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I second what cassembler has to say. It's very hard to mix front of house from the stage. You can't really know what it sounds like in the room without being out in the room.
Why don't you spend a bit of money and hire your own tech?

If this is all about cost effectiveness and bringing in business I would advise you go with a 1/2" machine. If you are working at the indie level (as I'm sure many of us are) the people you will be recording will be paying more attention to cost then sound. Not to imply that you shouldn't be strivin...

Sounds like you've got a noisy amp. Not much you can do other than swap out the amp. The only other thing I would suggest is to try a different mic. Lots of condensors are hyped in the upper mids and highs. This might be bringing out more of the hiss. Try a dynamic mic or a different condensor.

I swear by omni dynamics for guitar cabs. To my ear they sound more true to the sound coming out of the speaker. I use 57's for my live sound gig because thats what the club has but I'm never crazy about how they sound. They do an OK job but who wants Ok when you can have great. I love my EV 635a (y...

I'd spend the whole 10k on building a good room. My partner and I converted my garage into a small but good sounding (and fairly soundproof) live room for about that much.
It's the best piece of gear we have.

I used to do this with an old Phillips r-t-r. I'd run a signal to it, crank the gain till it get crunchy, and bring it back up on another track. Sounded ok but I'd run into phase issues if you have the origanal track and the distorted track up at the same time.

I don't know much about the ADAT but the tascam 38 is great. Sounds great and is a real work horse. Just remember that buying (or trading for) a used reel to reel is like buying a used car. You never really know what you've got untill you've got it.

I always found that on the really complex stuff I would have to record the song twice. I'd do a demo version (a demo of a demo) so I could figure out what worked and what didn't, and what order stuff would have to be recorded in. Once I'd figured it out (and writen it down) I'd do a good version. Th...

Shure VP64. It's a black omni dynamic broadcast mic. Shure's version of the 635a. Sounds great on electric guitars. My other gem is the AKG d19. I love it under a snare drum pointed towards the beater of the kick. It gives a nice sizzle to the snare and tons of trashy attack on the kick. It also doe...

You might want to try a Decca tree set-up. It was developed by Decca Records to record classical stuff. It was also used to record the "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" record (which sounds great). I'm not sure of the specifics of the set up.... I know it involves 3 mics set up in a triangle pattern. An o...

Does anyone have a suggestion of a decent portable mic pre to use with mini disc? Cheap is good, DIY is better.

[sadly, you will not be able get the tape sound without delay] This is the truth. If you monitor off of the source you you won't get the sound of the tape you'll just get the sound of the shitty sony pre-amp. The best thing to do if you want to the sound of tape in your Adat set up is to synch an an...

I just got a bunch of Labtech phones from a computer surplus store. They're big closed back phones . They sound good enough and I paid $5 a set. It doesn't matter what kind you buy, they'll be destroyed after 5 or 6 sessions.

For this to work you have to send the signal from the repro (or playback) head to your ADAT. Because of the time it takes for the recorded tape to move from the record head to the play head there will be a bit of a delay. This will mean your kick and snare will be out of time with the rest of your k...

If you are planning to tour or travel with your amp I'd stay away from any new tube amp with circuit boards. Older tube amps (even the cheap ones) were wired point to point which means they are all but indestructable. The new reissues usualy break down when they get banged/dropped/stomped on by bagg...