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what gear do people use for a live (in a venue) recording of a band ie... a desk mix / room mics etc... what mics what recording medium / equipment etc ...

And what generally produces the best results...

JJ

I engineer a radio show called Live From the Fallout Shelter where we (try) to have a live band play on the radio each week. It's in a room at a radio station, not a venue in the strictest sense of the word with people clapping, cheering, etc, but we're still recordinga live band every week. Basically, we record a different bands live album each week. Here's a quick rundown of what we use:

Kick-AGK D112 or Beta 52
Snare-57
Toms-421 plus a Sennheiser E609 on the first tom in the event they have three toms
Overheads-With sort of high profile bands we use a stero-set of C414s. For smaller local bands, or if we're afraid our mics are going to a good whack with a drumstick we use ATM 33s
Bass-D112
Guitar-57 and/or E609
Vocals-58 or Beta 58
Acousitic guitar or cello, violin, etc.- Studio Projects C3

Console-Soundcraft K1

Recording-We record to DAT which and also to CDR on a Sony CDR-W33. Bands get a CDR at the end of the night. We get the DAT for our archives.

We have some compressors, effects, and outboard gear, ART VLA, Alesis, etc, etc, etc.

what sort of set up do you need to record gigs from the crowd? do you need a battery powered condensor?

it's just like studio stuff, in the sense that there's all kinds of varying degrees of equipment that you can use, from a mono cassette recorder with a built-in mic, to a fancy-ass board with a ton of mics and a 2" 24tk. and the room (and your location in it) can make or break a recording, especially from the audience.

i've had good luck using various 2-track recording devices (cassette, mp3 recorder, laptop, 1/4 r-t-r), and either a stereo pair of mics in an x/y pattern, or a single room mic and a board feed, recorded separately to the left and right channels, to be mixed together later. the best mics i ever used were a pair of sm57's. many of the recordings sound fine.

a lot depends on the venue. if you have a cooperative sound guy (or even better, if you *are* the guy running the live sound desk) you can set up your own mix of all the stage mics using an unused aux send (if the board has one available). if you have an opportunity to record a soundcheck, listen back, and then make adjustments before the set, you can get some great results from that.

my experience has typically been that board mixes are generally all drums and vocals, mostly vocals, too. which makes sense if you think about it. the human voice on the stage is contributing the least stage volume, and as a result needs to be put into the house mix the most.

better mics are gonna yield a better recording, obviously. i can't wait to try the pair of KSM137's a picked up recently. but like i say, a pair of SM57's can produce a document of the live show that's certainly listenable (unless you're a massive production-snob) and it's always nice to be able to look back on a good show and have more than just your memory.