Ideas for a mobile recording setup?

[jimcroisdale]

Hi all,

I've recently formed a new band and am looking to arrange a neat and portable recording setup to take to practices. I thought about the following. I already have an Mbox 2, but would need the extra inputs of the Pro (tell me if i'm wrong!):

Mbox 2 Pro
Laptop running Protools LE (obviously)
Spirit Folio mini-mixer or similar (something with at least 2 mic pres and direct outs)
2x Rode NT1 mics for drum overheads (already have)
1x AKG D112 mic for kick drum (already have)
1x SM57 for snare (already have)
Line 6 Pocket POD
Multiway headphone amp

During the rehearsals I would be aiming to get the drums down - I can add everything else later, I just dont't have anywhere to set drums up at home (a common problem I guess...)

So, I would set up the kick, snare and overheads. I would run the overheads straight into the mic pres on the Mbox. The Kick and snare mics would go to the pres on 2 channels of the Spirit and THEN out of the direct channel outs and to the line ins on the Mbox. Ok so far?

I would then route the monitor outputs of the Mbox to two more ins on the Spirit. I would also connect a direct bass guitar and guitar via the POD and mix all three together. Then I would take an aux out from the desk to the headphone amp from these four channels.

This would mean that I could record the drums while the bassist and guitarist played along too. We should all be able to get a good mix in the cans, but only the drums would be recorded.

Does this sound ok? Or is there a better way? All suggestions would be cool! I'm not tied to ProTools I suppose, it's just that I have used it before.

Cheers,
Jim

[Shadow_7]

I thought you said MOBILE recording setup? Or did you mean to say autoMOBILE?

For me mobile means able to carry the recording rig in one hand. So far it sounds like you've got 4 mic stands with mics, a laptop, an interface, and a load of cables, power strips, and extension cords. In addition to carrying your instrument(s) to the practice / gig site. Are you just wanting to record the practice? Or create a pro quality DEMO CD and such? Is this practice location secured in your home studio, or do you actually need to take it places?

For me a simple stereo unit representing the audiences perspective is good enough. Use a field recorder and you have the option of running longer than 1 hour on battery power. And otherwise placing the mics where they belong, and not within reach of thine power tether. Along with all of the hassles of protecting cords from traffic and other issues.

I've done the tethered thing, someone trips on the mic cord, it pulls on the interface, which pulls the USB/firewire cable out and causes the recording app to crash / stop recording. If it happens while you're playing, so much for recording that set. If the laptop/interface was perched up high and the cable didn't disconnect, hello floor, goodbye gear. You sunk my battleship.

[Jidis]

If it's going to be primarily at the practice space and you trust the other people that have access to it, you may be able to throw together a cheap multi-input tracking machine with a host from a few years back and just leave it set up there. Having people wait for you to run cables, check levels, and configure a bunch of stuff every time is a good way to kill the mood for playing music. If you left it there, you could save the files to an external HD (or flash/thumb drive) and keep your main stuff at home for mixing.

There's a million ways to go on that, but one of my favorites is a cheap PCI card with one bank of ADAT i/o, and a cheap external 8x8 ADAT converter. If you're just tracking (no heavy processing), the host can easily be something from the Pentium3 generation (or even PII), or a Mac G3 running OS9. I've done the same thing many times with a Lexicon Core2 card and either an Alesis AI-3 (with a mixer) or a Behringer ADA8000. The ADAT box can always be used later as an add-on to a home/studio setup, antique PCI ADAT cards are cheap as dirt, and a host of those qualifications can usually be found free or close to it.

Notes- The cards I'm talking about are likely limited to older operating systems (OS9/Win98), but it shouldn't matter for tracking and those systems are also pretty easy on the host machine. With ADAT, you're also going to be 24bit/48k max, but you could just stick the host in the next room and let it run, keeping your converter in the practice room with one small optical line connecting them. I wouldn't trust any elaborate "direct monitor" setups on the cheap, but that's just me. If you're just routing your analog signals, finding a way to get that off a small board might be easier on stuff. I'm guessing you're also expecting a decent amount of bleed into those drum mics unless you're going fully "ampless" and can stick with the Pod and direct bass. BTW- The Core2 also has some usable analog if you don't need many channels. It's got 4 ins, 8 outs, and stereo SPDIF which can be used simultaneously. I've got two of them, a Terratec EWS something (all digital) and a Steinberg VSL2020. Any of that stuff can stream at least 8 channels and should be under $100. The Lex can often be under 30.

- Sorry for the long text. Hope it helps though.

[tINY]

Originally Posted by jimcroisdale

Laptop running Protools LE (obviously)

Well, that isn't very obvious to me... and you limit yourself on the hardware side.


If you get a Firewire interface with an internal digital Cue mixer (like MotU units) then you won't need a mixer.

