The Usage of MC5?

Quick question.  Would Music Creator 5 be a good product for a live event?
 
By live event, I mean church (sorry if I offend anybody).  At church we would like to record the service.  We have no way of doing so now other than with a mic and a computer's Sound Recorder which has TERRIBLE quality.  All of our mics run through a sound board that can be hooked up to a computer.  So would MC5 be good for the purpose of controlling what comes out of each speaker and recording the service?
 
 
I'm terrible at giving details so please ask as many questions as possible!!!

MC5 (MC6 now) with a small mixer and a low cost (<$200) sound interface will let you faithfully and accurately reproduce the sounds of your service.  You will be suprised at just how well you can do this with a little bit of reading, viewing tutorials, and practicing.
 
That said, once you know what you are doing, you will want to make your sound better than the live performance (fixing problems and improving the mix).  To do that you will eventially want to get Sonar X1 and a multi-channel recording interface that has at least one seperate recording channel for each microphone (including instrument microphomes) that you will want to use.

all good advice here.... post 3 referenced an interface. You might want to consider one. It will make things a bit easier to do.

Getting the audio from the church mixer board into the computer is easier and better with an interface.

An inexpensive audio only interface would work well..... using ASIO drivers.

hello

should be ideal, but i am not an expert.. prob mr Beagle et al, can throw more light on the ins and outs , but it should do what you want it to.

You take the board output... split from the mains... or pick up the signal from the monitor or buss outputs or even the headphone jack with an adapter.

Run that signal to a USB audio interface that is connected to the computer. Monitor the service from the interface headphone output.... or if you have an isolated sound booth, you can set up some small powered monitors getting the signal from the USB interface.

You will record this into either one (mono) or two (stereo) AUDIO tracks. Since what is coming in is audio, you use audio tracks.

MIDI is data from something like a keyboard or electronic drum kit. Normally NO... you will not be recording MIDI in the service. You will work strictly with audio.

Another option is to buy a dedicated CD/DVD recorder that can record to a disk in real time. I have one upstairs in my studio... it's a dual tray and I use it mostly for high speed copying. It does have the ability to record just like a cassette recorder. That is simple... hit record and run until the disk is full.

MC will allow you to edit the silence, and stuff that just takes up time, like announcements and collections, and moments of silence for prayer. You might not want them on the disk if they run over the time limit on the disk.

Ok thanks your your help/recommendations.  They'll will certainly help!

Nashville kat has a point.

Legally, and morally, the churches are supposed to be paying the licensing fees for usage. 

However as long as a song is not recorded or reprinted so the choir can learn the words..... they would not need to worry.  the churches I have attended buy dozens of the song books so they are paying the fees in the cost of the materials but they are not supposed to copy the material.

If you are recording the service and the songs end up on the recording, and you burn it to CD or cassette, you are supposed to pay the license and royalties. The easy solution to stay legal, is to only record the sermon. Which, that might be the best thing to do anyway unless the preacher preaches a 20 minute sermon..... (hopefully not...huh?)