Recording
Author: admin
Soundboard Recording
At Journey Church we are blessed to have an Allen & Heath GL2400-32 console in our weekend adult environment. I have had the pleasure to use this console for the past two years and can not say enough about how great it has been for us, but since this is about podcasting let me get to the point.
For our setup I run two dual mono 1/4″ plugs to stereo 1/8″ plug cables from the 2Track IN/OUT Left and Rights to my MacBook. The 2Track IN connects to the Headphone Out on the MacBook and the 2Track OUT connects to the Line In on the MacBook. The 2Track out signal is the same signal that is sent to the front of house speakers and is controlled by the Main Out Volume sliders on the console. In addition the headphone out to 2Track IN returns the signal going through the computer back to the console and can be routed to the headphones or the Main Mix (NOTE: Do not send this signal to the Main Mix since it is the Main Mix, very loud, high pitched sounds will result as well as a large number of very upset people staring at you with their hands over their ears. Or at least that is what I am told will happen.)
On the MacBook I use two applications, one for recording and the other for editing. The application that I use for recording is called Audio Hijack Pro, you can also use Audacity, which is the application that I use for editing.
In Audio Hijack Pro I record our entire service to a single file. Specifically I record to an MP3 file at 256K stereo. This gives us a high quality archive of our services. One of the features of AHP is to set the input and output sources and shows them on the screen as visual confirmation that I am recording from the Line IN and not the built in microphone. That has happened to use twice both times in our first year and while the entire service was recorded, the recording sounded like the house band and speaker were in a large tin can, but the chatter in the soundbooth was loud and clear.
I also use a couple of effects in AHP while recording. Such as a multiband compressor, some additional gain, then my signal branches out to two preset EQ choices one for “Rock Band” during a majority of the service and the other for “Spoken Word” with some additional gain during the message/sermon time and then finally both branches come back through the VU Meter that gives me a dual channel signal meter to see the signal level. These settings are really up to your own preference and once you find what works best for your setup you shouldn’t have to really touch them.
Now we have our audio recorded, we can move on to Editing.