Re: Alesis HD24 Tips and Tricks?
Steve - good catch.
All - thanks for all the tips.
The AV team had a guy who had used an HD24 before so he was well acquainted with it. LS9-32 had a MY16-AT card for the first 16 channels, and then they used a Digi 003 for the last 4 channels as a converter – it automatically passed through the mic pre channels to the ADAT lightpipe for a total of 20 tracks.
Recorded at 24/48K for the whole show with one stop – we recorded a set of songs before the show (no audience) and then recorded the entire show, which had 2 songs, with a lot of instrumental walk-on music (a la Paul Schaeffer). Fun time had by all.
Overall, great, and love the flexibility of being able to tweak EQ/dynamics and pan/volume after the fact. Out of 9 songs, we have 3 keepers that with minimal cleanup will serve us fine for a demo for a competition we’re entering.
For next time:
As much as I tried to buss 4 tom mics to 2 channels based on panning, the main AV guy is a drummer and used 4 individual direct outs for the toms. I’d want to ensure the vocals (3) got direct MY16-AT channels before extra tom mics.
I will bring my MY8-AT card next time as a "just in case" vs. the 003 thing. I'm guessing it would have sounded better, particularly on vocal channels.
Crowd mic was excellent idea and will ensure we use it again from now on if we have spare channels.
Glad I didn’t buy or rent a Fireport, since Alesis’ software for it only works on OS 10.5 or lower; luckily our AV group had a lower OS mac and transferred it for me. Also, the rental of the HD24 came with a Fireport.
Need to spend more time marking the sweet spot on my Bandmaster for the mic; sounded good onstage, but from playback it could have been 1” or so down, closer to the middle of the speaker. Nothing a little parametric EQ can’t fix, but would rather capture it good as is.
We need to bring our own condenser mics for Hihat and OH; my Pro37’s sound better than the ones that come in the Audix drum kick package.
Our drummer needs: better high hat cymbals, more moongel or parts of Aquarian rings to dampen ring, and a cost-effective way to haul his DW hardware around. His hardware feels like it’s made from depleted uranium, and we have to load it on a dolly gingerly. If anyone has a suggestions on a good cost-effective case for standard DW hardware, less than a full ATA case, either fibreboard or sKB it would be great.
Thanks again to everyone for all of their suggestions and recommendations – made this truly a successful show recording for us.
