Good Cheap Multitrack Recorder to capture Live Output?

[The Hulk]

Hey guys,
Anyone know of a good, cheap multi-rack recorder (preferably 8 tracks/8 ins or more) that would be good to capture Live Output...live? this would would be helpful for those of us who, when playing live in Live want to capture our monitored audio as well as everything else. I guess we could request that Live build in a multi-track feature like this so we could get an accurate account of our Live performances, but I think it would more CPU intensive than Live already is. So yea, if anyone knows of a good 8 track analog or digital multitrack in the $300 price range to recommend, i'm listening!

[Akhros]

Get an Akai DR8 now it is very cheap on Ebay...
You can seperate you tracks on an Maudio Firewire 410
It is best deal - then you plug into - 10 db direct into your DR8
Your sound can be professional still just you can recapture + 4 outside of the DR8 calibrating with sound card then master properly inside your puter in 96 khz at 24 bits
after dop down later to 16 bits 44.1 khz.
You can mix from the DR8 programming but I recommend that you do an automation in Live -
Then burn you CD
Good luck...
Akhros

[Guest]

i record the master out into a session view track clip for all my live perfomances--crispy sounding stereo live performance to be sure. I've also recorded gigs and some practices of me recording and tweaking up to 8-10 clips in session view, whilst recording everything to the arranger view as well--takes up some hardrive space, but this is your best solution--you not only have a multitrack recording of your set, but you've recorded all of the automation, knob/slider moves as well, just in case you want to fix things in the mix YOu could buy a big old hardrive for less than an 8 track--save some flow and do it all inside Live--works great for me!

Ryan

[The Hulk]

i record the master out into a session view track clip for all my live perfomances--crispy sounding stereo live performance to be sure. I've also recorded gigs and some practices of me recording and tweaking up to 8-10 clips in session view, whilst recording everything to the arranger view as well--takes up some hardrive space, but this is your best solution--you not only have a multitrack recording of your set, but you've recorded all of the automation, knob/slider moves as well, just in case you want to fix things in the mix YOu could buy a big old hardrive for less than an 8 track--save some flow and do it all inside Live--works great for me!

Ryan

wait a minute...so your just bouncing the audio from your live set to another live track? (of course, that's pretty brilliant actually!) but can you do that from within Live? or are you running all your audio out through a MOTU like device, then running directly back into another track?

[Akhros]

When you do a session seperate 8 channels in repartition of your 8 tracks recorder.
select thru the compressions needs dispatch to make breathe the mix and reroute all these automated tracks onto tracking or dat etc then capture on your puter before mastering at higher ratio you can - so dsp's breath if you stock them in wavelab or peak bias.
Take more time to make a file but you want a final good result.
of course you are resampling higher than your 8 tracks cheap recorder but you need good final process so it has little efficacity. You are not recording Pavaroti with Live so go for it that way...
Burn always only in real time 1x.
I know everything can be done into Live but how will it sound if you make breathe your mix by reeq external from your stucked puter.
The sound result will grow stronger in dynamic range without masking harmonics. Especially if you resample thru analog entries of your audio card.
Akh

[The Hulk]

I think i understood that. So if I'm doing a song that involves 8 tracks, i make an extra 8 tracks in Live to capture the Audio? Then I route the first 8 tracks going out of the MOTU. Then I take several quarter inches and wire them from the Out of the MOTU right back to the in. then I set up the next 8 tracks to record live in from the corresponding live outs. So there's no internal way to do simultanious multi-tracking? that's a lot of wiring in the back of that MOTU 828! anyone know of a better way to do this?

[Akhros]

I see you wanna minimize outside jumps and stay in your puter.
While you capture in MOTU close Live and finish it in MOTU then.
Rewire does work in MOTU system. It will behave the same apart you should render all tracks not requirering analog aquisition.
If you want some analog process there do something cheap :
Make your compression equalisation traking the mix in master of motu and inserting main processors : the compressor and the eq in chains.
You captured your Live separatly it is neat...
Apply nice eq's to each tracks needed.
Might be that you compressed already in Live - apart from a voice - sample we create or pick-up get compressed by aquiring itself thru processors wich was analog. entry..so....
Now render you master and Drop final touch into T-Racks by IK-multimedia while you proceeded 24 44.1 Kh or 48.
Take the template you like being audio mastering suite there.
Finish it not distording please it be sounding great...
Then apply a normalise - 1 db never at zero ; back in MOTU saving back to 16 bits 44.1.
Your track is finished edit ready to burn then.

[quandry]

wait a minute...so your just bouncing the audio from your live set to another live track? (of course, that's pretty brilliant actually!) but can you do that from within Live? or are you running all your audio out through a MOTU like device, then running directly back into another track?

