We have an old one, and my husband has experimented with it some. We have some manuals too. I'll ask him to come see this thread tomorrow, his day off-- otherwise he's not on the Cat much. I know he will appreciate any tips others have, too.

We use ours now weekly to catch our Saturday night service, and we use it about like you'd make field recordings for now-- two mics going in that catch ambient sound from mic'ed and amped vocals and autoharp pickup. There area variety of reasons why we are set up that way now. But Hardiman has also used it to do multi-track recording of the various instruments he plays, and has done a few mixdowns.

We bought ours used from Yale Music, Sayre PA. The owner and his band had used it week after week to do a bluegrass radio show, and found even the small unit quite wonderful for all their purposes. Bet they'd spill their secrets too. I'll dig up the phone number for you when Hardiman posts. Far as I know, they aren't online yet.

Which model do you have, made approximately when, and what features does it have? And how many people and instruments are you trying to catch? Are you also using a mixer? What's your setup?

A good resource for more sound tech tips is Kingdom, Inc., located near us, which supplies church musicians internationally. Their catalogs are a wealth of how-to-use tips, and they have done some other publications also that may be of some help indirectly. Don't be fooled by how primitive their website is-- they are mostly order-by-phone consultants. For a catalog, go to:

www.kingdominc.com

~S~