Cheap recording device with multiple outs?

Lee_B

Lee_B

Readin' me posts are ya?
May 16, 2001
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Surbiton. The Posh bit
www.elitistrecords.co.uk
I need to find something with at least 4 outputs for live use. While a stereo minidisc seems to be the way a lot of bands go with one track for click and a mono output, I saw the band Hollenthon use some sort of rack mounted hard disc recorder with 8 outputs routed through the main desk. The result was amazing, but I can't remember what they actually used and Google hasn't helped. My old band used to use a Tascam 38 on stage, but it wasn't particularly practical, especially for the poor bugger hidden behind the cabs swapping tapes in record time.

So.. can anyone recommend something with more than just a stereo output that would also be sturdy enough for a tour?
 
Lee_B said:
I need to find something with at least 4 outputs for live use. While a stereo minidisc seems to be the way a lot of bands go with one track for click and a mono output, I saw the band Hollenthon use some sort of rack mounted hard disc recorder with 8 outputs routed through the main desk. The result was amazing, but I can't remember what they actually used and Google hasn't helped. My old band used to use a Tascam 38 on stage, but it wasn't particularly practical, especially for the poor bugger hidden behind the cabs swapping tapes in record time.

So.. can anyone recommend something with more than just a stereo output that would also be sturdy enough for a tour?
Click to expand...
a couple years ago i made acquaintance and friends with the South American power metal band Angra. after hanging out with them at L'Amours in in NYC and watching their show i asked them if they were playing to a click and if any of the keys were running with the click since it seemed often to be too many parts for the keyboardist to play himself. tlhey turned out to be using a 4-track mini-disc recorder/player and said it had been totally reliable and had never failed on them. furthermore it was inexpensive enough to buy 2 of them, make duplicate discs, and have a back-up ready at all times in case something did go wrong. it sounded great as well. here's a link to one on eBay.
b8_1_b.JPG

so.. you can have click on one track, stereo keys on 2 tracks, and a spare.. maybe for a harmony line here or there.
 
Brett - K A L I S I A said:
For a very reasonable price (less than €500) you could find a Fostex D108. Here is a brochure for it : http://www.playback.fr/produits/FOSTEX/docs/d108_d160.pdf
The band I'm working with bought one very recently, but I didn't see it yet... They seem to be very happy with it. The only thing is that the outputs (8) are RCA but I guess this is not a big problem. Hope this helps...
Click to expand...

I'm sure that's what Hollenthon used. The model number really rings a bell. Thanks for the help.
 
Andy Sneap said:
pc or mac live, er no!
Click to expand...
...that would be asking for problems, which is why i made the multi-track minidisc suggestion. i made that same suggestion around one year ago to Richard Christy when he asked me the very same question. Richard had been charged with finding a multi-track option for click and backing keys/samples by his then band leader John Schaffer for Iced Earth's "The Glorious Burden" tour. i strongly suggested the multi-track minidisc option as opposed to the path toward which Richard had told me that his boss was leaning... a PC laptop running PT LE (hi Mulder :wave: ) with either the 001 or 002 interface. Richard agreed and made the case for the minidisc option but that idea was veto-ed and the band went with the PC laptop/PT LE choice. i cautioned Richard again against that choice and then left it alone... the decision had been made.

well, anyone who saw more than one show off that tour can tell you that something was going very wrong onstage and for many of the shows they had to either play the glorious burden songs without click/backing tracks or leave them off the set-list entirely. Richard later told me that stress levels on stage were exremely high due to the problems that i had warned him would very likely happen.

don't learn the hard way! anyway, judging by his comments, Lee has his head squarely on his shoulders about the subject. :rock:
 
James Murphy said:
Richard had been charged with finding a multi-track option for click and backing keys/samples
Click to expand...
:OMG:

Sorry for being offtopic, but I've never heard about using a click track live, and I'm very curious about this. Is this a thing that most bands use? Could you explain how the click track is created, if it's just a deafening click in the monitors :grin: or is it a rough version of the songs? And how do you deal with tempo changes? And tipically, live shows have improvisation, how do you deal with that?