Or, get a Mackie Onyx mixer with a firewire card.




-tINY

[jimcroisdale]

Originally Posted by tINY

Well, that isn't very obvious to me... and you limit yourself on the hardware side.

If I was using the Mbox2 Pro it would have to be!

Cheers for the answers though guys.

[moon_unit]

You've only got two tracks to work with ... unless you get another 2 channels of A/D conversion and run those two tracks in via SPDIF.

This means (I assume) that you're going to be submixing the drums on the way in. Which, in my opinion, isn't even worth it. If you can get another couple channels of A/D conversion, allowing yourself to track the overheads, kick and snare to their own channels ... then you'll at least be off to a start.

[tINY]

I see, you already have the MBox.

Well, now that you've started on your path down the dark side, be prepared to shell out money for everything.

Sounds like you could get by with a matrix/headphone mixer (like the Rane SM 26s) and a few pre-amps.




-tINY

[KeithMoonwannabe]

I too would avoid getting into an mbox pro. I understand you have the mbox 2 but you make it sound like you'd be buying an mbox pro am I misunderstanding?

Motu, Focusrite Saffire, or Mackie Onyx are much better options for the same money. Yeah you don't have pro tools but your hardware will be much better and depending on the actual interface you might be able to track the whole band playing instead of 4 drum mics only. which would likely be a lot more useful. and even if you just focus on drums with 8 preamps you will get more control, not to mention the built in pres and converters will be better quality on the non digidesign stuff. don't fall for that phony stuff.

I've found that for low enders pro tools is like a black hole of doom it's very limiting and very expensive. There really is no advantage to using ptle over the competitive DAW's. You can download reaper for free for crying out loud and it does a good job (though I'd probably encourage you to pay for the license). But there is nothing wrong with Cubase, Sonar, etc. In many cases those programs have more to offer than PRO TOOLS LE.

BTW I am a low ender myself and I use a Saffire Pro 10 i.o with reaper, cubase, or sonar. For plugins I have the SSL bundle from Waves and the Saffire suite. So I am speaking from real world experience in comparison to PT LE. Not just anti pro tools jibberish. Now Pro Tools HD is great but LE isn't even close to the same league.

[jimcroisdale]

Hey,

Ok, cool. Like I said, I'm not tied to Pro Tools. I have used it - and liked it - but I'm not averse to using something else.

I think part of the reason I chose it in the first place was that I thought it would make me compatible with the local recording studios (Digidesign would have me believe it's the industry standard).

On visiting my two local studios where I have recorded with my band , I've found that NEITHER are using Pro Tools. Both are actually using Cubase SX - one with 2x M-Audio Delta 10-10 cards, the other with a MOTU 24in/24out interface. Both with Ghost consoles too!

So, all that aside. Where should I be looking for a portable (read: laptop based) system. What I'm looking to do is have a nice mixing room at home with my monitors set up properly (Event 20/20 - had them years and know them well) as well as some decent acoustic treatment. Then, I basically want to be able to up sticks and move the recording gear to the rehearsal room for tracking, before returning to my house to mix.

I guess the only stipulations would have to be the number of simultaneus channels - 8 would be great for drums, 16 even better as it would allow guitar and bass scratch tracks. Also, If I can get around latency somehow I would be a really happy bunny. Budget is around £1000 I guess. If it makes suggestions easier, here is a list of usefull stuff I already own from previous studio incarnations!:

Digidesign Mbox 2 (although i think this will be going!)
Mackie SR24-4
2x Rode NT1
1x Rode NT2
1x AKG C3000
1x Shure SM57
1x Shure SM58
1x AKG D112
Event 20/20 monitors and power amp
Decent desktop PC (AMD Athlon 3500x2, multi drives, 1gb ram)
Sony Vaio laptop - (An old one, but DID run PT kindof. Might do better with a clean install of Windows)

Hope that helps - thanks for all the advice.

Cheers,
Jim

PS - 'Portable' to me means 'Can fit it all in my car'. I'm not hoping to be able to carry it all under my arm!

[jimcroisdale]

Oh, just to add!

Quality-wise, I'm looking for something that's at least on a par with the local studio. The problem with me is that I always think I can do it better myself. This is not a good thing, I know!

The studio charges £20 an hour, which is cheap, and he's a good guy who knows what he's doing. But I look at his equipment and think - "Gee, if I had somewhere to set some drums up, I could do this, and spend ten times as long on the editing to get it all perfect, which we couldn't expect him to do".

He's got a Ghost desk which he uses as a 24ch mic pre into the MOTU. I don't think Ghost pres are famed for their quality? Mic wise, he was using C1000s for overheads on the drums, held onto the stands with tape. I could have cried....

So surely, rehearsal-room-as-tracking room problems aside (his tracking room is tiny) I should be a ble to match/better his quality (assuming my own ability is up to par, which I believe it is).

