Best way to record a live album? (Hardware setup)

[Joe]

Over Christmas vacation both Tessa and Travis (those names don't need to be remembered, of course) will be returning from college and the USCGA, so the entire TRANSPARENCY worship band of the 05-06 school year will be returning, and they're an awesome band. I've worked it out with pastor and Marianne that we will be holding a big long concert over break, and I'd like to make a CD of their music and sell it (of course, cheaply, and 100% donated to the work of God, yadayada).

Backstory and useless details over, I need to know how to go about doing this. I'm of course doing this with permission, and am a "certified tech dude" at my church in good standing with the youth group, etc, so I'll have full access to messing up (er.. using) the sound board, etc. I was planning to split the cable from the sound board to the speakers and then converting that to a standard headphone plug, and then using male-male speaker cables to run that back into my faithful friend Aria (a laptop), while she runs Replay Music, making MP3's, and then of course burning them from there. Does anyone notice any obvious flaws in this plan? Any better ways to do it?

[Newby]

Replay Music? That's pretty shitty. You're gonna get crap ass quality.

If someone buys a CD, don't give them shit quality for songs.

[d&q]

If someone buys a CD, don't give them shit quality for songs.

I think that's precisely why he's asking for advice. 

[Newby]

If someone buys a CD, don't give them shit quality for songs.

I think that's precisely why he's asking for advice. 

I thought he was asking for help with hardware setup...

[d&q]

Doesn't the setup of the hardware make a different in sound quality? (I wouldn't know, but it seems sensible to me.  ). I've never used Replay Music either.

[Newby]

Doesn't the setup of the hardware make a different in sound quality? (I wouldn't know, but it seems sensible to me.  ). I've never used Replay Music either.

The hardware setup will make a difference in the audible quality. I'm talking audio stream quality. MP3s aren't anywhere near as good as raw wave files, and if you're capturing and encoding directly to an MP3, odds are that's what you'll burn to a CD. And that just isn't cool.

[Joe]

Can replay music capture to a WAV? Or would burning a 320kbps MP3 to a CD have bad quality? Honestly, I personally don't notice bad quality until 64kbps or lower, and I have a hightened sense of hearing due to lack of smell and poor vision. But, sure, what's a good piece of software to capture a mega-long WAV file, and how long would.. say.. two hours of concert end up being disk-space wise. I don't think it'd hit 6gb, but if it does we'll have a problem (poor Aria is tiny..). Of course, I may have a better laptop by then due to my job, or just use my moms (60gb ftw.. I doubt it'll fill that!).

So yeah, shoot some software ideas too.

[Towelie]

Can replay music capture to a WAV? Or would burning a 320kbps MP3 to a CD have bad quality? Honestly, I personally don't notice bad quality until 64kbps or lower, and I have a hightened sense of hearing due to lack of smell and poor vision. But, sure, what's a good piece of software to capture a mega-long WAV file, and how long would.. say.. two hours of concert end up being disk-space wise. I don't think it'd hit 6gb, but if it does we'll have a problem (poor Aria is tiny..). Of course, I may have a better laptop by then due to my job, or just use my moms (60gb ftw.. I doubt it'll fill that!).

So yeah, shoot some software ideas too.

I sure as hell can notice a difference between .flac and 192kpbs. So... I advise .wav!

[leet_muffin]

Can replay music capture to a WAV? Or would burning a 320kbps MP3 to a CD have bad quality? Honestly, I personally don't notice bad quality until 64kbps or lower, and I have a hightened sense of hearing due to lack of smell and poor vision. But, sure, what's a good piece of software to capture a mega-long WAV file, and how long would.. say.. two hours of concert end up being disk-space wise. I don't think it'd hit 6gb, but if it does we'll have a problem (poor Aria is tiny..). Of course, I may have a better laptop by then due to my job, or just use my moms (60gb ftw.. I doubt it'll fill that!).

So yeah, shoot some software ideas too.

IIRC, Sony's Acid program can record to high quality .wav, check it out. And you're gonna' want to find a fully liscenced copy, too. Demo won't let you export files.

[Hitmen]

You're going to be recording it through the line in on a laptop... unless you have something other than on board sound it's going to sound like shit anyways. As far as software, if you have a decent sound card, go the shady route and download something like cubase. That way it won't sound crappy and you can touch up the sound a bit after. Since you're going to be selling the CDs for jesus, and you'll probably sell like 6, I doubt there would be much of a legal problem.

[Newby]

Since you're going to be selling the CDs for jesus, and you'll probably sell like 6

I love you. Seriously.

[deadly7]

For anything decent, as far as a live album goes, you'd need good equipment aside from your sixty year old laptop.  And I doubt your church has that kind of money.

[Joe]

For anything decent, as far as a live album goes, you'd need good equipment aside from your sixty year old laptop.  And I doubt your church has that kind of money.

I don't. I doubt they're going to spend it just because I recommended it, but they have talked to me (youth pastor, especially) asking about computer things.

You're going to be recording it through the line in on a laptop... unless you have something other than on board sound it's going to sound like shit anyways. As far as software, if you have a decent sound card, go the shady route and download something like cubase. That way it won't sound crappy and you can touch up the sound a bit after. Since you're going to be selling the CDs for jesus, and you'll probably sell like 6, I doubt there would be much of a legal problem.

Yeah, I kinda forgot about how horrible onboard sound recording is. I'll have to give it a test sometime going out of a sterieo into the laptop. .

[deadly7]

I don't. I doubt they're going to spend it just because I recommended it, but they have talked to me (youth pastor, especially) asking about computer things.

Oh really?  Your church just has a few thousand dollars laying around?  Damn.

[d&q]

Some churches are surprisingly rich. My church just built a ~1.7 million addition to their property, and is going to build even more.