With regards to this post, yes the foh engineer can just plug laptop a laptop into some relevant spare outputs on his desk, or have one of those all in one "2 mics, some storage and a record button" gadgets that they just sit on the desk, but the downside to these methods is the mess-with-it factor afterwards is greatly reduced, all you can really do is EQ, compress, and crank the gain up, you cant pull out the naffed up guitar solo and re-record it, or tweak the very out of tune singing. Great for post gig review, bad if they want something decent for their myspace or a live ep. <warning. tech speak> A fair few of the venues around aberdeen have facility on the desks to take more than just the stereo mix to a recording device, for example, on venue has a luuuvly big midas console, with the right connector loom (XLR on desk) you can take a seperate output from every single channel, thus having everything seperate (switchable pre and post desk fader, insert and EQ) for maximum mess-with-it factor. Alternatively you can take group outputs (XLR i think, dont quote me) and take sub mixes, such as a stereo mix of the drums, a stereo mix of guitars, a mono feed from bass blah blah blah. <end tech speak> I wont go on, my fingers are hurting from the typing. Suffice to say, if a band wanted a live recording of their gig, their are a number of routes to go down depending on the venue and budget and time available. Though it must be said, i did think of offering these option to bands as extra cash on the side as im there anyway, and still might buy some toys in the future, but what i figured i needed would have been transportable by bus and train, as it basically consisted of a decent laptop and a 4U rack with some MOTU outboard soundcards and jizz in it. Rucksack and Rack recording studio. Thats longer than i thought it would be, but being a uni project, theres no such thing as too much information. All fine in theory, though the van may be a bit too much, rucksack and rack then mix down in bedroom/acoustically treated garage/car (sounds bad? i got highest grade in class for that mix at college ) Hope this helps Shealesy