'Nuff said....

[jimcroisdale]

Hey,

A little bit more digging later and I'm thinking that the Saffire Pro 10 might be the way to go?

I'm assuming that I can use the direct outs to create my own latency-free monitor mixes too? If so, all I would need is a simple rack line mixer like to create this, and a headphone amp to send it to.

Speaking of latency. I know Protools LE doesn't have automatic delay compensation. When is this a problem - recording or playback? I would assume playback? Channels with more plugs on them will play back slightly late? Does Cubase SX3 have delay compensation?

Oh yeah. Can I chain two Saffire Pro 10's together? Or three?

Cheers,
Jim

[KeithMoonwannabe]

I like my Saffire and the routing options are great. You can daisy chain 3 together if you so choose, I'm thinking of adding either a second pro 10 io or a pro 26 io to my rig to do precisely that.

I would also look at the MOTU and the Mackie Onyx stuff though they also pack a lot of quality and bang for the buck.

I think all three suggestions there are pretty comparable in terms of quality really you won't go wrong.

I'm pretty sure sx3 has delay compensation however I'm not a huge plugin person I go for more of the natural sound hence not owning tons of plugs lol. Because of that I've never had the need to adjust the delay to compensate for using tons of effects. I'm sure the steinberg site probably has the answer on it.

[jimcroisdale]

A little bit more digging and I'm looking at the M-Audio Profire 2626.

As Peeder says:

"However for tracking and i/o in general, the 2626 is the best solution overall for non-HD Pro Tools. With the 003 for instance, there is no mechanism to use low-latency monitoring with external converters. Period. With the 2626, you can just fine, and there is a special 18 channel low-latency cue mixer they have added, which has the same latency specs as HD btw (no shit), that even lets you have multiple aux sends for multiple cue mixes, comfort reverbs, etc. With the 2626 you can use 18i/o at 96KHz via SMUX, and you can use all 18 i/o with external converters into PTMP. And you can avoid the 8 preamps on its built-in ADCs by connecting via TRS jacks rather than XLRs."

But would this work with Cubase SX? And can I chain 2 together?

[jimcroisdale]

Sod it - I'll have a stab in the dark at the mobile system I think I want and you lot will hopefully tell me if it sucks!

• New laptop. A nice one....
• External Firewire HD
• Cubase SX
• 2x Saffire Pro 10s daisy-chained together
• 16 channel line mixer
• Headphone amp

A four unit rack with the laptop sat on the top.

With this system I should be able to record 16 channels at the same time and route the direct outs from the Saffires into the line mixer. Here I can twiddle the knobs to get a perfect ZERO LATENCY monitor mix and send that to the headphone amp. Also, I would be able to route the main outputs of the Saffire to the mixer too, to enable overdubbing. Then I take it all home and plug it into my nice monitors to mix.

Fame and fortune will surely follow. Perhaps it might make me thinner and more handsome too, who knows.

Sound too good to be true. Or is it?

[jimcroisdale]

****Update****

It would seem that the new Saffire Pro 40 is the way to go. I can connect a Behringer ADA800 or Octopre via ADAT to give me more channels. What's more, the Pro 40 has a built-in monitor mix DSP so I can do away with the line mixer!

What do you think to that?

[KeithMoonwannabe]

I think I want the PRO 40 now lol

anyone know if you can daisy chain the pro 10 i.o with it? I couldn't find the answer on the Focusrite page....perhaps I should email them?

[jimcroisdale]

Yeah, thats what I want to know.

It seems that you can connect another mic pre to the Pro 40 using ADAT or by Firewire daisy chaining.

What I want to know is which method will allow me to include the inputs from the external pre in the onboard monitor mix?

So when I connect the external pre, will the additional channels show up in the software monitor mixer and I can add them to the foldback?

That would be sooooooo cool.

So yeah, bung them a mail and let's see!

Interesting link with a video here:

News - AES 2008: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 (Video)

[Blast9]

Interesting thread re FW chips and bugs over at SOS if you haven't seen it:

Forum - SOUND ON SOUND : Music Recording Technology

In short - more overall stability on Intel Mac platform vs Intel PC - due to variations on FW chip implementation.

AKA "do your research to make sure, sure sure!"

[jimcroisdale]

But doen't it point out that the Pro 40 will be much better in this respect, as it had moved away from the similar system architecture of the 10 and 26?

Something to be thankful for I guess. But it is true what they say there - so much conflicting info. Some people have units that cause them no end of hassles and others have units that work perfectly forever. Just pray that you're neared to the latter than the former.

Maybe if we keep pestering on GS about the 40 we will come across someone who's taken the plunge. Either that, or I'm gonna just get one. How bad could it be?

Jim

[chris319]

Since this is the low-end section, would one of these multitracking things be adequate for your purposes?

