Newbee to remote recording needs help

[Mick@itc]

G'Day

The studio is working well and I wanto to expand into remote recording. I'm noticing a market here in Melbourne Australia for a good quality, flexible service to Schools, venue bands and festivals. So I turn to the slutz for help in creating a basic rig to record 24 tracks from the venue desk. So as is my want I drew what I think I need to start off and have attached the picture. I would love ANY advise from you experienced remotesters who have been there done that! Please have a browse of the picture and tell me where I am missing out. I already have the HD24XR (which I love) in the studio but everything else is optional. I notice a lot of your pictures have Digimax's in the racks, what are these used for? I am making the assumption that we get line level signals fromt he desk??? Fatal flaw number 1#???

Thnaks in advance.

Regards
Mick

[Remoteness]

Let us know when you will be upload that picture for us to browse?

[Mick@itc]

Nuts....I hate that...here it is

[Mick@itc]

Bump

[pkautzsch]

If by "desk" you mean FOH desk, you should get a splitter and a rack of pres, so FOH and recording are independent from each other.
There has been posted quite an amount of info on this forum.

[Mick@itc]

Originally Posted by pkautzsch

If by "desk" you mean FOH desk, you should get a splitter and a rack of pres, so FOH and recording are independent from each other.
There has been posted quite an amount of info on this forum.

Thanks Pkautzsch

Yes, my assumption was that there will be a FOH desk that we will be getting a line level "direct out" signal per channel,.
But what you are saying is that we should put a splitter cable in just in front of the mic/line in of the FOH desk and run that through a rack of pres (hence the Digimax I see!) and then feed these into the HD24. OK, so from your experiences its better not to rely on the FOH desk outputs and run our own pres? That's good info for me.

One other thing I see int he pictures are summing mixers in racks, what are they generally used for?

Thanks again for the input.

Regards
Mick

[Mick@itc]

I should have also clarified that the laptop is really a belt and braces thing. I simply dont trust PC based DAWS so the HD24 will be the main capture mechanism, the laptop is there to run a parallel capture that can be edited on the fly if there is an instant need from the client. But generally the idea would be to bring the HD24 back to the studio and do the mix there.

Regards
Mick

[Gerax]

Hello

As it's been said above the routing and setup has been discussed a lot, so you may want to do a search to find additional infos.
That said, I don't like the way you've routed your signal. I know that the Alesis is a pretty stable and sure machine, but daisy chaining the RME to the outputs of the Alsesis isn't a true form of backup, PC DAW's stability notwithstanding...
If you want a true security and redundant backup you have to split the signal before it gets to the recorders. This way, if one of the recorders crashes the other can keep going unaffected. In your chain, if the Alesis goes south...so does the rest of the rig.
Second issue is the need of a splitter. It's OK sometimes to get line levels form the FOH console, but you'll be tied to gain setting, EQ and insert setting, and fader levels by the FOH engineer working to adapt them for the venue, not for recording.
If recording of live gigs is in your target and you plan ond doing many then you should consider a mic splitter and a set of outboard pres; you'll be much more independent and your tracks will sound a lot better. Also, the Digimaxes as much as they may be not "top of the line" soundwise, have some nice features that are really handy in remote recordings. I have the Focusrite Octopres, which are really similar in sound and design. The dual ADAT output allows me a honest conversion quality built in, and a dual ADAT feed to both my recorders at the same time.

Hope this helps

L.G.

[pkautzsch]

As Lorenzo already pointed out, a true redundant system would be better - at least in theory. I feed my pres to a Fostex HD recorder whose outputs feed the PC interface, so it's the same thing as you're planning.
A nice way to split signals would be to use preamp/AD combos (think Octopre, Audient 008, Presonus, and so on), and feed the digital output to one recorder and the analog output to the other.
You might actually want your computer to be the main recording device, as you've already got your DAW session with all tracks lined up and (hopefully) named. Just open the session in the studio and off you go. Assuming you're working ITB.
Remoteness has written quite some interesting stuff about splitting, do a tag search here.

[Gerax]

Originally Posted by pkautzsch

As Lorenzo already pointed out, a true redundant system would be better - at least in theory. I feed my pres to a Fostex HD recorder whose outputs feed the PC interface, so it's the same thing as you're planning.
A nice way to split signals would be to use preamp/AD combos (think Octopre, Audient 008, Presonus, and so on), and feed the digital output to one recorder and the analog output to the other.
You might actually want your computer to be the main recording device, as you've already got your DAW session with all tracks lined up and (hopefully) named. Just open the session in the studio and off you go. Assuming you're working ITB.
Remoteness has written quite some interesting stuff about splitting, do a tag search here.

Exactly what I'm doing with my rig. I work with Pro Tools in the studio, so I chose the Lightbridge and PT Mpowered for the remote, and porting the sessions from the mobile rig to the studio is a breeze, as simple as unplugging a USB drive from the case and plugging it into my studio DAW. Plus recoding with a safety unit also makes for an instant backup to the studio work as well.