I was listening to a treo consisting of keyboards, lead vocal and a small drum jazz drum kit at a tiny nightclub in Portland on Friday night. During their break, I was approached by the keyboard player to do some live recording at a future performance. I had to stop for a minute to think about what gear and setup I would use in this example.

Obviously it's a small space and I would prefer to travel light. So for an interface I was thinking a single rack unit and a laptop. My Acer laptop unfortunately does not have Firewire only USB2 so I was considering the Fast Track Ultra 8R http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackUltra8R.html would be a low cost solution but it only gives me 8 simultaneous tracks. It does track into Pro Tools M-Powered and they have Windows 7 drivers for it which I like. One other solution for 16 simultaneous i/o is the Tascam US-2000 http://www.tascam.com/products/us-2000.html . This is pretty incredible for a single rack but, of course, not if I want to track directly into Pro Tools - it comes with Cubase 4LE. Both are the same price at $500

So also, I have to think about what mics to use. I really don't want to take a feed off a shitty PA so I was thinking about splitting the vocalists mic with splitter box and maybe the same for the keyboardists output. Then put a mic on the kick, a mic on the snare, maybe some overheads and a couple of room mics and see what I get. Does this seem like a sound approach? Any suggestions?

Firewire cards are cheap if you already have something that will work as an interface.

No cardslot on this Acer model. USB2 only.

16 tracks for a "Jazz trio" is absolute overkill! Many "purists" would argue that 8 tracks for a Jazz Trio is overkill... I'm not a purist by any stretch of the imagination, and I understand (believe me) the tendency to ere to the side of overkill - more tracks = more flexibility to mix/fix later on. If I were to record this type of group live, I'd probably use: 3 tracks for drums -1 mic/trk - low a couple feet in front of the kick drum but able to pick up the other drums in the set as well. 2 overhead mics in stereo. 1 or 2 tracks for Keyboards, 1 tracks for vocals. 2 tracks for room/ambient mics. That's a grand total of 8 if you do the keyboards in stereo (you don't mention if they've got more than 1 keyboard...). With this track count you should be able to get a greeat live sound while still leaving plenty of flexibility to mix. Good Luck

Justin,
I'm faced with a similar remote stuation coming up.

After reviewing the options I called a bunch of friends and arranged to simply borrow a newer mac laptop and a MOTU traveler with 16 channels of light pipe in.
I'll drag my DA7 to the gig and voila.

My point is if you won't do this often, rent or borrow the gear you need.

I would just set up my stereo mic fairly close to the band and record it 2 track to a portable DAT recorder. They make great live recordings.

Good suggestions guys thanks. I love the preamps in my Panasonic WZ-AD96M and would have no problem pulling it from my rack to use it, but getting the lightpipe from an interface into my Acer Laptop (which is USB2 only) in to Pro Tools is problematic.

I think the I like the Fast Track Ultra 8R option best only I wish it supported Pro Tools LE which I already own instead of just M-Powered. The next step up would be an 002 or 003 rack - more expensive, more heavy and I'm not sure I like the hardware that much.

Any recommendations on inexpensive splitter boxes for the vocals and keyboards? Again, I could probably take a feed off their PA but I'm thinking that could have noise and other problems that could contaminate my feed. I also think that I'll have proximity/phase issues with the live mics vs the direct sends but hopefully can deal with this in the mix.

Justin,
Keep in mind your just tracking and as such there's no reason you have to use ProTools to capture some .wav files.

If you have DP or Logic Or Cubase Or???? you could circumvent the whole Digi proprietary hardware nonsense. That could open up some more options as to the gear you could use.

If only the Acer had a card slot.

I think the new MOTU UltraLight Mark III has FW and USB.

MOTU Ultra light

Also RME has an interface that uses USB

Fireface UC

Rich

Tascam has the most I/O for USB right now. I'm getting back in to pro audio sales to some degree. It's rumored that PreSonus is going to be coming out with more USB interfaces with more I/O, but it's a rumor, and you didn't hear that from me; )

Other Tascam models
http://tascam.com/products/m-164uf.html

http://tascam.com/products/us-1641.html

http://tascam.com/products/us-800.html


James