I’m the OP for the thread referenced by bridgenail in post #4. For what it’s worth, this is our experience so far, keeping in mind that we haven’t actually done the pre-screen recordings yet.
I bought a Zoom Q8 video/audio recorder that’s been highly recommended for music-oriented videos. We’ve used it for quite a few performances over the summer and agree that the audio quality is excellent. It has two built-in condenser mics as well as two external mic inputs. I work for a company that makes high-end professional audio equipment, so my son already owns a few good condenser mics. I think we would be comfortable taping his pre-screens with this setup (and probably will do so for things like scales.)
In the meantime, I asked around and got a recommendation for a professional live recording engineer and talked to him, asked a lot of questions. Turns out he does a lot of audition recordings and gave us good advice, including budget, the space, etc. His fee (recording 9-10 songs) will be less than what the Zoom Q8 cost, and it’s all-inclusive, including all of the equipment, mixing, production (some video+audio, some audio-only.) We don’t have to worry about editing costs since we can’t edit. We also don’t have to be in a studio.
My son’s job is the music. He made the song list, based on all of his pre-screen requirements, overlapping songs whenever possible. He’s asked the people he wants in his rhythm section (he’s a jazz applicant). He’s practicing. It’s also his job to find the space and coordinate schedules. The recording pro told us to go to the high school first and also gave us a list of other free or inexpensive spaces locally. Advantage is that he’s done session recordings in all of these places and can mic everyone individually so that the acoustics isn’t a factor. Just told us to find the space where our pianist is happy with the piano.
At this point, we’ve decided to hire the recording pro. The cost was much more reasonable than I was expecting and having him responsible for the equipment is a huge relief. This is especially true for us since gathering the rhythm section and having an efficient session to get everything recorded is key. (To put it in perspective, he will cost less than the senior pictures we just booked.)