Sooner or later you’ll want to record a band—maybe your own—playing in a club or concert hall. Many bands want to be recorded in concert because they feel that’s when they play best. Your job is to capture that performance on a recorder and bring it back alive.

You can record pop-music concerts in several ways. Listed below are a range of techniques from simple to elaborate. In general, sound quality improves as the recording setup becomes more complex.

•  Record off the board (PA mixer) into a portable stereo recorder.

•  Record with a portable stereo recorder.

•  Record with a 4-tracker. Record with a stereo mic on tracks 1 and 2, while recording the PA mixer output on tracks 3 and 4. Mix ...

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