minimalist live demo recording

LI_Slim

LI_Slim

voice in the wilderness
I want to record a live demo with my band (vocal, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drum and bass) in my guitar player's basement. We have a powered mixer with speakers for the vocal and acoustic guitar and an amp for the electric guitar and a bass amp for the bass guitar. Let's assume all I have available is a PC-based recording set up with four inputs, as well as one large condensor and three small condensor mics, as well as two SM58s. Let's also assume that we will not track at all, ie, that it will purely live.

So what would you suggest?
 
I'm adventerous so I'd go for it assuming you can get a balance and the SPL isn't too loud for the room.

Without hearing what you've got I'm betting the drummer will overdrive the room pretty quick so you'll have to figure something out to isolate the dums a bit.

My first Tracking experiment would be:
1. Direct Bass Guitar
2. Close mic Kick drum
3. Left Ambient (position where the balance sounds good)
4. Right Ambient (position where the balance sounds good)

Further tracking experiments would be a live stereo submix on track 1 & 2 with an external mixer (when you borrow one) to add a touch of any other close mics you might need to add for missing detail (pan the bass stuff towards the center and maybe the guitars wider). You can get inexpensive radio shack 4 channel mixers or get a Mackie - either way you'll have a blast.

Don't forget to tell the band up front this is an experiment and it may take a few sessions to balance! :)
Have fun with it - you could get a good sounding demo out of your efforts !
kylen
 
Thanks Kylen.

I'm concerned about the vocals though. Shouldn't I mic them directly in addition to the ambient mics?
 
Hi LI_Slim,
I think it depends on how it sounds out where #3 and #4 ambient mics are but I suspect you're correct. You may want to firm up the detail on the vocals by sprinkling a pinch in the 2nd experiment I mentioned using a live submix.

Or if you need to get more vocal detail without using a submix try using one ambient mic and a vocal feed off the board. That'll change your stereo field significantly but I guess you could deal with that.

Or keep both ambient mics and push the vocals a little hotter thru the PA. Still gotta be careful not to overdrive the room.

Also, you might want to consider getting someone to engineer it for you unless you plan on playing and engineering and listening yourself.

I think the bottom line is when you're playing full bore if it sounds like mush and you can't hear the vocal over the guitars and cymbols then you are overdriving the room and/or the band is not balanced.

The live recording thing works best with the band balanced -otherwise you're into multi-tracking or isolation or whatever.

kylen
 
Depending upon the players and arrangement of the material...

...you could also...

TRK 1 : Large condenser for vox
Trk 2 : Bass direct or Line out of the amp (speaker disabled) with some sort of headphone setup for the bassist to hear himself.
The drummer needs to be able to play with out hearing the bass though.
TRK 3 and 4 : Closest matched SD condensers each micing one of the PA speakers with a mix of one 58 with ball end removed micing the electric amp to PA, One 58 micing the acoustic and the remaining one SD condenser micing the drum kit.

Of course you'd need a seperate preamp for the vox mic.

Thats one possibility. Mic and instrument placement is critical.

I would also suggest everyone turn the volume down as much as possible letting the PA mix the levels so as to keep the drum mic from getting too much bleed.

-mike
 
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