ProTools live tracking at venue: Advice needed

[Daedalus77]

Greetings, all—

We operate a mid-sized studio with an HD3 rig, Apogee converters, lots of outboard, yadda yadda. Recently, a friend at a local venue inquired about us doing a series of live recordings of area bands.

To my knowledge, the venue has the usual spitter system providing separate inputs from FOH and monitors but not a third set of inputs that might be dedicated to a multi-track set-up.

Their board is a Yamaha M7CL. I'm not terribly familiar with that console, but the FOH guy says that while it doesn't have direct outs, per so, he can use it's digital matrix to give me a bunch of aux sends that will perform the same purpose.

I'm thinking I'll take a PT|LE system on a MacBook, use a 003 and take the Rosetta out of our HD rig (using the ADAT outputs to interface with the 003), clock the whole system off the Rosetta, and get 16 inputs worth of stems from the Yamaha's analog outputs. Then take it home and mix on the full-bore HD rig.

Any advice on the feasibility of this set-up?

Many thanks.

[Daedalus77]

Anyone?

[bishopthomas]

Sounds like a plan. Just make sure beforehand that the M7 actually has 16 available outputs. There are only 16 omni outs, so unless there are cards then you're going to be at 16 minus the PA and whatever else they have plugged in. If you're going to be doing this often then it might make sense to get the MY16AT card(s) and take your direct outs from there via ADAT.

[Adebar]

Instead of using the omni outs of the M7CL I would take a passive splitter and be independent of the FOH mixer. Not only that I don´t like the sound of the M7CL with its mediocre premaos and AD converters. With splitter you can just do your thing and concentrate on your work .

[DannyL]

I second the opinion. ALso, very often house engineers cannot hear small distortions in their preamps or channel paths. Keep it isolated.
Danny

Originally Posted by Adebar

Instead of using the omni outs of the M7CL I would take a passive splitter and be independent of the FOH mixer. Not only that I don´t like the sound of the M7CL with its mediocre premaos and AD converters. With splitter you can just do your thing and concentrate on your work .

[fifthcircle]

The analog front end of an M7 isn't exactly fantastic. Usable, but not great.

If the console has cards in it (it can have 3 of the 16 channel YAGDI cards), you can get direct outs on each channel set out a digital output. I can't remember if you can get them to be pre-fade outs like a lot of the Yamaha consoles (it has been awhile since I've done that). If they are post fade, then you're stuck with whatever the FOH guy is doing in the mix (Faders, EQ, comps, etc...).

Because of all of this, I would second the recommendations about bringing a split and your own rig. It really is the best way to avoid being slave to the live sound.

--Ben

[Daedalus77]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, the splitter seems the way to go—which is ironic, because we sold our lovely 24-channel Whirlwind transformer-isolated passive splitter (and the snakes that went with it) at the end of last summer because we weren't doing much of this work any more. Alas...

Getting stuck with the FOH mix defeats the entire purpose of doing the multi-track—or almost; and I take the point about the analog front-end and conversion quality of the Yamaha.

Guess I'm going to have to get on the phone to Whirlwind...

[Gerax]

I second the splitter solution. You'll have o bring your own preamps, but in the end you'll get greater results. Also, be sure to have your track count well planned out, as with the LE rig you'll be maxed out at 18 (if you use the SPdif in), and IME with live recordings that have to be remixed 16 tracks could be filled with just drums and bass...(depending on the setup)...don't exclude the possibility to bring your full HD rig to the venue...

[jwh1192]

could you not rent a splitter with big phat transformers and an Alesis recorder (cannot remember model #) with 24 tracks or tascam X48 and 24+ mic pre's ala ATi8MX2's ... one rack space each with 8 channels of nice pre's / depending whow many channels you need . .. used this same setup in Tuscan last year ...

would be a cheap rental setup ...

just my .02 as there are many things unknown here .. input list, blah blah blah

cheers

john

[777Artin]

Hey Daedalus77,

just to let you know the Yamaha M7CL has direct out switchable pre HPF, post EQ or post fader but it doesn't have an "direct output". You either have to go out through the omniouts or through optionnal i/o cards.

Not the best analog front-end but you have at your hands 48 mic-pres and with optionnal ADAt cards it gives you 48 ADAT i/o.

Pretty good package for the money.

777artin

[Marlan]

+1 for using the splitter.

[Remoteness]

You folks have addressed this already, but I just wanted to reinforce the sentiments...

Originally Posted by Adebar

Instead of using the omni outs of the M7CL I would take a passive splitter and be independent of the FOH mixer. Not only that I don´t like the sound of the M7CL with its mediocre premaos and AD converters. With splitter you can just do your thing and concentrate on your work .

This is clearly the way to go for a number of reasons.
The main reason is that the M7CL does not have the best sounding frontend for recording.
It does sound a lot better with external clocking, but I would never track with the desk.

Originally Posted by DannyL

I second the opinion. ALso, very often house engineers cannot hear small distortions in their preamps or channel paths. Keep it isolated.
Danny

It's true; it's hard to hear small differences in the sound in a live sound scenario like you can in a control room.
Like Danny said, "keeping it isolated is your best bet."