions on how to set up channels quickly for each input - I'll have 4 main vocal mics, 2 guitars, 2 keyboards, a bass, 2 drums (snare / bass), perhaps a synth that I'm looking into buying for some ambient sounds, and some (4 max) choir vocal mics. I read about the FAT channel making things sound good - is this only for vocals? Please let me know the quickest way to set these instruments up in terms of the mixer - I'm pretty good at dialing in sounds out of the amps and mic-ing.

6. Who manufactures the best case for these (reasonably priced - around $200-$250)? Basically what should I be looking for? I don't want to spend that much and not get something that at least fits it really well and doesn't let it wiggle - I'm careful with my equipment and hopefully strong enough I won't need wheels lol. The "doghouse" thing seems cool - except can you even have that thing "closed" when all of the inputs are connected? It seemed like a cool thing to have a computer resting on, but it seemed like it would get in the way of the cables going into the back of the mixer.

7. Will the reverb / delay that I use for monitors and FOH mix be recorded into the DAW? I can assign all channels (if I wanted to) to have reverb and mix in the amount of wet signal for each channel for our live sound - or how does that work? I understand it is good to add effects post mixing - reverb and maybe some fattening for guitars etc. is all I'm going to do because I want to have a representative sound of our band, not an overproduced deception. Just a nicely mixed recording that does service to our performance.

8. Will I be able to assign separate output levels for the FOH PA (Bose L1 - super loud and powerful) and our stage monitors (probably EV powered speakers) - I hope the answer is a simple yes - that was a problem with my little Mackie 8 channel mixer last year - although we sorted it out lol.

That's probably it for now. Thank you again for all your suggestions. It helped me to decide on going big this year. Also - I think as per advice here and my mom's lol that I am going to ask some film students at the college I go to and the local city college to film our performance and then they can have the mixed recordings that my friend and I provide for them. He and I are pretty into dialing in mixes in studio work this will be our first live project, but we'll be practicing up until that point on our end of things. The students can use the video as a project / experience / fun / etc. I'll make sure that they know what they're talking about and know what they're doing - I should ask them for some samples of their work and some recommendations from their professors and get to know them over a period of time leading up to the concert, but that's another matter. I talked it over with my boss and he said it was cool if we have our students sign a waiver he has. Thank you again.

You may want to look here:

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://forums.preso…"]16.4.2[/]="http://forums.preso…"]16.4.2[/]

on the Presonus Forum.

Lots of questions asked and answered.

We'll my first suggestion would be to invest in a couple of hands on books, the recording, and mixing engineers handbooks are excellent hands on guides. They should help you answere any any questions you have about micing, as well as fill in the holes on some of the basics. They are written in plain language, and not overtly scientific, and fairly step by step on things like eq and compression.

1. You can send effx thru the stage monitors. You select the aux send that your monitors are being plugged into, let's say aux1 and just rasis the level of the "FX" as they are named on the board.

2. A MacBook Pro and the mixer/software will be plenty of power to do 16 tracks

3. Yes. I suggest bringing your own router, and having it password enabled. I have used a setup like this for a year, and have had very few problems. Although I believe the newest versions of the mixers the "AI" have built in wireless, so y won't need to carry a router along w u.

4. Yes, you can control all or at least almost all, of the the boards functions from the CPU. And it's not hard to get used the the graphic eq on using the board, but the CPU IMHO is faster, and more clear to see in dark bars, plus it has priceless RTA read out.

5. Just get your input levels at rehearsal the week of, leave a fair amount of head room, as they are likely to either play louder and faster, or softer the day of. The fat channel is on every input channel, and all it is, is a term that means it's got eq comp gates Efx, ect. Your output (balance/eqs) will likely change as a full room responds differently than an empty one. I'd suggest you start recording your rehearsals sooner rather than later so you are very familiar w the room and performances by the day of the show.

6. SKB gator rack make a ton of molded plastic cases. The guy I know w the SL just uses an old suitcase w some packing foam in it, because the "proper" case made it too heavy.

7. Can't say for sure, don't own the board, but I would tend to think no, your signals are recorded dry, although I wouldn't be surprised if you could print the effx, if you wanted to. I wouldn't use the SL's reverb for a studio application, but that's just me.

8. Yes is a basic use for any board that has aux sends. You would plug the mains, into the main outs on the board, and your monitors via the aux(es), set to "pre fader", this allows you to adjust the axes and faders(mains) independently of each other, so more me in the monitors won't effect the balance of the mains and vice versa. The level of your pre amp will affect both the auxes/mains, and then faders determined what comes t of the PA, the aux knobs determine your monitors levels.

