Live Recording on a Mac

[entersoundman]

Hello folks,

 

I'm soon to be purchasing a MacBook.

 

I do alot of live sound, mainly for bands and other musicians. I was wondering about what would be the best, but cheapest (I'm skint) way to record the mix to my laptop. USB/Firewire mixers are too costy for me. I would be using a Live 4 2 desk, and would use garageband or Logic Express on my Mac.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Tom

[Ben Langfeld]

Do you want to record one channel per track (full multitrack) or just a stereo mix? If you have a couple of spare auxes, a post fader stereo mix would be the simplest. This would then follow your house mix, but you could tweak it to be heavier on kit and guitars, which would naturally be lower in the house mix in a small venue.

[entersoundman]

Do you want to record one channel per track (full multitrack) or just a stereo mix? If you have a couple of spare auxes, a post fader stereo mix would be the simplest. This would then follow your house mix, but you could tweak it to be heavier on kit and guitars, which would naturally be lower in the house mix in a small venue.

 

I'll settle for a stereo mix (although a full mix would be grand).

 

Would I use a USB interface for this?

[dunk_1984]

We have a rather rubbish 11 channel Desk (1 channel died) available for recording for a band - but when we record for a band we simply go out through the Headphones Jack into a PC via Line in Socket; recording using freeware called Audacity.

[entersoundman]

Our headphone out is knackered. Besides that how good would the quality be?

 

If I were to need an audio interface, can anyone recommend one? I have my eye on M-Audio's Fast Track USB, any good?

 

Please Note that I haven't got much to spend. :blink:

[dunk_1984]

songs on the Myspace in my sig.... if you are going to start comenting on them please bear in mind it is recorded on a live rig in a church as it says.... and in about 2 hour slots....

 

I have a Creative Soundblaster (external) I don't know about MAC compatabilty though... MACS are rubbish but this isn't a computer or a MAC forum/thread.... so I shall leave it at that

[Soundie]

I would recommend that you use a pair of auxes.

 

Decide if you want them to be pre-fade or post-fade. Post-fade means that when you turn down the fader, that channel output to the aux output will also go down. Pre-fade means that the channel output to the aux output does not depend on where the main fader is. Pre or post fade will depend upon the exact thing you are doing, what makes most sense.

 

Either way, on your mixer the Aux output is on a (Balanced, 3-pole, TRS) Jack. Your macbook has a line-level input on a mini jack, which you can record into your macbook with (its on the side, next to the headphone connection).

 

To connect the two together you will need a cable, 2 x Jack to 1 x Mini-jack cable. As has been suggested, Audacity is great free software that works on Macs and on PCs. Alternatively Logic would be equally as good (if not better).

 

 

The only reason to get an external soundcard to get the sound input to your macbook is if you are not happy with the quality of the built in sound input on the mac, but I'm sure you will be just fine.

 

 

So in summary, 2 x Aux out from the mixer, through the cable above, into the line in on your macbook, to record onto audacity.

 

 

Remember that you dont have to record a 'stereo mix'. You have 2 channels availiable to use to record, so these can be used for anything, it doesnt have to be left and right. I often find it more useful to use the two tracks for different things (eg. ch1 for backing, and ch2 for solo voice) than to have a stereo recording. A good mix is more important to most people than a stereo recording.

 

 

 

... Edit made to pre/post fade to avoid future confusion...

[Ben Langfeld]

As Soundie says, the line in on the MacBook should be just fine. Macs tend to have much better inbuilt audio devices than most PC type laptops.

[Bobbsy]

Er, I'll start by saying I've never used a Mac myself, but I was recently asked to evaluate a recording done by a friend on his practically-new Mac desktop. The audio on his Line In was seriously noisy, even worse than a Sound Blaster and that's saying something. I measured the noise floor between clips at around -49dB.

 

I haven't heard a report back from my friend so perhaps his experience is not typical. However, I wouldn't expect a notebook to be any better than a desktop...and likely worse. Unless you're a regular Mac user with the ability to measure noise, I'd be cautious about saying things like "should be good enough". A specialist external sound card will almost certainly be better.

 

Bob

[Ben Langfeld]

Well then maybe I'm just perpetuating a myth, but I had heard from various reliable sources that Apple laptops tended to have very quiet inputs in comparison to PC type laptops. I'll be getting a brand new MacBook in a couple of weeks so will try and make some measurements.

[mackerr]

Decide if you want them to be pre-fade or post-fade. Pre-fade means that when you turn down the fader, that channel output to the aux output will also go down. Post-fade means that the channel output to the aux output does not depend on where the main fader is. Pre or post fade will depend upon the exact thing you are doing, what makes most sense.

I agree fully with the use of auxes for recording, but you have your pre and post description backward. Pre fader means the aux audio is picked off before the channel fader, so any changes you make in the channel fader will not effect the aux send. Post fader is picked off after the channel fader, so any changes you making the channel fader will also effect the aux send.

 

Mac

 

 

Well then maybe I'm just perpetuating a myth, but I had heard from various reliable sources that Apple laptops tended to have very quiet inputs in comparison to PC type laptops. I'll be getting a brand new MacBook in a couple of weeks so will try and make some measurements.

I don't know where you get the special cable, but both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro have stereo optical digital in and out in the mini jacks. That should ease any noise issues with regard to the computer. I didn't get a cable with my MBP.

 

Mac

[Ben Langfeld]

I don't know where you get the special cable, but both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro have stereo optical digital in and out in the mini jacks. That should ease any noise issues with regard to the computer. I didn't get a cable with my MBP.

 

Mac

 

 

This appears to be what you're meaning. Does anyone know of a relatively cheap A/D convertor that'll take two line level inputs and kick out optical S/PDIF?

[Bobbsy]

I wonder if a specialist A/D converter would be any cheaper than an external USB or Firewire sound card?

 

Bob

[bruce]

Macs tend to have much better inbuilt audio devices than most PC type laptops.

 

But that's not difficult. Most PC laptops have appallingly bad onboard audio inputs, so saying "Macs are better" is hardly a recommendation :blink:

 

Virtually all PC laptops have unbalanced mic-level inputs, so you need to attenuate your source before it hits the mic input, or run with the external gain very low. Neither of these will help your noise floor :(.

 

I have come across a few (well, I can only think of one brand - an IBM Thinkpad) which had an unbalanced line-level input, and that allowed me to get a slightly higher noise floor. But none come close to a 50 quid external USB interface.

 

Also be careful about ground isolation - some can introduce nasty hums - depends on the nature of the laptop PSU. I have found that Dell are particularly bad for this, followed closely by (ironically) the more expensive Toshiba ranges. But there are lots of other threads on this forum that discuss this specific issue.

[Soundie]

Decide if you want them to be pre-fade or post-fade. Pre-fade means that when you turn down the fader, that channel output to the aux output will also go down. Post-fade means that the channel output to the aux output does not depend on where the main fader is. Pre or post fade will depend upon the exact thing you are doing, what makes most sense.

I agree fully with the use of auxes for recording, but you have your pre and post description backward. Pre fader means the aux audio is picked off before the channel fader, so any changes you make in the channel fader will not effect the aux send. Post fader is picked off after the channel fader, so any changes you making the channel fader will also effect the aux send.

Of course, I don't know why I wrote otherwise, must have been having a 'non-thinking moment'. I'll edit my original post to avoid future confusion.