[fishtankfish]

Hey,


What are some good gadgets for recording live shows from the audience?

Is it better to have a little microphone or just a digital recorder? What's the best way to go?

 

[grawk]

The absolute cheapest way to go and come out with a somewhat acceptable result is to pick up a used minidisc recorder and a pair of little panasonic capsuled omni mics. Can cost less than $100 if you can solder. The other end of the spectrum is way at the other end. When I used to record concerts, I used a sony portable dat, a sony SBM-1 analog to digital converter, a schoeps mic preamp/midside decoding box, and schoeps capsules totalling well over $5000. For situations where being invisible wasn't necessary, I swapped the sony for an apogee AD500E, and used a 13ft mic stand.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishtankfish Hey, What are some good gadgets for recording live shows from the audience? Is it better to have a little microphone or just a digital recorder? What's the best way to go?

www.taperssection.com

The bare minimum (from experience) should be a pair of audio technica mics sold on soundprofessionals.com with a battery box and a digital recorder (at least Hi-MD for PCM recording).

What's your budget anyway?

 

[FalconP]

There are a few things to consider:

What kind of music are you recording? You probably do not need an external power supply ("battery box") for quiet, acoustic or minimally amplified music (most classical, folk or jazz). But you want to tape rock and pop concerts, then a battery box with bass-rolloff is advisable.

What medium do you want to store your music in? MD is still almost de-faco in the amateur taping circle. Hard-disk recording (mp3 et al) has not caught on yet, simply because there is NO satisfactory recorder in existence (not enough consumer demand, I presume). Hi-MD is an attractive option, but this confines yourself to Sony machines, which is not a good thing IMO.

Insist on a SHARP MD recorder: Sharp has a big advantage over Sony machines in that you can adjust the recording level without stopping the machine. Even the Hi-MD units from Sony require you to press Pause if you want to tinker on the recording level.

"Digital recorders" with a mic on the chasis are ONLY good for taping speech; for music you have to use a separate mic with a cord -- the mic will not pick up the noise generated by the moving parts of the recorder, and you can fumble with the recorder without disturbing the mic and ruining the sound. I much perfer a small CARDOID (i.e. unidirectional) mic capsule to an omni-directional; you pick up far less audience noise.

Go over to www.minidisc.org for more tips on audience recording.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconP There are a few things to consider: What kind of music are you recording? You probably do not need an external power supply ("battery box") for quiet, acoustic or minimally amplified music (most classical, folk or jazz). But you want to tape rock and pop concerts, then a battery box with bass-rolloff is advisable.

Huh? A battery box or a preamp is a definite. If your recording a quiet show, you shouldn't rely solely on the recorders mic preamp section to adequately power your mics. By the way, when you record line-in (which you should always do), the bass roll-off on the battery box is turned off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconP What medium do you want to store your music in? MD is still almost de-faco in the amateur taping circle. Hard-disk recording (mp3 et al) has not caught on yet, simply because there is NO satisfactory recorder in existence (not enough consumer demand, I presume). Hi-MD is an attractive option, but this confines yourself to Sony machines, which is not a good thing IMO.

MD is dead. Most tapers use DAT's and a large portion of them have moved to HD-based recorders and dumped their DAT's. Hi-MD isn't bad if you tape short concerts (less than the ~94 mins you get on a 1GB disc...who the heck wants to swap discs if your stealthing?). My advice? Get a HD-based recorder. The Nomad Jukebox 3 has proven itself a reliable recorder, but it's a bit big and I imagine he'll need something a little more stealty, which a Hi-MD fits the bill or one of those HD-based recorders, maybe an Edirol recorder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconP "Digital recorders" with a mic on the chasis are ONLY good for taping speech; for music you have to use a separate mic with a cord -- the mic will not pick up the noise generated by the moving parts of the recorder, and you can fumble with the recorder without disturbing the mic and ruining the sound. I much perfer a small CARDOID (i.e. unidirectional) mic capsule to an omni-directional; you pick up far less audience noise.

Omni's are good for up close taping, especially in smaller venues, such as bars. Omni's, imho, don't pickup as much crowd noise as people make them out to.

My advice for a pair of mics? Try here: www.soundprofessionals.com

A decent rig will cost you less than a $1000.