Professional Sound Card

[JuanT]

Hi guys, I'm in need of a rig to record audio straight to the hard drive of a purpose-built PC. Will probably need to add a decent video card for vid conversions and so on, but for now, just the audio.

I'll be taking in the input from a church's audio systems probably the whole 3+ hour service, recording it, and converting it to an MP3 or any other handy format.

Later on I'm hoping to tie in a camera of some kind so I can record A/V straight to the HD. Will be burning it to DVD for storage, and speed won't matter much.

I'd appreciate any recommendations for the following:

- Professional-enough sound card
- Model of HDs, preferrably 500 gb or so, that are reliable.
- Software ideas


Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Blain]

Our church uses Cool Edit Pro and the sucky onboard Dell sound.
You've got me thinking now. I'll have to talk to them about an M-Audio Revolution or Audiophile 24/96.

 

[JuanT]

There's an open-source program called Audacity that I'm trying to get to know. Looks pretty cool actually.

M-Audio Revolution or Audiophile 2496, I'll start from there. Eventually they want a website, which I'll be building as well, to put these things in. Any ideas for a camera that can use the audio input instead of relying on its own tiny mic?

 

[Blain]

What type of camera are you needing?
If a camcorder, get one with a HD for faster capture time.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: JuanT
Hi guys, I'm in need of a rig to record audio straight to the hard drive of a purpose-built PC. Will probably need to add a decent video card for vid conversions and so on, but for now, just the audio.

I'll be taking in the input from a church's audio systems probably the whole 3+ hour service, recording it, and converting it to an MP3 or any other handy format.

Later on I'm hoping to tie in a camera of some kind so I can record A/V straight to the HD. Will be burning it to DVD for storage, and speed won't matter much.

I'd appreciate any recommendations for the following:

- Professional-enough sound card
- Model of HDs, preferrably 500 gb or so, that are reliable.
- Software ideas


Your help is greatly appreciated.

I think you first have to evaluate the equipment the church currently uses and how you plan to output from the current equipment. If you are going to use a single two channel line-out you could use the on-board sound line-in without any problems (unless maybe you are using a P!!! 400mhz cpu).

If the church equipment can output multiple tracks/channels and you want to capture them then you will have to choose the device with appropriate inputs/dongles. That device/card will have a 'lite' version of some serious professional multi-track recording/sound software included - might have a steep learning curve for you.

There are some DV camcorders with a dedicated audio line-in input that will capture realtime streams and output the A/V by firewire to your 'puter. There is freeware/shareware that comes with retail DVD/CD burners (Roxio DVD Builder - I can't remember the Nero version offhand) that will capture realtime streams.

The woods are full of A/V software at any price point. I use Premiere for realtime capture and split the audio/video streams - the audio can then be encoded separately.

HD's are really good/inexpensive these days. Don't pay more than $.25 / gb

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: JuanT
There's an open-source program called Audacity that I'm trying to get to know. Looks pretty cool actually.

M-Audio Revolution or Audiophile 2496, I'll start from there. Eventually they want a website, which I'll be building as well, to put these things in. Any ideas for a camera that can use the audio input instead of relying on its own tiny mic?

Depends on the camera - check the specs. Mine is a DV tape and I just pass the streams by firewire directly to the computer. Premiere automaticly recognizes the capture device - which can be a problem with a specific device/software if you are doing it realtime.

Be careful not to create too much work for yourself.

 

[JuanT]

Thanks a lot guys, this narrows it down a lot! I do believe the equipment can output multiple channels. I'll need to take a closer look.

Any specific recommendations for a mid-level DV camcorder?

 

[oynaz]

Don't worry about the HDD. Any modern drive will do fine.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: JuanT
Thanks a lot guys, this narrows it down a lot! I do believe the equipment can output multiple channels. I'll need to take a closer look.

Any specific recommendations for a mid-level DV camcorder?

I'm not comfortable sticking my neck out on this one

Don't confuse A/V inputs for stereo mic inputs. A/V inputs allow you to use the cam as a capture device to pass-thru vhs tapes/dvd/tv to your computer by firewire. I've seen 2ch and 4ch mic inputs. miniDV tape works for me - you can even get HD miniDV tape models. Most will shoot at 16:9 or standard 4:3.

I think you are looking at $500-$1,000 once you determine how you are going to use the existing equipment.

WARNING! Take your time and fully understand the limitations and capability of all your existing equipment - and that of the equipment you plan to purchase. Diagram your setup and discuss your needs with someone who can help you. If your video capture devices do not have audio capture hardware it will be very difficult to use the PC sound hardware effectively unless it (or your software) can adjust the sampling clock to that of the video. You will be in audio/video sync hades as the sampling clocks will most certainly be different.

Good luck!

 

[JuanT]

Thanks for your replies, it's done much to help me prepare!

The sound mixer used by the church is an Allen & Heath GL2400 and I've tried to get to know the nitty gritty but there isn't exactly a help site to understand the terminology here. Or my google-fu is weak. Looking around for a pro to talk with and not just a salesman.

A/V sync is a bit more solvable I think, at least through software. Oh how I long for the days of tape... well okay no, not really.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

The GL2400 is a nice board but it's designed for mixing live sound through a PA and is not a recording board, but it does have direct 1/4" outputs on each channel which can be utilized for recording.

I would use one of the Echo cards
Echo Audio

They make firewire and PCI based recording cards from 2 - 12 channels. How many inputs used on the board would be how many channels you would need.

Using the direct channel approach you would be able to set levels on the PC and get a pretty good rough mix, then mix it down with the software provided with the card and produce a pretty good result. And if you want to make it more professional send the rough multi channel mix to a post production shop and let them do the final mix down.

 

[herm0016]

the GL boards are nice. we used a 4000 for our monitor board before we picked up a used yamaha pm-4000M. what you should do is use the aux sends for your recording. there should be knobs on the board labeled aux groups 1-6 ( 2 yellow, 2 blue and 2 brownish i think) the knobs on the channels are the gain control going into the aux and the knob on the aux is a gain for the entire mix. use the afl button to listen to them in your headphones. these are the knobs located above the 4 red and 3 yellow faders. (colors may be wrong? i think that is what they are) you should set it up so that you have a mix of the different parts of the service, such as a mix of sections of the choir together or whatever else you want to mix to get the sound you are looking for. then you can record just the output of the aux to your card. this way you will be able to record everything using less channels. if you have more questions on how to use the board let me know.

 

[JuanT]

Thank you very much guys. I'll have to get an even closer look at the board next sunday. This may be a lot less complicated than I thought it'd be, but honestly I'm a hopeless software guy so these practical things take getting used to.

Those Echo products look great but unfortunately the only Canadian retailer is in Quebec, and I'm here in Toronto. On the other hand, the M-Audio cards are quite accessible as they're sold in a chain of stores that are sprinkled every which way.

The choices are between the M-Audio Audiophile 192 and the M-Audio Audiophile 2496.

And I think I'm going to lean towards the 192.