SSL (Solid State Logic) Announces LIVE Console

SSL launch first ever live sound console at Prolight + Sound 2013



“We are very confident that we have created a console engineers will fall in love with.”

Expectations of a Soundman!

Home Recording Studio Drum Platform Design

Controlling drum leakage in your recording space, is probably the biggest problem in the home recording studio.
One way to solve the problem is to record the drums in the studio area while the rest of the band is recording in the control room. No more leakage but the scratch tracks are pretty much useless because of the leakage in the control room.
One problem solved and another problem is created. There has to be a better way.
If you isolate the drums properly, the leakage in the adjacent mics is not a problem. So what is the best way to isolate the drums?

The Solution: Build This

Home Recording Studio DIY Gobo Design Diagram

Here is a gobo design that I put together for a home recording studio. It can also be used for live applications (drum surround).

The most important part of the design is the use of "Quietrock 525" you cannot scrimp on this, it costs about $65.00 per sheet (4' x 8') but it makes all the difference.

Live Recording & Audio Recording/Video Capture-Editing Studio

We are installing a complete Live Recording - Tracking studio for Christ Life Church in Tacoma, WA. They are upgrading their existing live sound system to accommodate live audio recording and live video recording.

This church is blessed with remarkable musical talent. They have produced and recorded their own CD's (in a recording studio) already and now they what to capture their live performance.

We are installing a new 32 x 8 split snake from Radial Engineering and 2 of the new Tascam DM-4800 digital boards. One for the live and one for the studio. To record and track in the studio we are installing a Tascam X-48 (48 track hard-disk recorder) which gives them the ability to record the live performance to individual tracks as well as another 16 tracks available for tracking in the studio.

For the video capture we are starting with 2 Panasonic HVX200 HD camera's, a third camera will be added later. The editing bay consists of a new 8 core Mac Pro setup with 8 gigs of RAM 2 x 750 gig hard-drives and 2 x 24" Monitors that can handle 1080p HD. Software to edit video Final Cut Pro Studio 2, and Logic Studio to handle the audio.

The great thing about the Tascam board is that it is also a controller for the most popular DAW software (pro tools, logic, sonar, etc.)

We will be dealing with the acoustics of the sanctuary as part of phase 2 of this project. For now the church will be honing their skills on the new equipment.

Live Recording - analog, digital, with computer, harddisk recorder?

What are the pros using for live recording (bands)?
Things have changed rapidly in the way that we record live. We used to use a separate mixer and get a feed from the direct outs of the FOH mixer to record the performance. That practice for a long time only changed slightly when digital multi-track recorders became available. Pro-Tools has become the digital recording program of choice for many years, only because it established a foot hold early. Now things have got real interesting as far as new things to come along.

Digidesign has released the live/recording consoles (The Venue Series) which give Pro-Tools users a real good way to mix and record live, of course this would be at the high end.

What is the best Projector for my Church?

Quantify whether you have the ability to do a rear projection system.

If you can do a rear projection system anything above 2000 lumens will work. Provided the space behind the projector is enclosed and ambient light can be controlled in that enclosure.

What to look for in a projector:

Minimum Lumens: Rear projection (2000)
Front projection (4500)

Contrast Ratio: >1000

Bulb: Arch type Bulb (not filament)

Minimum Bulb life: 2000 hours

Aspect Ratio: Both 4:3 and 16:9 (widescreen)

Resolution: 1280 x 720 (HD) other wise know as 720p (progressive)
1920 x 1080 other wise know as 1080i (interlaced)

If you can, try to find a projector that has sealed optics.

Panasonic has some new models that are liquid cooled and have sealed optics.
PT-D5500U
PT-DW7000U
PT-DW7700U

Live Recording - analog, digital, with computer, harddisk style recorder, or mixer/recorder stand alone unit?

When you are ready to start "Live Recording" you will find in your research that you have a lot of options. Which one is the best? First you need to put together a couple of lists. One being the intended audience for the final product (target quality), and how to distribute it (internet, CD, DVD, DVD ROM, etc). Once you got that figured out you can start looking at what equipment and process it would take to do that type of recording. So lets look at an example:

We want to record the pastors message and put it on CD and put it up to the Web Site.
Target Quality: CD = 44KHz / 16 bit Internet = mp3 format

Now comes the fun, what do you use to record? You could use a Direct to CD recorder for example: Tascam CD-RW900/901 Standalone CD Recorders


But then you still have the internet version to deal with. For that its best to record direct to a computer. So for the above need the best solution would be to record to both at the same time. If you need to edit the material before you release it, the answer would be to skip the Tascam unit and record directly to computer and create 2 files when you are done editing. One for the CD distribution and one for the internet.

Next we will tackle: Live Music recording