How to record a rehearsal with Mbox

[kelly pettit]

I checked out a lot of threads so if I missed this one, forgive me.

I want to try to capture a decent rehearsal practice into my Mbox pro II. I'm aware of bleeding problems but I'm still curious if anyone has some good suggestions since I'm new at this.

My main question isn't about mic setup or types of mics but moreso, the best way to connect the gear (but any tips are welcome.

I have a Yamaha EMX 5016CF Powered Mixer and an external compressor. From that I guess I will have to run lines out of and into the Mbox. I gather I can only get two tracks instead of everyone on seperate tracks. Any of this wrong? I'm no expert as you can tell.

Any advice offered is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Corran]

Yep you get two tracks - so make sure your mix is right and feed it to the MBox. It's just a rehearsal so it doesn't have to be perfect, right?? If you want more inputs...well then we need to start talking about budgets

*Just make sure you aren't running the powered outputs to the MBox okay? Just whatever master outputs it has, I'm not familiar with that model specifically.

[baslotto]

Are you trying to mic separate instruments into the mixer and run the stereo bus into the MBox?

It's pretty hard to have good results because you can only mix on the Yamaha before you get to the MBox.
I can only recommend you a pair of well insulated headphones so that you can understand if anything is clipping. If you want to try this remember to keep the levels super low on the mixer.

What mics are you using? If you have a figure 8 and a cardioid I'd go MS to the MBox bypassing the mixer, it would be the same thing without worries about clipping the mixer.

Hope this helps, I'm sure there are hundreds of ways of doing it but it's always a tough setup to work with.

Bas.

[kelly pettit]

Are you trying to mic separate instruments into the mixer and run the stereo bus into the MBox?

It's pretty hard to have good results because you can only mix on the Yamaha before you get to the MBox.
I can only recommend you a pair of well insulated headphones so that you can understand if anything is clipping. If you want to try this remember to keep the levels super low on the mixer.

Originally Posted by baslotto

What mics are you using? If you have a figure 8 and a cardioid I'd go MS to the MBox bypassing the mixer, it would be the same thing without worries about clipping the mixer.

Hope this helps, I'm sure there are hundreds of ways of doing it but it's always a tough setup to work with.

Bas.

Thanks for the replies. I would also prefer to record directly into the Mbox as that is what I always do at home. However, with only two inputs available on the mbox I don't have many options for laying each instrument/vcls on their own tracks. I am under the impression the only way to get a 5 piece band live into an Mbox is with a mixer. Am I missing something?

[Corran]

Nope you aren't missing anything - the MBox only has two inputs, so you can either record each instrument separately or mix them live with a mixer.

[ghellquist]

Or you could do what the rest of us do when we record orchestras: make it sound good in the room, use a stereo pair of mics where it sounds good. Works up to and over a hundred musicians ( been there, done that).

Gunnar