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More and more recording artists and bands are recording their live concerts than ever before.  While recording of live concerts is nothing new, these ones are actual legal! :)  SERIOUSLY though...a live concert recording will always have more energy and a “vibe” to it than a studio disc.  Making music is about passion, and those that have passion for their music create magic when playing live. The perfect live recording are those capturing this passion, magic, and energy to make the listener feel like they were there.  And those that are done perfectly make them want to be there!  As a recording artist or band, this is also additional revenue that can be earned outside of studio CD sales, ticket sales from touring, etc.  But even if you’re not a professional artist on the road, there are many benefits to recording live especially for houses of worship.  Multi-tracking live to Pro Tools with Venue is one of the easiest, yet most powerful means of live recording I’ve ever experienced.  Technically speaking, there are two different scenarios for recording a live event as outlined below.

This configuration is pretty typical in that you’re taking the direct outputs right off of the console.  If you’re recording on location, then you’re at the mercy of whatever console is installed at FOH---not all have direct outputs.  Another factor is that not all consoles allow you to bypass the channel EQ and inserts as well as the gain level.  Although many mixing boards do send the direct out after the pre-amp gain, you’re also relying on the gain level set in FOH.  This might be fine for a concert or a club, but in a church setting they might run a lower gain-stage.  Either way whether it’s too hot or too low,  it’s not up to the recording side of things to set the level but rather the FOH engineer--and that’s not always a good thing!

Another issue is monitoring the recorded signal, are you sure that you’re getting a clean recording?  The following example is showing a Mackie Onyx 48ch console feeding (2) Alesis HD24 recorders via analog snakes, then returning the tracks digitally into a Tascam DM4800. While this does sound just fine, it does have some limitations and drawbacks.

This second configuration is really the BEST way to multi-track a live concert or worship service by utilizing splitters.  A splitter will take a single input per channel and literally split it into two or more outputs.  Typically this is used for the FOH Mix and a separate Monitor Mix, but often a third split is introduced giving a recording mix.  But when using a console for the recording, you can also create a monitor mix and “kill two birds with one stone, so to speak”.  There are basically two different kinds of splitters.... a passive splitter means that one console/pre will control the phantom power and an active splitter where each engineer has true and total control over each level. 

I’m showing this configuration using a duplicate analog console, however using dedicated microphone pre-amplifiers is often used as well.  The issue, however, is you still need a means to monitor the recorded tracks.  In either case, the Alesis HD24’s are not the only solution--but it’s one of the most common that I see and design for my own clients.  As they say, there are many ways to skin a cat but when it comes to recording a live event--these are really the traditional ways of doing it.  Either way, there is plenty of analog cabling involved.  By the time you get down to the end, there’s a lot of signal loss across all frequencies.  And that’s not even taking into account the cost involved with this!

The above configuration with a D-Show/D-Show Profile console with Pro Tools HD is simple, eliminates a great deal of cable, and sounds superior compared to its analog counterparts.  Because the A/D converter is in the STAGE RACK, the length of analog cabling is typically from the microphone/instrument directly to the connection---or worst case via a small drop-snake.  Either way by eliminating a long copper snake, all of those issues are also eliminated that come with analog wiring including both the sonics and the massive size it occupies.  And should the wire ever get cut or damaged, you just lost at least a channel if not more.  In addition, the cost of these types of snakes (especially with splitters!) can be insanely expensive!  The connection from the Stage Rack to the main computer is simply (4) BNC cables, allowing for easy installation to a distance far greater than analog will allow for.  Venue actually only needs (2) of these BNC
cables, however the other connections are redundant that keeps the console passing audio should something happen to one of the other lines.  From there, Venue has an internal split that will then send the audio out to either Pro Tools LE or Pro Tools HD, depending upon which option you have installed.  In the case of the Pro Tools LE option, a single firewire cable connects to your Macintosh or Windows computer.  As with Pro Tools LE, you do need a Digidesign interface in order to boot and operate the software.  It just so happens that, in this case, the Venue console qualifies as that interface---so no additional hardware is needed aside from the Firewire Option Card.  One very important thing to understand is that Pro Tools LE has a limitation of 18-channels of audio input/output at a time.  While this certainly makes sense with a 003R interface that has 18-channels of I/O, logic might tell you that because you do not have this limitation of I/O with the amount of I/O on Venue--- you do.  This is where the Pro Tools HD option is meant for those with larger, more demanding needs.
Interfacing the Venue D-Show or D-Show Profile with Pro Tools HD gets a little more interesting, and fun!  Unlike Pro Tools LE which uses the computer’s native processor to power everything, Pro Tools HD has its own DSP engine cards that process all plugins, audio, audio monitoring, signal processing through out the system.  To learn more on the differences between Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools HD, click here.   Pro Tools HD requires the use of an approved audio interface, such as their 192I/O.  But when connected to a Venue console, again Venue is seen as the audio interface in the same way that it’s seen in Pro Tools LE.  HOWEVER, there are times that you DO wish to have a dedicated audio interface in a remote location. The way that these Pro Tools cards in your computer interface to an I/O is through the use of a Digilink Cable.  Each Pro Tools card is capable of seeing up to 32-channels of I/O via the use of (2) Digilink cables with each showing 16-channels of audio.  But when using Venue connected to Pro Tools HD with these same Digilink cables, the channel-count is seen as one bank of 48-channels (Stage) and another bank of 16-channels (FOH).  Up to (2) cards can be installed for a total of 128-channels of audio to/from Pro Tools and Venue.  Recording directly to Pro Tools HD from Venue requires NO additional audio interfaces, therefore saving you thousands of dollars if you were trying to multi-track into Pro Tools HD from any other console.  And again because everything is digital once it’s plugged into the stage box---there is nothing that can get in the way of your audio quality to weaken the signal, degrade the audio integrity, or hurt the performance.  In the end, the quality of audio sounds as if you were in a recording studio---yet with the feel and emotions of the live recording.  In my situation, I use this configuration at my church to not only multi-track our worship service, but to mix live through-out our campus on our closed-circuit television network.  During the week, we edit the video and audio as well as re-mix for our local television broadcasts.  At Blackhawk Ministries, we’ve been airing on our local ABC affiliate (which reaches more than one million people) for 35-years---so we’ve been through every possible change you can imagine.  Although we are a house of worship, we have the same needs as any other broadcast studio.  For more detailed information on using Pro Tools HD with Venue in a broadcast situation, click here.