Want to put life into Church Recordings

[Melton]

Greetings Mac-a-teers, this seems like a wonderfull forum so hear we go.
I recently 4 months ago, started doing sound for our Church we have a Mackie SR24.4 board yes old. All I record now is the sermon but I'm dying to start recording our music and want to use Garage Band to help me make it come alive. I just recieved my Onyx Blackjack USB interface. with 2 inputs. I know now I should have gone with firewire but for now this is what I have. Finally my question. The Garage Band instuctions say it is possible to record from my board. What output from my board do I need to use to go to the input of my interface which has 2 inputs that can except XLR or 1/4TRS. Avalible outs from Board as I can see would be, 1 of 2 Head phone jacks, L & R control room out which is what I'm now using ran to a CD recorder, I have 6 Aux sends using 2 for stage monitors, and 4 sub out.

 

[ChrisA]

My opinion: Ignore the mixer. Run run each mic directly into an input on the audio interface and record the direct, unprocessed sound and do any mixing later

 

[Melton]

Greetings Mac-a-teers, this seems like a wonderfull forum so hear we go.
I recently 4 months ago, started doing sound for our Church we have a Mackie SR24.4 board yes old. All I record now is the sermon but I'm dying to start recording our music and want to use Garage Band to help me make it come alive. I just recieved my Onyx Blackjack USB interface. with 2 inputs. I know now I should have gone with firewire but for now this is what I have. Finally my question. The Garage Band instuctions say it is possible to record from my board. What output from my board do I need to use to go to the input of my interface which has 2 inputs that can except XLR or 1/4TRS. Avalible outs from Board as I can see would be, 1 of 2 Head phone jacks, L & R control room out which is what I'm now using ran to a CD recorder, I have 6 Aux sends using 2 for stage monitors, and 4 sub out.

This is live recording during service only have 2 inputs to intrface, have Piano, 2 guitars, drums, 5 singers, to record at one time.

 

[ChrisA]

This is live recording during service only have 2 inputs to intrface, have Piano, 2 guitars, drums, 5 singers, to record at one time.

Then you have the wrong audio interface for this application. You need more inputs

You can make do by using an external mixer. But you said "put life into" so I figured you wanted more then an archive kind of recording. Using an external mixer only lets you capture the live mix, no chance to fix things up later.

 

[alexh123drum]

You could run the instruments into the desk and make sure you have a good mix there. Then run the left and right output of the desk into 1 and 2 on the audio interface. Then Pan them left and right respectively.

The down side to this is that you won't be able to mix the different levels later.

 

[polaris20]

Then you have the wrong audio interface for this application. You need more inputs

You can make do by using an external mixer. But you said "put life into" so I figured you wanted more then an archive kind of recording. Using an external mixer only lets you capture the live mix, no chance to fix things up later.

While you're technically correct in that a multi-input interface would help, honestly in a church setting a sub mix on a decent mixer into a 2-track interface isn't going to be that much worse. It's not like he'll be able to isolate each instrument on each track, so there will be so much bleed-over due to the live setting that multiple inputs start to be less advantageous. The only way to truly do that in a church setting would be to DI the guitars, bass, piano, and then use electronic drums. Actually, I've seen this done, and it works very, very well. But I think that's outside the realm of possibility for the OP at this point.