Digital Mixer or Audio Interface?: Anbody got any experience on this?

[csedwards2]

OK heres the scenario. Im in a band; we practice at a church and we wont to record practices and a demo plus expand later to a live setup. Right now the current setup is a PC-based laptop using the PC mic recording everything live into Cake Musc Creator 3. Sounds ok; and the guy who records actually does a pretty good job getting good quality out of the program. The problem is with out sending everybody in there, then we get a lot of air, hiss, and things sound terribly distant in the mix.

Which would we use to get everything leveled and go into the computer with a stereo input through USB? (Also for the future; What would we need to get everybody recorded to seperate tracks in the program w/o overdubs.


And we need preamps for the vocals; Probably not many though.

Budget is yay big. Its about knee high to a grasshopper. We can maybe squeeze $500.

Personally; Id want to get a Digi 03 and let them use mine; but my budget cant eek that right now either.

Any Digi 02-03 or Multimix I/O users out there can weigh in on how that piece would tackle the job as well.

[themidiroom]

How many pieces are in the band?  In other words, how many individual inputs do you want to capture in the recording?  Most of your "budget" audio interfaces will not have more than 8 discrete analog inputs.  If you want more than that, be prepared to spend a lot more money.

[b_jizzle20]

Wouldnt it be best to to get a Multi-track Digital recorder then just transfer the data to your DAW for mixing...

[csedwards2]

How many pieces are in the band?  In other words, how many individual inputs do you want to capture in the recording?  Most of your "budget" audio interfaces will not have more than 8 discrete analog inputs.  If you want more than that, be prepared to spend a lot more money.

we said atleast 12.

2 boards
guitar
bass
sax mic
voal mic
2 background vocal mics
1 kick
2 overheads

Wouldnt it be best to to get a Multi-track Digital recorder then just transfer the data to your DAW for mixing...

for $500; no way. But the most important thing is it woulnt help out our live setup

[themidiroom]

we said atleast 12.

2 boards
guitar
bass
sax mic
voal mic
2 background vocal mics
1 kick
2 overheadsfor $500; no way. But the most important thing is it woulnt help out our live setup

Hmmmmm well I guess you could just invest in an analog mixer for now.  That would be something you can use for the live setup and allow you to mix and record the band.  The problem is you're going to need at least another $500 + for an audio interface with enough inputs for each band member. 

[bluemagic]

MIDI is right, an analog mixer might be a good first step.  You might consider the PEAVEY PV20 USB which lists for $499 at Sweetwater.  It has 20 input channels total including 16 Line/XLR (i.e., microphone inputs with preamps) and 2 sets of stereo inputs as well.  It also has quite a few special effects and a USB connection where you can send the live audio mix to your PC for processing and recording.  Each input channel has a 3 band equalizer, balance, and gain controls which you can use to set each instrument/vocal level independently.  I use it in my home studio for producing "cheap" live demos since it can handle 5 drum mikes, bass input, guitar input, 2 keyboards via the 2 stereo inputs, 2 Leslie mikes, and still handle several vocal mikes.  Just remember, it's not a DAW so you can't post-process individual tracks but you can capture the whole band in a single session.  Hope this helps and good luck.