Mobile Recording with Group Effort

At Group Effort we have a 'thing' for live recording; a Mobile Thing to be exact. Our 24-track mobile recording rig is available for onsite recording at churches, clubs, theaters, festivals, you name it.

We love to record live performances and offer a wide variety of location recording options from extremely economical to full-blown multitrack hi-resolution hard disk recording.

At the simpler end of the spectrum we can record stage performances like choral concerts, chamber music (string quartets, woodwind quintets, jazz combos etc.), orchestral performances, vocal or instrumental recitals using a very simple but high quality two-microphone setup recorded directly to stereo, in high-resolution (24-bit) digital recording.

From there all you have to do is transfer into the computer, make start ID markers and burn a master CD. We offer this service for a nominal charge of $150 for a concert lasting up to 2 hours, additional hours are $55 each. Editing of the concert into final format is billed at the normal studio rate of $55/hr. It usually takes 20 minutes or so to put in the start IDs for CD on a typical concert. Once a master CD or CD set has been made and approved, it is ready for duplication.

The next level up is to record your show using multiple microphones, using a mixing console to combine them to stereo and record them mixed to final stereo right there at the performance. This method has it's advantages (in the cost department) and it's disadvantages (in the flexibility department).
Since you are mixing to stereo, it removes the whole process of overdubbing, fixing, and mixing which can be a huge cost savings. BUT, since it's "live to two" any mistakes made during the performance are NOT fixable unless you have an alternate take available such as the same song from a different show or night.
Really complex shows with widely varying instrumentation from number to number, constantly changing musical styles and ensemble size variations do not respond well to this method, but rock and jazz groups, choral concerts with small accompanimental groups do really well. Typically we would charge about $350 a night for this depending on the venue and the logistics involved.

Going up to the "full-blown" level we can do a multi-microphone, complete 24-track live recording with full capacity for overdubbing, mistake repair, editing, and mixdown. Projects like this involve a conisderable amount of forethought and planning with regard toeverydetail of the performance and it is very important not to leave very much to chance if you want a solid recording of your performance.
The benefit of doing it this way is if you do all the advance work correctly, when you are all done, you will have a live concert that will absolutely compete in the world market.
Approximate cost for this service is $850 for the first show, $500 for each additional show (on consecutive days). Remember, you will need to do any kind of "flub repairs" and mixing later, and these activities are billed at the normal studio rate of $55/hr.

To hear an example of the kind of results we get with our mobile setup try listening to a few of these live performances we've done:

We also offer live sound services for that small to medium sized event. We have a small but very high quality system that we rent out with Bill as your engineer and can cover up to a few hundred people outdoors for any relatively normal group, perfect for festivals or concerts. Cost starts at about $200.