Recording my band live in my practice room

K

Kleudde

New member
Hi all,
I would like to record a demo for my band where we practice so I want to be able to record everybody at the same time (1 guitar, 1 singer, 1 bass and 1 drum).
My bassist wants to put mics for almost every piece in the drum to be able to mix it, so one track each in our daw. 1 for the bassdrum, 3 for 3 toms, 1 for floor tom, 2 overhead for cymbales and 1 for hi hat/snare...
That would be 8 just for the drum.
So we are missing 3 inputs in the audio interface I rented last week (presonus audiobox 1818vsl) to record the bass, guitar and singer.
My problem is I haven't been able to find an audio interface with more than 8 or 10 xlr inputs... why is that? On the laptop we have firewire 400 and usb 2 and 3.
Is it because it is too much bandwith 16 or 24 inputs? How are the studios able to record 16 or 32 tracks at once?
Any advice? How would you record a band in a practice room? What kind of interface or other thing I could use to be able to send all the tracks to my Reaper?
What about a digital mixer? Can a digital mixer send all the inputs to the tracks in Reaper?
Is it too much mics for the drum?
Thank you
 
My X32 can happily send everything we need to a macbook, and neither break sweat. If you need to record X number of channels, buy an appropriate interface - there are plenty on the market -or perhaps just buy a digital mixer - all these can output to recorders and most can be used quite happily as an audio interface.
 
To make things worst last week with the presonus audiobox 1818vsl I had to use only 7 of the 8 inputs. We had a condensator mic for the singer so it needed phantom power and the two overhead needed phantom power as well.
So we had 3 mics that needed the phantom power but that sound card gives it to 4 inputs or none... so we had to sacrifice one input because of that, I didn't want to risk breaking one of the microphone for that...
What's your opinion on that? Was there a chance a microphone break with phantom power?

Here are the microphone we had (some loans and some we own):


1 x Apex325 (we didn't use)

3 x Apex326 (we didn't end-up using them)

2 x Apex190 Pencil Condenser Mics (over heads)

1 X APEX435B (singer)

1 X shure sm57 (guitar)

1 X audix i5 (we used for hi hat)

1 X Shure beta 52a (bass drum)

and my bassist brought is own mic not sure which one...

Was there any of those microphone i could of use with phantom power without risk of breaking it (other than the APEX435B and Apex19) ?

Thank you
 
rob aylestone said:
My X32 can happily send everything we need to a macbook, and neither break sweat. If you need to record X number of channels, buy an appropriate interface - there are plenty on the market -or perhaps just buy a digital mixer - all these can output to recorders and most can be used quite happily as an audio interface.
Click to expand...

Can you recommand an interface with 11 xls inputs or more?
 
Kleudde said:
To make things worst last week with the presonus audiobox 1818vsl I had to use only 7 of the 8 inputs. We had a condensator mic for the singer so it needed phantom power and the two overhead needed phantom power as well.
So we had 3 mics that needed the phantom power but that sound card gives it to 4 inputs or none... so we had to sacrifice one input because of that, I didn't want to risk breaking one of the microphone for that... u
Click to expand...

There is no risk of breaking a mic. Phantom power doesn't work that way. It's called "Phantom" for a reason. It only works when it's needed. I leave my 4 phantom inputs on all the time, even though I only use 2 mics that need it. Don't worry about having phantom power on for a dynamic mic, it won't hurt it one bit.
 
I use 2 Presonus Firepods (basically the FP10) daisy chained for a total of 16 mic inputs...they don't make them anymore, so you can find them for about $150 used each. If you have more to spend, I think the newer Presonus Firestudio units can be linked as well.
 
Wow we can link 2 interfaces together???? I didn't know that! :) How do you link them and make you computer use both at the same time?
 
There's a nice roland with 12 mic inputs, plus 4 others. As above - you can use multiples of some, but once you get to 8 or more the price is pretty steep - so much so that an entire X32 rack mixer with 16 mic inputs cab be got for the same price as the bigger straight interfaces. So much comes down to budget, I guess.
 
Many digital mixers will do this, as will a number of analog mixers with digital interfaces (Onyx 1640i). At my friend's studio we have an older MOTU PCIe based system with two interfaces for a total of 18 channels of analog input and 10 channels of analog output. For live recording I use an Alesis HD24. There are lots of ways to do this.

