I've been asked to record a band on Saturday.
 
They have 5 vocal mics -- needs to be sent from me to the mains
2 guitars -- do not go to the mains because they will be amped
1 bass -- does not go to the mains because it will be amped
1 bongo player to mic -- needs to be sent from me to the mains
and a drum kit -- does not go to the mains -- straight acoustic.
 
I have an RME UCX, an M-Audio Fast Track Ultra that I can use for SPIDF to the RME, and a Tascam 2488 hard disc recorder which I can use the midi out from the UCX to synchronize.
 
What I'm thinking...
If I record only 10 tracks, I can leave the Tascam at home and use RME's digicheck recording software rather than running Sonar during the show. I much prefer using Digicheck when recording without needing a metronome or output from Sonar. The RME has EQ and compression for every channel and a reverb if I want it.
 
The problem is that 10 tracks is a little tight to capture the drums well. I do have a set of drum microphones (3 for toms and snare and stuff and 1 for kick).
 
I could ask the Bongo Player to use her Bongo Mic for vocals as well as her Bongos.
 
I'm also tight on pre-amps as I go to high numbers of tracks. I was thinking of running the bass and acoustic electric guitars straight to the 2 1/4" inputs on the front of the RME and then sending them back out from the RME to their respective amplifiers.
 
Preamps
2 phantom powered on the UCX
4 in the RME Quad Mic Pre outputs sent to the UCX
2 Art Tube PreAmps where I could send the output to the Fast Track and roll the channels left and right and send into the UCX using SPIDF
8 phantom powered on the Tascam 2488, but 4 are 1/4" inputs
 
I was planning to record at 24 bit 44.1 because there are so many tracks I thought a higher sample rate would be unnecessary and might jeopardize disc writes (?). I don't really think writing at 88.2 would be a problem recording 10 tracks, but I don't normally do this from within Sonar. I guess, I think that mixing tracks recorded at 88.2 would be a tax on my system (after the fact). I might have an easier time mixing 44.1 tracks.
 
Anyway, this is the idea. I don't normally do this, so I wanted to put my questions out there.
 
1. If I mic a drum kit with 1 or 2 microphones, where should I put them? Overhead and kick?
 
Writing this, I feel like I'm talking myself into bringing the RME, the Fast Track and the Tascam.
 
 
 

For the outs from the RME
2 will go to the monitors
2 will go to the mains
1 will go to the bass amp
1 will go to the acoustic guitar amp
2 will go for my stereo headphones.
 
I could have 2 more outs if I send back across the SPIDF to the Fast Track and then out of ports on the Fast Track, but that's a little extra complicated. I prefer to set up the fast track as slave and then not run the Fast Track interface software if I can help it.
 
If I bring the Tascam, I will record the entire drum kit together with the Tascam using midi clock sync.

Best guess on how to get it done (or a quick guide to consolidate your tracks as you have a limited number of inputs).
Let the vocals go to the main board & take a feed (a send from the main board) of just the lead vocal - track 1 (this will probably be a 1/4" jack)
Do a 2nd for all the back vocals - track #2 (then hope the guy on the board has them balanced) 
Use the art preamp for the 2 guitars (they are going to be generally panned left & right anyway,  Track 3
Bass- run a DI or mic for track 4
Bongos- track 5
Kick - track 6
Snare- 7
Over heads - 8 & 9
Then you have a little wiggle room with one more line to use where you see fit.  Maybe a room mic set out in the back of the room (bands always like to hear the applause in their recordings.
 
Good luck with it bud!

I just got this note from the band...

• We usually use a Bose L1 model 2 tower speaker and for a sound board we use 2 Bose T1 audio engines linked together - this is not an ideal set up for this size band, as usually 2 towers are recommended for this set up and we also only have 7 inputs......therefore, the guitars and bass are just amped, but not coming through the board(s) and we frequently have trouble hearing the vocals over the instruments.  Chris (bass player) had put together a monitor system for us tat we tried out for he first time two weeks ago that worked okay, but not great, and I think he's still tweaking that. 
• Each T1 has 4 inputs:
  • On T1-A, we have 3 vocals and an input fromT1-B - this one has a digital line that runs into the Bose tower
  • On T1-B, we have 2 vocals, bongos, and kick drum - this one has a line that runs into Channel 4 on the T1-A
• I am happy to try something else, but no one has else has offered to bring a PA, so this is what we have been using  -a plus of the Bose is the clarity of the vocals through the Bose system, as long as we can hear them over the instruments

@Chuck, Thanks very much for your suggestions for how to mic everything. The thought to get a mic on the crowd was an excellent suggestion I had forgotten to consider!
 

So, right now, I'm thinking...
 
