Linux solution for recorder and FTP server

Hey guys.
I do some audio post production work for my church and what that has evolved into basically me being the producer, director, and engineer for the whole thing. The system in place is falling apart because others are now following through with getting the audio transfered to me.
I'm trying to come up with a solution that will cut out the need for any other 'fingers' in this process.
The recording equipment is a antiquated Tascam CD burner for live recording. (great gear in it's day. That day is long gone). They have to manually rip that disk 1:1 and send me the raw WAV file for editing. This is uploaded to google drive and then they send me the link.

What would be ideal? Well, no need for an optical disc recorder. A hard disk recorder or better a SSD. But would would make all this a breeze would be if I could download that recording via a FTP server.
So I'm thinking of building a small rack mount PC (maybe buy a 1U server, used ) and have it run some flavor of Linux and just be a audio recorder and FTP server so I can grab the audio file from home.
The audio would be XLR (low impedance) so the capture would be analog.
What do you guys think??

It sounds like this would be a pretty easy thing to setup. I'm a Red Hat \ CentOS \ Oracle Linux fan so I'd just run that. Grab a sound card or USB device that is supported and install the desktop interface. Then use Audacity to handle the recording functions. It's an open source program that works quite well and has plenty of features to make this work smoothly.

The only other thing you'd need to do is setup a method to transfer the files. You can use FTP but it's quite insecure now. I recommend you simply grab WinSCP and run that on your Windows box. It will connect via SSH and provides a lot of security and the interface looks and works a lot like FTP.

Oh, regarding matching the level of the output from your sound system, I don't think that will be too hard. The easiest way would be to get a line level output from a set of RCA jacks on your sound console. They usually have a 'record out' feature that should interface with an average sound card pretty easily.

dekard said:

It sounds like this would be a pretty easy thing to setup. I'm a Red Hat \ CentOS \ Oracle Linux fan so I'd just run that. Grab a sound card or USB device that is supported and install the desktop interface. Then use Audacity to handle the recording functions. It's an open source program that works quite well and has plenty of features to make this work smoothly.

The only other thing you'd need to do is setup a method to transfer the files. You can use FTP but it's quite insecure now. I recommend you simply grab WinSCP and run that on your Windows box. It will connect via SSH and provides a lot of security and the interface looks and works a lot like FTP.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was even thinking something as small as a RasberryPi with the Wolfson sound card.
That can handle 44khz 16bit recordings no problem.
But from what I read the driver setup for the sound card is a bit flaky and they are waiting for the support to be kernelized.

As a drop back and punt, I'm picking up a 1:1 copy of the master CD after the service on Sunday. I just popped in to my system to RIP it and the rip craps out at 50%.

I pulled the disc out and looked at it closely. There are greasy finger prints all over the writing surface. Was probably this way when they put it in the burner.

So I'm back to "Inventing" this device to hopefully solve these issue.

I have to have mic preamp and compression and I already have the info and resources for that.
Analog Devices SSM2167. One little chip does it all and ideal for voice.

But as it turns they have come to me for the "mini studio" idea I pitched to them some time ago. If I can get the pastor to deliver the sermon for the radio ministry in the studio this will be a win-win-WIN. I will have complete control over all this. From equipment, computer (Linux laptop, Audacity to record) etc. Since this is a mini studio (no crew needed to run) all he has to do is click RECORD , deliver sermon, this click STOP when done. I do all the rest in post editing.

Sounds like you've got this sorted out then. You'll probably want to keep it as simple as possible so why not just use the integrated sound card on the computer? Using a laptop wouldn't be my first choice because the cables never seem to all get plugged in right. Or, it'll go to sleep on you. So, grab a desktop and use some zip ties to secure all the cables. Then no one will mess with it (intentionally or not). Plus, then you can hardwire the network connect and you won't have to deal with crappy wireless routers going down on you.

You'd have a rock solid config at that point.

dekard said:

Sounds like you've got this sorted out then. You'll probably want to keep it as simple as possible so why not just use the integrated sound card on the computer? Using a laptop wouldn't be my first choice because the cables never seem to all get plugged in right. Or, it'll go to sleep on you. So, grab a desktop and use some zip ties to secure all the cables. Then no one will mess with it (intentionally or not). Plus, then you can hardwire the network connect and you won't have to deal with crappy wireless routers going down on you.

You'd have a rock solid config at that point.

Click to expand...

At this point I'm going to pitch the idea of doing all the for broadcast recordings in the new mini studio. IF that will be how it is recorded, it is smooth sailing. However if he still wants the recordings to be done in the auditorium on the house equipment (worse) then I have to come up with a solution they can't put their greasy paws in. IF that is the case, it won't be a laptop of PC. It will be a black box with a VU meter and some buttons.
All I will ask them to do is hit the big red record button in the beginning of the service, and the stop button at the end, and never touch the compression level!
I will have to build this box to do all these things myself.
I want to completely get away from the signal going through their house mixer board because there is a parade of people coming though going "Ohh, what does this knob do".
Want the mic to do straight into my box and then loop out for their house audio so when they screw thing up it can't kill what I'm capturing.