Musician's Friend - Search Results

I've never used one, can't vouch for them, but I'm not crazy about recording on PCs either.

[jimcroisdale]

Err... no.

Did you even read the thread?

I know this is the low end section, but the Saffire stuff is hardly 'High End' so where else do I put it?

If I wanted an 'all in one box' with zero expandability and probably inferior sound quality, I would have stuck with my Mbox 2!

Have a look at the Saffire Pro 40 yourself and see what you think.

[Say Ocean]

Instead of a pocket pod, pick up some guitar modeling software like revalver if you can.

[jimcroisdale]

Yeah - I will certainly be doing that. However, I was thinking that using a pluin amp will cause latency and I'm trying to avoid that where possible.

Could I take the signal straight from the guitar in a DI splitter and then have one path to the POD then to the Saffire, and one DI path straight to the Saffire?

This would give me a zero latency monitor sound that the guitarist could choose for themselves on the POD. In addition, I would then have a clean guitar signal in Cubase that I could re-amp to taste, whils deleting or muting the POD recorded sound.

What you think?

[chris319]

I know this is the low end section, but the Saffire stuff is hardly 'High End' so where else do I put it?

There is a "So much gear, so little time!" section which doesn't discriminate between high and low end.

probably inferior sound quality

I doubt you have used, heard or tested any of them. When I see the word "probably" it tells me you are working entirely from preconceived notion.

Speaking of "inferior sound quality", have you given thought one to the acoustical properties of your rehearsal space?

[jimcroisdale]

No, granted, I've not been able to test a unit like the one you mention. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that they will not match the sound quality and flexibility of the system I am proposing though. Surely?

As for the acoustic properties of my rehearsal space (or any rehearsal space), well, I'll just have to cope as best I can. Most reheasal spaces are 'treated' in sofar as the walls are covered with carpet or some such. Not perfect, but at least enough to kill the flutter echo.

My real aim is only to match/exceed the output quality of my local £20 per hour studio though. His live room is TINY, with just a few foam tiles. The rehersal rooms are at least 4 times as big, which must help?

At the end of the day I would love my own studio space, but I don't want to go down the route of having premises like I used to. Back in the day I was a dance music producer who did live recording for bands now and then. After investing in equipment and spending three weeks fitting out the room (all hand wired and mounted in a custom made desk/rack system) my landlord casually mentioned that he was leaving and I had a week to get it all out.

I had nowhere else to put it all. It broke my heart. So you can see the appeal of a mobile system.

Jim

[jimcroisdale]

I've continued this thread in the 'So much gear....' section, as advised.

You can find it here:

Rate my recording setup!

Cheers for all the advice. Might actually spend some money soon - you never know!

Jim

[modooo]

Why not Fireface 800. I would go for FF instead of Mbox. it has 12 inputs (8 ad and 4 xlr with phantom and preamp).

Go for 4 Rode NT1 (two above the head for Cymbals and two for recording room sound 3m away on the ground from the drumset - if theres no space you should use 4 mics for cymbals and go very close if the room sound is not good)

For the snare i would use 2 mics. One on top and one on bottom. U must switch phase of the top mic. AKG is good for base drum but you can use a shure sm85 too. Try to record inside the Base drum and listen to the sound if you like it.

You would need a second Preampmodule.
ART TUBEFIRE 8 or sm pro audio 8 channel preamp is ok.

Dont forget the cables.

it would be around 2000$ if you buy it in used condition.

[jimcroisdale]

Saffire Pro 40 = £350

Fireface 800 = £850

Bit of a difference there - too dear for me. I know the quality will be higher but I can't afford that.

If you go to the new thread at: Rate my recording setup!

You'll see where I'm up to with my decision!

Jim

[lacesoutdom]

at the moment, being a final year student at uni, i do alot of mobile recordings, ive got a large rack flight case which folds out to create a rack and table top. in it is all the racks etc..
i take both the focusrite penta and the joemeek mq3 which go into my two firepods, granted the firepods are great, but for the money they serve me quite well. i take my mics too,
Rode NT1-a (pair)
Blue ball
Shure SM57 x 5
Shure SM58
Yamaha Subkick
Audix d2 x 2
SE Electronics SE 4's x 2
Blue - 8-ball Microphone
AKG D112
and a pair of monitors most of the time is the tascams vlx5s just because of the wearandtear.
using logic 8 to track.

the one problem ive had is just getting it not sounded like its a recording in a room/house/shed/toilet. does anyone have any ideas about how to kill the sound, my guess would be big acoustic panels? but is there another way?

[tINY]

If you own a lorey or a delivery van, then you can build up some pannels. Generally, the useful ones will be made of 100mm mineral or glass semi-ridgid pannels and have a frame and covering.

Check on the acoustics forum.



-tINY