All drumz except the Kick into the Tascam 2488.
 - 1 snare
 - 2 Toms mics
 - 2 Over heads
A microphone on the crowd into the Tascam 2488.
 - 1 (at least mic pointed towards the crowd)
 
Into the RME UCX
 - 5 vocal mics
 - 1 Bongos
 - 1 Kick
 - 1 Bass (preferably off the direct box our 1/4 out on the bass amp)
 
Into the Fast Track and then to the RME via SPIDF
 - 2 Electric Guitars pre-amped with the Art Tube Pres
 
Sends from the RME
 - 1 Send to the T1 Tone Match for amplifying for the crowd
 - 2 sends to monitors if you guys can bring them (I'm assuming the monitors are powered).
 - 3 My head phones for soloing etc...
 

Man... wow.... unless you have the hardware to do it right...... which it kinda sounds like you don't....
 
Especially since everything is not miked ... you can't rely on the board mix. In rooms, with bands and stuff miked and other stuff not, the board mix will be nowhere near an ideal balanced mix. Listening to some of my band's old "board tapes" proves that point. Mostly vocals and kick drum with some amp bleed. And theoretically, we had everything miked..... but the soundman had to balance stage to the PA....and as a result, the guitars and keys were often lacking in the board tapes.
 
A better option, while not the fanciest, might be to simply mic what you can (vocals and such) and at the same time... set up a few "room mics" (condenser mics) close to the stage to get the band's sound coming from the stage.
 
Keep it simple and you will probably get halfway decent results. Try to get fancy and technical without the proper gear and it will likely not be a great mix.  Of course, this is my opinion and is subject to be wrong.
 
I did a few demo's for bands back in the old reel to reel days, and used room mics, with good results. Separate mixer from the band, my own mics, and it turned out fairly well.
 
 All the best.... let us hear the results...I'm curious.
 
Good luck and have fun.

What kind of board does the venue have? If it has dedicated line outs on each channel then just snag those and set your trim levels on your own stuff. You would have to make sure the sound guy isn't allowing his board to clip. If it does not have dedicated line outs most boards will have aux sends. If they are not being used for stage monitors you could use those. All in all you may not get EVERYTHING from the board but you can get as many signals as possible that way and then set up your own mics/mixer for the rest which you're gonna have to do anyway for the guitars. So first priority would probably be the vox from the main board because that's the one area where it's not really the greatest option to have double mics (even though I have done the "tape two mics together trick before it's just weird and silly). If you have to sub group the back up vocals and record them to one track well so be it. The sound guy should have those levels pretty even anyway. You'll definitely want lead vocals on their own. Then see about getting the bass from the board if they are using a DI box or maybe you could figure out a way to get a dual DI thing happening like say if the bass player has a DI out on his amp you use that and the sound guy uses a DI box to feed to his board. The drums you can just set up your own mics, same with guitar and the bongos. Using the same mic for vox and bongos could be problematic as far as levels. With the drums the most important thing would be to get the kick, snare and at least one overhead. Then you can use the old style drum mixing technique to get your drum sound (but you probably already knew this). There will unfortunately be quite a bit of bleed in the overheads though but with some fancy eq, gating and R-Mix you should be able to clean it up pretty good.
 
I, as you know, am not a pro though but that is how I would try to do it. Cheers.

Oh and you'll probably want to do a thorough test of each channel feeding from the main board. Live boards have a tendency to have lots of crackles from being abused in a bar. Particularly when making fader and pot adjustments. Try to let the sound guy know to not do any changes in the middle of songs if at all possible to avoid that type of nastiness. Cheers.
 

Oh and if you have an extra mixer and mics around you could mic the entire kit and create your own sub mix so you have a tom track as well. Maybe you could even put the bongos on that same track because the toms and bongos could probably share the same eqing when needed but considering the toms wouldn't be playing all the time you could clone the tom/bongo track, cut out the bongo for the tom track, do some R-Mix, gating, eq, etc to make it truly unique to the toms and use the other clone strictly for the bongo and again try to minimize the toms in that track.
 
Just letting my mind wander through possibilities as I sit on an ice pack. Good luck.

A Quick thought as I come back from my sedation. :-)
 
Is there any possibility of adding a Behringer ADA8000 Ultralight to your rig?
 
It would get 8 more analog inputs on the RME UCX and then let to use the mixcontrol on the RME to work as a splitter of sorts for the output that you send to the Bose sound engines.
 
I guess you will become the defacto FOH mixer using the mixcontrol.
 
I was wondering why you weren't just tracking it all with the Tascam 2488, but I am realizing it is because you probably don't have a bunch of splitters and needed to use the a "Through" type routing for the actual room mix.
 
I just looked and the Behringer costs a bit more than I thought, but that unit has a great rep and it will help you make the most of the potential of that RME unit.
 
Maybe you can find a loaner? If you can swing it, having those extra inputs all on the UCX clock could put in a more relaxed position.
 
best regards,
mike