Anyone watch this show Covert Affairs? I think it comes on USA. Anyway, there's an episode where the Auggie character goes oversees to a jazz music festival, and in it he sets up all these mics to record it and also plugs straight into the soundboard, because apparently he's real tight with one of the techs. Do people really do this? If so, I'd imagine that the resulting audio is rather high quality, and would me a treat to listen to. Where could I get music like this, do you think?
 
I checked if this episode, entitled "Half A World Away" was on Hulu, so I could show you guys the scene I'm talking about, but it's not.

I allow multitracking off of the board if I know you and trust that you won't mess up my sound. The only thing is you operate your equipment I don't so I don't have to worry about anything but what the audience hears and how the system is working.
 
It is done 1 of 2 ways, the best way is plugging the recorder into the direct outs on the board this usually get the signal after either the mic preamp or the EQ depending on the board or the settings of the board, now not all boards have direct outs so then you have to use the insert connections (an insert is an output and input that is used to send the signal to outboard processors like compressors and you only have to make one connection on the board) by only inserting the plug one click (this only gets the output). The insert is usually getting the signal right after the preamp, which you really want to but since your not fully plugging it in it can make a loose connection on older boards and it limits what the engineer can do since if the recorder is plugged into the insert you can't plug any external processors into it at the same time.
 
I do watch Covert Affairs but only online since I only have basic cable.

kwal, thank you for the reply. Do you know of any place where I can get these sorts of recordings?

Most live recordings other than major bands are done this way. Major bands have a recording truck come in and they split the mics outputs so the recording has all recording equipment in the signal chain to keep the signal clean (this is a tricky thing to do since the mics have to feed 3 different systems front of house, monitors and the recording without creating any ground loops)
 
So with all that said most live recordings don't tell you how they recorded the performance so it's hard to know. Now if there are bonus live tracks on an album or the album is made of different shows than it is most likely done with plugging in to the board.