Your best option, while not the "cheapest" route, is to split the signal at the "snake head" with a splitter snake.

There are generally three types; "Y", Transformer Isolated and Active Splitters... with "Y" and Transformer Isolated being passive devices and and the Active splitters being... well.... active... in that they actively duplicate the signal on the input to two, or more, outputs.

Since you are already getting into the digital domain early on for the FOH/monitoring system, active splitters are the way I would tend to look at going.

IMHO, you will probably find that the digital snakes, with built in A/D's, are quite pricey and out of your range. But I'd look at them anyway, if nothing else, just to become familiar with what's out there.

Active splitters can be had at decent prices, for what you get. They can also be placed at your FOH position. e.g. at the other end of the snake, and using your existing cabling... as opposed to replacing the whole snake.

Active splitters can also be had in 8 channel units... thereby allowing you to grow into your system.

Once you have the split signal, you can send it to another console, preamp bank, etc., to directly feed your recording chain... thereby eliminating your need to fight your main console's inability to handle all those signal paths for recording.

Hey MadMax - thanks for the response.

I did a little searching and found this...

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/ART-S8-8-channel-balanced-mic-splitter?sku=180221

Is that the type of active splitter you are talking about? This being my first time looking at these, I'm assuming that the snake channels that are currently coming into our FoH board and FoH Pre-amps would first go into (4)8-Channel active splitters. Then the direct outs would go to our FoH Board and FoH Pre-amps and the tranformer isolated outs would go to our recording console?

I'm going to continue doing some research. Thanks for the tips and any more information you have!

Arvida wrote: Hello!

I've been in and out of the forums the past two/three years trying to figure some stuff out. So far, we are back to square one.

First, let me give you all the setting. We are a church of about 350 and have pretty rocking music and dynamic services. It is our goal to get setup for TV, web streaming, CD production, etc.

At this time our FoH is working great. Everything is in order. We run an Alesis 01v with all 32 channels in operation - 16 on board and 16 coming in from two 8-channel Presonus pre-amps. Our digital outs are in use by a personal monitoring system.

Our recording worries started when we purchased an Alesis HD24. We thought we'd be able to link it up and get 24 channels direct out from the digital outs on the 01v, but did not think about our monitoring system. So, that limited us to 16 channels direct out.

In addition, we do not want to have to mess with pulling the data off of the hard drive every service to produce CDs or to sync it with the video production.

So, we are taking a look from the beginning and would like some advice. Our major goals are producing near CD quality recordings on the fly, spitting out the same mix and syncing with video for live streaming/recording, and using the same mix for TV.

Our thoughts were to split off our channels to 32 going to FoH and a split of 32 going to a recording system. So, FoH is seperate from recording.

Anyways, please let me know your thoughts, equipment, etc. We have a low budget, but at this point are open to expanding it if it will prepare us for TV and better recordings.

Right now, we are 2-tracking it all out to a CD recorder. This works to some extent, but we are having problems with headroom, eq, and such on the 2-track layer on the 01v. It doesn't provide a lot of flexibility. We'd like to keep FoH and recording separate if possible.

Let me know what you all think! Thanks!

When you say "Alesis 01v" I guess you actually mean "Yamaha 01V96".

You can do this with two 01V96s fitted with MY16-AT expansion cards. Each 01V96 would handle 8 analog input channels plus 8 more via ADAT from a Presonus box. Two ADAT ins and outs are cross-coupled to the other 01V96 giving each 01V96 access to all 32 channels. That leaves you a spare ADAT out on both mixers, so use one of them to feed the monitoring system. Set the mixer direct outs to be pre-EQ, pre-fader so you have raw data to work with. In this way you can create an FOH mix and a monitoring mix as now on one 01V96 plus a fully-independent mix for a two-track CD burner on the other 01V96. Make sure you connect a BNC wordclock cable between the two 01V96s.

If you want to incorporate the HD24 into this scheme, you can do that by daisy-chaining it into 3 of the raw ADAT streams. As long as you have the monitoring set to "All Input", it replicates its lightpipe inputs on its lightpipe outputs.

One advantage of this symmetrical cross-coupled configuration is that you get mic pre-amps with PP available on all 32 live channels, and you still have all the stereo channels available for effect returns.

I've used this setup in the past with a pair of 01V96s and two HD24s. It does work!

Yes - I did mean Yamaha. I've got too much pro audio on the brain to keep it all straight. =)

The cost of a used 01v isn't too bad, however I don't completely understand how it would all work - I'll have to read over your explanation again and respond back. =)

OK, but make sure you are talking about an "01V96" not "01V". An 01V is a different animal unsuitable for this purpose.

Hm...I'm pretty sure ours is the 96 version. I'll check and make sure though.