I need help building my portable rig

[Graham Tobias]

hey everyone... I'm just starting to really get into location recording... I don't have a good tracking place and I enjoy nothing more than recording music so I'm building up a portable rig so I can go to people instead of having them come to me.

My rig right now is a very stationary logic rig... I have a firepod, central station, g5, powerbook, logic pro, a c3000b, sm57, om5, 2x sm94's, blue kickball, a beyer m260 from the 70's, JBL LSR monitors, mackie universal control and various other mics and things.

anyways....

I'm ditching my firepod, getting a fireface800, I'm gonna get 2x 414's, a 421, some sm81's, a ksm32, a bluebird, a d6, digimaxfs pres, possibly an apogee minime, and I think I'm gonna make a wiring harness that terminates to Dsub so I can easily hook it up to a snake or my mixing suite at home. I plan on putting the whole thing in a road-ready slant-top rack with a sliding drawer for the mackie controller and a special shelf for the top that'll let me put my laptop on it. Also I'm considering ditching the central station and getting a benchmark DAC.

how does that sound? Is it worth putting a dsub splitter box inside the rack so I can send shit to the FOH guy?

[classicalrecord]

one thing i would consider is this. it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to go out and get a multi-channel mic pre with digital out like the digimax when you've got six better conversion channels going to waste then on the FF800. And honestly, I don't think you're gonna need a mini-me when you've got the FF800 conversion-- it should be well past good enough to get great recordings (i've had the ff800 and currently have a ff400). so i just think you'd be better off getting four or six really good preamp channels to feed into the FF800 analog inputs and that combined with the four built in pres on the FF800 give 10 channels. then, add something like the digimax once you outgrow those 10 channels and need more. anyway, if it was my money that's what i'd do.
just my two cents.

[Harley-OIART]

Originally Posted by Graham Tobias

how does that sound? Is it worth putting a dsub splitter box inside the rack so I can send shit to the FOH guy?

Only if you are willing to spend the coin to get a real quality 3 way splitter. [FOH, MON, Recording]

Cheap Splitters are no fun. Get a real one. If you are not in the mood to make one yourself to save costs, Radial Engineering has actually done a good job on this product here, especially keeping it down to one rackspace.

http://www.radialeng.com/re-8ox.htm

I like the fact you can pay extra for jensen tranny's.

Anyways thats pricey but a good worthy investment. Allows you to do higher profile gigs without the house sound crew getting weary of your equipment. Even still... convincing a production team to use your splitter is sometimes a challenge. [For good reason]

Anyways thats just my 42 cents regarding the splitter. In summary get a good one.

Originally Posted by classicalrecord

one thing i would consider is this. it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to go out and get a multi-channel mic pre with digital out like the digimax when you've got six better conversion channels going to waste then on the FF800. And honestly, I don't think you're gonna need a mini-me when you've got the FF800 conversion-- it should be well past good enough to get great recordings (i've had the ff800 and currently have a ff400).

I must say I completely agree... get some quality preamps, and skip the mini-me. Skip the Digimax too unless you really need the extra pres. If money isn't a factor...

Presonus ADL600s (12 of them... give me 4 or maybe a Rack from Seventh Circle Audio would be a half decent front end.

A hardware backup isn't a bad idea either... like a Mackie HDR24/96 for example. Expensive but a good worthy way to record live.

-Scott

[Graham Tobias]

Originally Posted by classicalrecord

one thing i would consider is this. it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to go out and get a multi-channel mic pre with digital out like the digimax when you've got six better conversion channels going to waste then on the FF800. And honestly, I don't think you're gonna need a mini-me when you've got the FF800 conversion-- it should be well past good enough to get great recordings (i've had the ff800 and currently have a ff400). so i just think you'd be better off getting four or six really good preamp channels to feed into the FF800 analog inputs and that combined with the four built in pres on the FF800 give 10 channels. then, add something like the digimax once you outgrow those 10 channels and need more. anyway, if it was my money that's what i'd do.
just my two cents.

Yeah that is a very good point. I realize the digimaxFS does not have the best pre's or converters, but for the price and having both A/D and D/A conversion it is appealing. I agree though that it does make sense to use the fireface converters. What are some fairly well priced pre's that would be better choices? RNP's? I'd love to get that true 8 pre but it's a little too much for me right now. One other reason the digimax interests me is that it's cheap enough and gives me a lot more i/o and since I'm really new to remote recording I'd like to make a good but not massive investment and then make some money and invest more in better pres. I definitely agree though that I should use the ff800 converters.

do you think it's worth getting the benchmark DAC1 and selling the central station?

[classicalrecord]

couldn't really tell you much about the DAC1 vs. Central Station-- I'm tempted to say I'm not sure you need either one because the FF800 has good enough D/A to accurately monitor---I mean, the DAC1 will probably be a little bit of an improvement, but I say, sell the central station and put the money towards the mic pre purchase.
As for the digimax-- I am only sort of guessing here, but just by reputation, it would seem the mackie 800r (8 pres plus conversion) might be better than the presonus. like i said, though, i can't speak from first hand experience.
what i do know is that I have four channels of DAV and they are amazing, especially for the money. but in the end, even they aren't exactly cheap. I would say something like the sytek four channel pre might be a good idea for you (i used to have one, sold it when i got the DAV, but it was still a very nice pre)-- pick one up used for $7-800, pair it with the onyx 800r ($8-900) and you've got 16 channels when you put it all together with the FF800.
I too have heard good things about the seventh circle stuff, but the value really comes in there when you can assemble them yourself. There's always the api lunchbox idea where you have all sorts of preamp options, however, none are truly inexpensive ($500 per channel). it all comes down to budget.

[foldback]

Who or what do you intend to record?

How many recording tracks do you need (max)?

Where will you record?

What gear will you need to interface with?

What pieces of equipment do you need to take into the field?

How will you back yourself up?

Do you have a UPS to run your field kit on?

With the answers to these questions we could probably help you hone your purchase into a good logical decision tree. One thing I've learned (the hard way), don't make any rack heavier than what you can move completely by yourself. Sometimes you gotta record upstairs, will you always have an assistant? I work alone a lot, all the profit goes to me (and buying more gear).

[over-man]

I invested almost $2k on a quality 24 channel snake splitter, 100 ft and 25 ft splits, transformers and ground lift switches on every channel. It made a huge difference in my live recordings, both for ease of use and quality of sound. Highly recommended. Its no fun spending that type of cash on cables, but in the end its well worth it.