I've had great luck with the minidisc and have made several CD's of live groups including my own. Usually I just patch into the soundboard and set the levels and away it goes. To edit, I usually patch into a dedicated mixer I have hooked into my computer and then record the files into Cool Edit Pro where I can add reverb and fade in, fade out,noise reduction if needed and push the amplitude with hard limiting to CD levels at 16 bit. I've gotten some excellent recordings this way.

Kudzuman