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[breathe]

So I finally went to the Smell last night and met Jim Smith who runs it, really nice guy.  I want to make it easy for the Smell to document their shows in a high quality way so I thought a good solution would be to hang an Audio Technica  AT-895 XY stereo microphone from the ceiling just in front of the stage, have that going into some decent preamps (or preamp/converter box) feeding an Alesis Masterlink.  The thing is I think they would want to have a Masterlink with more storage than the stock hard drive allows so they could only back up to CD24 once a week.  So I was wondering if anyone knew how to "bless" a replacement hard drive so it would work in the Masterlink (I heard you can't just swap in a new drive and make it work).

Alternatively, and preferably, is there a stereo hard disk recorder other than the super expensive Sound Devices 702 where the internal hard drive can be connected to a computer for easy and quick downloading of all of the recorded files?  Backing up to CD-R from a Masterlink is an extremely tedious process, enough so that I think it probably wouldn't work for my idea.  What I want is for the PA engineer at the Smell to just be able to hit 'record' at the beginning of a show and 'stop' at the end of the show and be able to download all of the week's recordings at the end of every week.  

The last option is just to get a laptop connected to an Apogee MiniMe with USB output recording into Logic but I really want to make this setup as foolproof as possible because I think the Smell has volunteer PA engineers and I want to make it really easy for them.

Sorry for this rambling post but any advice would be appreciated.

Nicholas

p.s. Also, the reason for recording with a stereo mic instead of straight out of the board is so the engineer wouldn't have to mic every instrument and make a separate mix of the performance optimized for the recording.

[Galil]

FWIW . . The current masterlinks come with a 40 gig harddrive which is a good amount of space.  I don't think you really would want much more drive space than that.  My masterlink came with a 4.3 gig drive which swapped out easily for a 40 gig drive.

Using the masterlink - To get the sound off the drive you do need to drop files down to CD sized chunks.  Choose the sample rate and bit depth you like most and have the operator make a new track every 20 to 45 minutes (depending on your choice) and dump them to CD24 at another point. They can be split later, if you prefer.  This can be done while setting up for the next evening or as other chores are being taken care of.

Having a dedicated appliance for this recording makes things less complex than dedicating a computer to the task.  In some instances this is an advantage, in other cases it does not matter.

The korg MR recorders might also do what you want.

Galil

[Fletcher]

breathe wrote on Thu, 20 November 2008 16:46

Also, the reason for recording with a stereo mic instead of straight out of the board is so the engineer wouldn't have to mic every instrument and make a separate mix of the performance optimized for the recording.

Im unfamiliar with the venue... but if they have a regular PA system you might want to try taking a direct feed from their "FOH" [Front of House] console and combining the master output from that desk along with the stereo mic.  A small 4 channel mixer can be used for this.

Something like an API 3124MB+ might be a good way to go as it will have mic pre amps for the 'stereo mic' and can accept a line input from the FOH desk and sum those signals into a 2 channel output.  You can even add other equipment post pre-amp and pre-mix buss via insert points on each of the 4 inputs [say you wanted to add a bit of compression/limiting to either set of inputs... something like an FMR RNC over the mic outputs and FMR RNLA over the FOH outputs].

Just a thought... it may or may not be applicable to the situation.

Peace.

[Steve Hudson]

The Korg MR-1000 was designed for this application. I have not used the preamps on mine so can't comment on them but it's a pretty amazing digital 2-track for the money. The guy I bought it from did location sound for Survivor so it must be OK, huh?

[AlexVI]

Tascam DV-RA 1000 as a recording device (or the newer DV-RA 1000HD, though pricier).
I wouldn't spend a fortune on pre's - just a small M-audio DMP2 or somesuch. The position of the mic will matter far more.