Hope this helps.

I would agree with kmetal on most of the points, with just a few exceptions / clarifications:

2. The Original StudioLive mixers used Firewire 400, which can easily do up to 24 channels simultaneously. The AI series uses Firewire 800, which is double the transfer rate. Either will do your 16 channels with ease.

3. Bring your own router and create your own network - agree. Clarification> The new AI versions include a WiFi dongle that allows you to access an existing network without a computer or router, however, that defeats the distinct advantage of the first part of the suggestion. Unlike the original SL16.4.2 the AI models can host their own private network by simply connecting your own router to the Network jack on the mixer with one Cat5 cable - eliminating the need for a computer to mix on the iPad. I foolishly set up on a public network once, sound-check was fine. As soon as the room filled up with people with their own electronic devices, I started losing connection to the iPad and had to quickly put my router and private network into action.

4. Because I have so many EQs coming and going, I have yet to need the graphics for much of anything. (see #5)

5. With the Fat Channel you have control of Phase / Low Cut / Gate or Expander / Compressor / Limiter / Parametric EQ on every single Input & every single Output [Mains, Subgroups, Auxes] If you can't save it with that much EQ, it's time to start over at the source. Setting everything at rehearsals is a good idea - and then Save those "Scenes" to the mixer.

6. (Dead Link Removed)

7. The StudioLive AI series records Pre only. The original SL could record Pre (my preference), or Post Fat-Channel processing, if that's what you wanted. With the AI you can, however, store your Scene in the latest version of Capture and import all those Fat Channel settings, faders, pan, bus, and FX into your StudioOne session. Better yet... a starting point without being committed forever to the FOH mix.

Carry on.

I don't know why in LA you can't find someone to do this for $150-250. Also contact 1stMarDiv band and talk to Gunny Woosley. He might be willing to moonlight and help you out.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

I have an unopened 24.4.2 for sale right now for $1700.00 if I might add. :)

LOL.. Really? It wasn't obvious... ;)

Hey guys, I don't want to high jack this thread but there seems to be some guys that know PreSonus equipment here. I'm new to the site and this is my first post. My problem is: I have a 16.4.2 and a Dell 6410 laptop. I can't get Capture2 to operate right. It will record for 37 seconds and stops. Then it won't return to "0". Sometimes I get signal from the mixer (levels on the Capture meter) and sometimes I don't. When I go to page three on the mixer it is "unlocked". Does this sound like a firewire problem? Does the PreSonus mixer not like the firewire part of the Dell? If I'm out of line here and this should be put somewhere else please direct this "newbie" Thanks for any advise.

Hi Squire,

I'm not sure about your problem. Its definitely not normal. I wonder if you should go right to PreSonus support forum for that, then come back here and keep hanging with us! :love:

It does sound your interfacing is capping out. Maybe a Hard Drive is starting to have read problems.

You need to remove the Ricoh firewire driver and use the generic Win7 driver. Or if you are still on XP you need to install the SP1 firewire driver. The SP2 driver was broken.

A moderator may move this to its own thread.

Have you asked [[url=http://[/URL]="https://forums.pres…"]PreSonus at their site[/]="https://forums.pres…"]PreSonus at their site[/]?
Did this set-up work at one point, and then stop working?
Is your SL16.4.2 an AI?
Is your firmware on the mixer up-to-date?
Do you know what chipset your FW card uses?
Are you using the software that came with the 16.4.2, or have you leap-frogged a version?

dvdhawk, post: 423944, member: 36047 wrote: A moderator may move this to its own thread.

Indeed, I wonder what we would title it?

Probably nothing until we find out what the actual issue. The computer in question is an old computer from Dell and as such we don't have enough data to draw a significant conclusion. He could have started a new post with Presonus and firewire in the title himself. I'm guessing it is either a Ricoh chipset or an XP SP2 driver.

Good to see you here John, :love:

:-) I've been lost. Working on finding my way back.

Thanks guys, lots of things to try. Firewire driver and update firmware on mixer will be first things I'll try. Not an AI, never worked, Win7, I5, software came with mixer, don't know chipset (yet). After I try a few things I'll start a new thread and let you know what happened. Thanks again.

Start->Control Panel->All Items->Device Manager->1394 Firewire (whatever)->Properties->Driver->Update Driver->Browse My Computer->Let Me Pick...->Generic

This will be pretty close. I'm going off of memory as I'm all Win 8.1.

audiokid, post: 423948, member: 1 wrote: Good to see you here John, :love:

I'll second that!