:wave: Thanks a lot :rock:
 
Forge Farm said:
Sorry for being offtopic, but I've never heard about using a click track live, and I'm very curious about this. Is this a thing that most bands use? Could you explain how the click track is created, if it's just a deafening click in the monitors :grin: or is it a rough version of the songs? And how do you deal with tempo changes? And tipically, live shows have improvisation, how do you deal with that? Thanks a lot
Click to expand...
it's common for bands with lots of orchestrated parts and it's still possible to improvise with solos and such, just not with the arrangements. i would say too that there are a great many bands who don't improvise at all live. many do though of course and playing live to a click is not a route those bands usually take.

tempo changes are very easily dealt with by creating a tempo and meter map in a sequencer. then just record it into whatever system you are using live. just a click, or click with any keys your keyboardist can't handle live, or vocal harmonies, guitar harmonies, any samples, etc... the click goes only to the drummer via headphones or in-ear monitors and the rest out the the F.O.H.

hope that clarifies a bit.
 
yeah basically what james said, ive seen a live video of van halen playing jump and because the synth solo was a backing track the drummer was listening to a click track so it all fell into place, if you ever watched metallica play enter sandman live and it gets to the prayer bit after the solo, its usually out of time because they didnt use a click track to stay in time with the sample.
 
Heres an example of a band using a pc live. A laptop that, which would be far better than an actual desktop for obvious reasons.

http://www.theoceancollective.com/

have a look at the pdfs on the second link to see why they use it and how:

http://www.theoceancollective.com/techrider.html

The reason for using a pc being that they always play to a click and they need one of their members to control the lighting rig and the way it responds to what they play... so for them theres really no other way of doing it.

In summation, what i'm saying is that it can be done and some times works in the right scenario!
 
then i'm sure that as Void play more and more shows they will have enough bad experiences to convince them to find a more stable solution and hire a lighting director.. lol. cheers to them for having a Mac though, that's undoubtedly saved them a load of problems... anyway, the first time some drunken punter knocks the damn thing to the floor or the motherboard fries from all the moisture in a sweaty hot venue and the dodgy ac current, or the heat of the lights kills the hard drive they'll re-think their plan, eh?

saw the band Nocturne a while back, they used a PC on stage. the show came to a grinding halt 3 seperate times as one of them rebooted the damn thing.. talk about a vibe-killer.

one of the early tours i did with Testament had this band called Red Square Black as opener. RSB was notable at the time because their drummer was Randy Castillo (ex-Ozzy Osbourne) who died of cancer a few years ago.. nice guy, really cool to hang with. their guitarist, John Lowrey, wasn't particularly notable at the time but went on to be known as John 5 of Marilyn Manson. also a nice guy. i bring them up because they used sequences extensively both on their CD and in their live show.. all handled with a Mac laptop operated by their technically savvy singer. they had surprisingly few problems and most of the shows went without incident, but they did have some problems over the course of the tour and even those few were enough to drive them, particularly the singer, mad.

so, i was not trying to make the case that it can't be done.. it's been possible and practiced for a long time. that tour with RSB was over 10 years ago. rather i was suggesting that even one crash can ruin your night and kill the momentum of a live show that had been going fine. i know this from witnessing it first hand as well as by suffering vicariously through horror stories of friends like Richard Christy. there are other solutions that are more stable than having a mac or pc onstage with you every night, and in fact they are usually cheaper as well as more stable and durable.

things can go wrong with any set-up in a live situation, but throw a personal computer in the midst of the already dodgy environment in most clubs and the possibilities for cock-ups magnifies exponetially.

do it if you must, but a word to the wise, have a back-up system in place.
 
Well if i was going to do it, i'd make damn sure it worked before I took it out anywhere, thats for sure. I should add I probably wouldn't anyway!

I agree that there are easier and more robust options... not to mention cheaper!

It's not the most practical thing to do at the moment, but just think, if someone made one for the purpose with safe gaurds against all the stuff that could go wrong. Then it'd be better than just using a sampler or whatever, in my opinion anyway.
 
OS's would have to become waaay more stable and virutally crash-proof and also prices would have to drop considerably to convince me.
 
Using a PC or Mac live puts any data on the hard drive at serious risk, as there is very little space between the reading heads and the actual disk. The vibrations caused by being in a loud venue mean that the reading heads hit the disk. This can cause some serious problems.

Also, the motherboard on my laptop CRACKED (I mean litterally cracked in two) during a 1hr DJ set last August (it was less than 10mths old).

The closest I've got to using my laptop live since has been using two IRiver portable audio players (with all tracks encoded in FLAC).
 
nitro... yes, quite a few do

razor... YES!.. thank you, i'd missed that point out but it is exactly correct... i get anxious here at home if i even slightly bump my computer desk while the computer is reading/writing from/to disk.
 
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