Presonus makes a wonderful little product for recording live music using multiple sources (typically, a soundboard feed and combinations of microphones) called the Presonus Firebox. I got one about a year ago. It didn't work well with my Fujitsu laptop presumably due to all the extra work-ware that my company has installed on it so I got a Mac Book Pro. Lo and behold, the Firebox works amazingly well out of the box with Garageband or Soundtrack Pro. I use Garageband...
Anyway, I wanted to take a minute to give some props to the folks at Presonus. This product rocks.
Anybody out there looking to get more sophisticated with your live recordings, this is a damn good way to go (presuming you have a Mac, or at least a windows based laptop without a lot of extra malware gunking things up). And for a reasonable price...I got mine for $300 US though you can probably find something cheaper now.
Also, I wanted to mention a peculiarity that I've noticed with mine. When recording a soundboard source to Garageband with the Firebox, I find that as a band's set goes on, there tends to be some volume-creep in the soundboard channels. Aka the latter part of a show tends to be louder than the beginning. Having seen countless shows I know that this happens but what I'm talking about is strictly from an empirical point-of-view where I don't adjust volumes and nor does the soundman adjust the level from the board. I've gotten around this by unchecking the +12 db gain on the channels coming from the soundboard and adjusting the levels in the final mix (using Audition).
Anyway, thanks, Presonus. Keep up the good work. Someday, I'll buy a FireStudio and get even more advanced.
http://presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=4
Anyway, I wanted to take a minute to give some props to the folks at Presonus. This product rocks.
Anybody out there looking to get more sophisticated with your live recordings, this is a damn good way to go (presuming you have a Mac, or at least a windows based laptop without a lot of extra malware gunking things up). And for a reasonable price...I got mine for $300 US though you can probably find something cheaper now.
Also, I wanted to mention a peculiarity that I've noticed with mine. When recording a soundboard source to Garageband with the Firebox, I find that as a band's set goes on, there tends to be some volume-creep in the soundboard channels. Aka the latter part of a show tends to be louder than the beginning. Having seen countless shows I know that this happens but what I'm talking about is strictly from an empirical point-of-view where I don't adjust volumes and nor does the soundman adjust the level from the board. I've gotten around this by unchecking the +12 db gain on the channels coming from the soundboard and adjusting the levels in the final mix (using Audition).
Anyway, thanks, Presonus. Keep up the good work. Someday, I'll buy a FireStudio and get even more advanced.
http://presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=4
