Hello All

We have a couple live shows coming up I'd like to capture on my PowerBook with Cubase. I've always done it with a DAT, 4-track or tape deck since they are very much "fire and forget" interfaces, meaning, I can hit record and forget about them, except to flip the tape.

Any suggestions for capturing with software? How many minutes of continuous music can a PowerBook running Cubase capture? I can't really babysit and run the recording, I'll be too busy playing guitar and singing. I have a friend who can man the controls for me if necessary.

How does everyone pull this off? Bring in the 1-hour show as one big sound file and split it up later on? Grab 2-3 songs at a time?? The ideal situation would be to hit record and then stop it at show's end and sort it out later.

Suggestions very much appreciated.

Thanks - JB

You're right, and that's the best way of doing it. Recording one hour continuous audio should cause no problems whatsoever. Why not do a test run beforehand - just record anything from your audio inputs into Cubase, just the same way you're planning to do it live and see how it goes to be absolutely certain.

Heh. Great idea. Dunce cap for me - why didn't I just try it out? Heck I can do that with it plugged iinto a mic at my house. Better yet, I'll try it at band practice tomorrow night.

Cool, let us know how it went then - and good luck for the gig.

This probably sounds really obvious but, if your going to record for a full hour with out saving a couple of times during the recording process it would be wise to hook up a mini disk or tape recorder to a spare output just incase your Power Book freezes up at some point.

It would be a proper pisser if your mac/cubase crashes out right before the end of the performance!

I've been in similar situations, and I use only Protools. After every couple of songs, I hit stop and then hit record again. As Angryman points out, I also hit record in case of a freeze or crash or whatever. Stopping and restarting the recording has me end up with smaller files.
I used to just hit record at the start of the show and not stop until the end, but given that I backup all of my files to CD, this caused problems. I would end up with 800+ Megabyte files. Now I hit stop and restart recording every few songs, I end up with audio file sizes that are easier to deal with.

When I record a live show, I use only the microphone input of my computer, have a y-split wire (left channel, right channel to a 1/4" plug) running to it from the main mixer's Record output jack. Then, I have the options of recording them in Audio Hijack, Sound Studio, or Live 4.0(demo). I mainly use Audio Hijack to get audio input from the mic, and record the whole session, no stopping. But, as a safety precaution, I would turn off my sleep when not in use mode, and my screen saver, so that wouldn't have any interferences as it is recording. Also, make sure you have enough memory available for the large file. I have an external 160 GB harddrive for my music and pictures. Then, to break it up into individual conmtinuous tracks, I would open the file in Sound Studio and set what are called Marker Points, which you can set when you want a track to begin as well as give that segment a name. I don't use Live because you don't have the option of making a continuous Live performance CD, with track points. Plus Sound Studio is way less than Live 4.0. So, here's a breakdown:

Reccording: Audio Hijack gets audio from any source and records it
www.rogueamoeba.com.
Editing Track: You could use Live 4.0 to edit it, like using equalizers or whatever www.ableton.com
CD Editing:Sound studio records from an input, mic for instance, and set track markers www.felttip.com

www.rogueamoeba.com
www.felttip.com
www.ableton.com

Also, for a bit of confidence, well known DJ, BT, use Live 4.0 on his Laptop and an M-Audio keyboard for his live performances!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/dance/nightingale/bt/

click on the photos to see for yourself...