Note that many interfaces aren't designed to be used in multiples. The Firepod is more of an exception than the norm. In your case expanding your interface with something like Behringer's ADA8200 might be the best solution.
 
rob aylestone said:
There's a nice roland with 12 mic inputs, plus 4 others. As above - you can use multiples of some, but once you get to 8 or more the price is pretty steep - so much so that an entire X32 rack mixer with 16 mic inputs cab be got for the same price as the bigger straight interfaces. So much comes down to budget, I guess.
Click to expand...

The budget is not really an issue since I am renting my equipment from the local music store, all the mics plus the audio interface was like 60$ for 4 days.
I'm not recording a demo often so I'm ready yet to invest in something big (I already have a rme babyface that I use when we are not recording seriously).

Here are my options pretty much :
https://www.long-mcquade.com/rentals/recording

(but sometimes they take what they are selling and rent it, last week I got a brand new Presonus Audiobox that was not listed on their renting site)

I will try to get two presonus maybe or try again with the same thing I rent last time, it sounded pretty good and now I know I can use the extra input :)

My bassist is the one who is excited and want to have so many inputs, he just finished his school as a sound technician and I guess he wants to practice with more tracks to mix lol

Thank you for your help!
 
Unless you have a bunch of sound-blocking gobos in your practice room, you're probably getting a ton of bleed on all those drum mics anyway.
I'd just go for a simple 4 mic drum recording set up - kick, snare and 2 overheads.
 
mjbphotos said:
Unless you have a bunch of sound-blocking gobos in your practice room, you're probably getting a ton of bleed on all those drum mics anyway.
I'd just go for a simple 4 mic drum recording set up - kick, snare and 2 overheads.
Click to expand...

ok thank you
 
I'd go with close drum mics to minimize room sound and bleed, and I'd tent the guitar amps and make the bass player go direct (if I can provide good headphone monitoring).
 
Yes, I'd think that the situation is all the more reason to use close mics. The more you can take the room out of the equation, the better.

Regardless, it never hurts to record as many tracks as possible. You can always not use the tracks you don't want. But you can't do the opposite.
 
Kleudde said:
Wow we can link 2 interfaces together???? I didn't know that! :) How do you link them and make you computer use both at the same time?
Click to expand...

With the FP10, it's as easy as linking the two together with a Firewire cable...at least that's all I had to do. I have read that others are not able to link them as easy. Once mine were connected via the cable, I just had to adjust my preferences in the DAW (Reaper in my case) to recognize the additional inputs.

EDIT: It should be noted, however, that most interfaces CANNOT be linked. I've never heard of USB interfaces with this option.
 
I suppose what I am going to say will not change squat if you have a gung-ho wannabe recordist bass player but!

Your time and money might be better spent in a proper studio. The Babyface setup can be used to sharpen up your musical skills? A studio is no place to argue song order or rewrite key changes!

Another idea: The Allen and Heath M track recorders?

Dave.
 
I'm firmly in the less-is-more camp.

Bass, singer, guitar, them whatever is left you can use on the kit. Personally, I'd be happy with snare, kick and two overheads.

If you are all new to recording, sneak up on it, rather than trying to emulate Abbey Road straight up.
 
gecko zzed said:
I'm firmly in the less-is-more camp.

Bass, singer, guitar, them whatever is left you can use on the kit. Personally, I'd be happy with snare, kick and two overheads.

If you are all new to recording, sneak up on it, rather than trying to emulate Abbey Road straight up.
Click to expand...

Yup^ In fact I would start with a co-I pair of SDCs. If the band has a decent internal balance they should give good results.

Dave.
 
My first preference is "less is more", but the worse the recording situation the more drum mics I use, whether it's the player, the kit, the room, whatever. Fewer mics means more distance which means more bleed from non-drum sounds and room reflections. With few mics you're pretty much stuck with what you record, but with many you have a lot of options, from simply using fewer mics to full on drum replacement. I might even have cymbal close mics in addition to overheads, getting one to three cymbals per mic.

But it does mean more work and more risk of something failing during tracking, and more time to mix.
 
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