ENGLAND — These days, archiving nightly shows on tour is standard fare, with many A-list bands spending upwards of $50,000 at the drop of a hat to build a touring recording rig. But as Jim Ebdon found on the current world tour with Maroon 5, he was able to turn his DiGiCo D5 and Apple Mac PowerBook into a flexible mobile workstation with RME’s HDSPe MADIface 128-Channel 192 kHz MADI PCI ExpressCard.
“With this setup, I’m able to have a fully functioning recording studio on the road,” Ebdon explains. “The MADIface card takes up virtually no space and I can get it in my computer bag. With that, along with the D5’s fantastic functionality and very small footprint—I’ve got one small rack at FOH and one on stage with one thin cable linking it all — I can get great results.”
Ebdon continues, “The MADIface is basically two cables and I can record and play back up to 56 straight, pre-EQ, pre-compressors, pre-mute, straight-from-the-mic pre -amp right into the computer. I’m using Apple Logic, but there are half a dozen other programs you can use just as a recording platform. And it’s rock solid. Out of the box, with the plug-ins it comes with for $499, it’s a fantastic program. It was so easy to set up for the first time, and the recordings sound great. We also have 6-7 cameras shooting the show every night on this tour, so we can easily sync up to the video, too. So for next to no money, a band could easily release a DVD from this as well.”
Ebdon’s been able to get most of what he needs from the DiGiCo D5’s onboard sound palette, and is carrying only a handful of additional external effects for this tour including a Focusrite Producer Pack, a TC6000 for extra and different-sounding reverbs and a De-Esser for Adam Levine’s lead vocals.
“I’m a ‘less is more’ kind of person,” Ebdon confesses. “In rehearsals, we made sure that the sounds were good. I’m big on that you have to get the source sound right and choose the right microphone, and a good mixing console does the rest. And theoretically, I just push the fader up and it sounds fantastic. On this tour, we’re using 52 inputs at FOH with a 56-input stage rack. I could’ve let it get to 60-70 inputs, but three guitar mics on a guitar cabinet is a bit excessive. I use very little EQ purely because we’ve got the sound right on stage.”
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