Audience recordings are real. They are actual recordings of what happened AND what it sounded like. The potential problem with soundboard (direct line) recordings is that if one instrument or voice is loud on stage, it will not be captured on a simple board feed, and the opposite is true too, that if some sounds are NOT loud on stage, they will be heavy in the mix. In effect, the soundboard tape is the OPPOSITE of the actual sound, unless the band's stage mix is so perfect that ever sound in it can be added in equal parts to the soundboard feed.The advantage of a "board tape" is that when the band is balanced, you get a recording without much (sometimes ANY) room sound, which sounds much cleaner than a room full of people and reflected sound.Mixing a board and audience tape can give the best of both worlds, an actual archived memory of what happened (the audience mics) combined with the direct recording of the "opposite of what was loud" - usually vocals and effects come through the strongest, and non-loud sounds like keyboards and small percussion instruments.I like making audience recordings when I only have one recorder, since I feel like there is a higher chance of getting something worthwhile when I only have one shot at it. If I have two recorders, I will gladly take a board feed on one, and run my mics (which I really think are better than my ears) on the other. If the board mix is even, I can combine them later, or just use the board.Case in point, I have a SBD tape of Cracker in Madison 2006-08-26, but there is very little of Johnny's guitar on the tape, since he was loud in the room. Who needs that? A Cracker tape with no Lucky 7?!Now, to get technical (and probably lose 90% of y'all!), the ideal situation comes around very rarely, and that would be a chance to mix my own board tape, where I can take two unused auxiliary outputs from the mixing console, and make my own channel-by-channel mix direct to the recorder. If I am offered access to the board, (like if I'm mixing the show!) I can plug my mics in, assign them to an unused group, but feed them into my recorder along with a hand-picked mix of stage sound sources. Say Johnny is playing loud guitar, and its so loud in the room that it doesn't even need to be in the house sound mix. . . well, I just turn that up extra loud on the tape feed, and the opposite, say vocals (which are not nearly as loud as electric guitar in real life) can be recorded at a relatively lower level since they are bound to be up high in the house mix, as well they should be!Special thanks to Dan Healy, the sound mixer for Grateful Dead, who taught me how to make a channel-by-channel mix, and add audience mics for the special touch of ambience - he used to make "Ultra Matrix" tapes that were the best of both worlds and he was kind enough to share his method with me.For example, check out my pal Steve Brothers' recording of Cracker in St Louis a couple weeks ago:http://www.archive.org/details/Cracker2007-07-05.matrix