Yes. it is the harmonious interaction of session and arranger views--total number of aforementioned cables--Zero! Try it out. Load a set with session view clips on 8 or so tracks. Go to arrangerview, click record button for each track you wish to record "multi-track" style in the arranger. (i.e. if you want to record clips from session track one, arm arranger track one to enable arranger recording of clip and automation). 1:1 track ratio, no extra tracks. Now press the master play button, then the master record button in the control bar, then start firing session clips up, and watch in the arranger bar icon at the top of the session view as it starts recording in the arranger--sweet! Recording only starts when clips are triggered, and I think Live basically just keeps refering back to the clip--i.e. even though it is layed out across the arranger view, you're not actually using hardrive space to record a 3 minute .wav per track for a 3 minute song, just however many seconds long your clips are. One cannot simultaneously record in both session and arranger (they are mutually exclusive by design), so for sets that are more or less from scratch, arm the arranger records first. Then arm session clips as needed to create your session clips, thus "overiding" arranger record arming temporarily while your record your session clip. As soon as you stop recording session clip and it goes into looping playback, the arranger view starts recording again. So you do miss the material you're playing into a session clip while it is armed for and/or recording a clip, but as soon as you stop recording (or disarm) session clip, arranger is back in action. given that you now have an editable document of a performance, you could go back into the arranger and copy/paste in that missing first time you played the clip as it was recording in session view. Good luck, it definitely works and is a much smoother workflow than all those cables and hardware and junks.

Ryan

[The Hulk]

I see you wanna minimize outside jumps and stay in your puter.
While you capture in MOTU close Live and finish it in MOTU then.
Rewire does work in MOTU system. It will behave the same apart you should render all tracks not requirering analog aquisition.
If you want some analog process there do something cheap :
Make your compression equalisation traking the mix in master of motu and inserting main processors : the compressor and the eq in chains.
You captured your Live separatly it is neat...
Apply nice eq's to each tracks needed.
Might be that you compressed already in Live - apart from a voice - sample we create or pick-up get compressed by aquiring itself thru processors wich was analog. entry..so....
Now render you master and Drop final touch into T-Racks by IK-multimedia while you proceeded 24 44.1 Kh or 48.
Take the template you like being audio mastering suite there.
Finish it not distording please it be sounding great...
Then apply a normalise - 1 db never at zero ; back in MOTU saving back to 16 bits 44.1.
Your track is finished edit ready to burn then.

well, i think i follow you. the thing is, i'm looking to capture at least 6 tracks live, simultaneously...so i think if wiring is the solution then I'll stick with that. Now, the big question is, do i really have that kind of CPU on my OS X Tibook? I will let you all know if this is a feasible solution!

[Guest]

wait a minute...so your just bouncing the audio from your live set to another live track? (of course, that's pretty brilliant actually!) but can you do that from within Live? or are you running all your audio out through a MOTU like device, then running directly back into another track?

Yes. it is the harmonious interaction of session and arranger views--total number of aforementioned cables--Zero! Try it out. Load a set with session view clips on 8 or so tracks. Go to arrangerview, click record button for each track you wish to record "multi-track" style in the arranger. (i.e. if you want to record clips from session track one, arm arranger track one to enable arranger recording of clip and automation). 1:1 track ratio, no extra tracks. Now press the master play button, then the master record button in the control bar, then start firing session clips up, and watch in the arranger bar icon at the top of the session view as it starts recording in the arranger--sweet! Recording only starts when clips are triggered, and I think Live basically just keeps refering back to the clip--i.e. even though it is layed out across the arranger view, you're not actually using hardrive space to record a 3 minute .wav per track for a 3 minute song, just however many seconds long your clips are. One cannot simultaneously record in both session and arranger (they are mutually exclusive by design), so for sets that are more or less from scratch, arm the arranger records first. Then arm session clips as needed to create your session clips, thus "overiding" arranger record arming temporarily while your record your session clip. As soon as you stop recording session clip and it goes into looping playback, the arranger view starts recording again. So you do miss the material you're playing into a session clip while it is armed for and/or recording a clip, but as soon as you stop recording (or disarm) session clip, arranger is back in action. given that you now have an editable document of a performance, you could go back into the arranger and copy/paste in that missing first time you played the clip as it was recording in session view. Good luck, it definitely works and is a much smoother workflow than all those cables and hardware and junks.

Ryan

[The Hulk]

wowa, hold on ryan, is that more of a mastering technique to get a complete mix down? What if you want 8 seperate tracks (including all the monitored audio you didn't loop as clips?) For that I'm thinking you need to be running 8 cables out of a MOTU 828 and right back to the 8 ins. am i right or still off base?

[Akhros]

You go to Abletons LIVE party you lucky bastard
Akhros