What would you try??

[Roch]

I am a drummer recording with a guitar player, live off the floor. We are trying to write as we go, and sometimes I would like to keep and use some of the results. I have the drums close-miced and he is playing a ghost track through an amp. He then adds guitars later, if there is something we want to develope.

How would you approach to mic/record this proccess, so we could get the best usable drum track recording?

I should add that currently I have been trying to sub mix my 6 piece kit, then into one track on my recorder(it only has 2 xlr inputs), with mixed(hee hee) results

Just looking for different ideas....

[Blue Bear Sound]

During the writing/jam/song development process, I wouldn't worry about keeping ANY parts.... fully-develop your songs, THEN worry about recording them.... trying to kill two birds with one stone by recording keeper tracks as you write is usually detrimental to the creative writing process....

[seismetr0n]

for best results,
i'd put the guitar amp in another room, or even d.i. if youre not so worried about the sound...
then smack some headphones on... and youll keep the guitar from bleeding through..

last week i had my amp in the bathroom (well miced) and drums set up in the living room.. also well miced...

the recording turned out pretty good -- we were just using these for snippets, but sometimes you can get some good stuff out of freeform... record it all and sort it out later (not like youre paying for tape - or maybe you are)

gl

[Roch]

Originally Posted by Blue Bear Sound

During the writing/jam/song development process, I wouldn't worry about keeping ANY parts.... fully-develop your songs, THEN worry about recording them.... trying to kill two birds with one stone by recording keeper tracks as you write is usually detrimental to the creative writing process....

I realize that for the best results, this is deffinitely the case, but due to our limited time together(a few hours one night a week), this is something we are trying. We are building songs/demos as we go so we can later add/remove parts as the proccess developes, over time. He likes to go home with a working copy/demo of some tunes, then we come back with different ideas.

Its just the way we are trying to work.

We are from the Ottawa Valley. What do you expect??

[northsiderap]

I like to keep bits and pieces of stuff too...

Use a 'gobo' if you aren't already. It helps to hear the mix in a separate room while the drummer is playing. I always repeatedly record 20-30 seconds of the drummer playing all of the drums and a segment of beat and then stop him to listen to the mix really closely.

The question is kinda vague... Are you asking about the signal chain, mixing, EQing, or something else?

[JazzMasterWil]

What I do is mic all the drums and send them to a big mixing board. Then I run the signal out of that into one input of the recorder. So it sounds like we've been doing the same sort of thing.........

Here's a few recent delevopment that I've come up with and far as this method (that I refer to as "guess and check") goes.

First off, drums sound much better with some pan to them. I like for the hi-hats to sound a little right of center, and the ride to sound a little left of center.... so on a so forth.

The easiest way to do that, is to pan them right there on the mixing board. And then run to lines out into your recorder. (If you're mixing board has a "right output" and a "left output", and you're recorder can record two inputs at one time...... this shouldn't be a problem.)

Later you can pan the "left" channel left on the recorder. And vice versa....

If you do this, you would use up both your xlr inputs.... But if you mic the guitar amp (with the mic going into the mixer) it would still show up on the track. (This could be a "scratch" track, and he could go back and layer it etc.......)

...... The real key to the "guess and check" method. Is that once you get the recorded sound with the drums that you like (after possibly hundreds of "guesses" and "checks") write them down!!!!! Anything could happen to the mixer (like a cat jumping on it). And you'll thank yourself for the refrence later.

Hope this helps.

[LRosario]

Well I'd hate to tell you, but Bruce is right.

Writing and tracking songs in the same process really makes things harder on you.

You can't hope to achieve a "sound" if you're trying write faithfully at the same time. There's different processes to these things.

If I where you, I would just treat it as part of the preproduction process. Basically thats what this is, preproduction.

Just hook up enough reference mics to capture your writing sessions and focus on writing the songs. Then listen through your recordings and decide how you're going to approach it for tracking later on. From the reference you can focus more on arrangments, performances and any other details that would allow your songs to really come through when the times comes to record.

Trust me, I know the feeling. Trying to capture a random and great idea and mix it right away. But beleive me, if you have a good rehearsal recording, you can do it again.

These things just take time, you have to get used to that.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Okay, harsh reality alert:

Do the words "St. Anger" and "worst album ever produced" happen to ring a bell? If Metallica can't pull off the "jam and record and manipulate it in ProTools with a few million dollars budget, the best equipment in the world, and some of the best audio engineers in the world" schtick how do you think YOU can?

[JazzMasterWil]

Phish are like a "jam band" aren't they? (I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just not sure if they are or not).

Maybee they're going for that sort of sound..... I've been in a couple "jam bands" and it's always been a lot of fun, but; there where also times were I was like "damn I wish I recorded that"....

But I can't argue that "st. anger" is some of the worst sounding crap I've ever heard. You've definately made your point with that one.

[seismetr0n]

luckily i've never heard 'st. anger' (imo..metallica went downhill after '..and justice for all').. anyway ... phish probably writes their songs (or used to)... but there are many good groupes especially jazz oriented that record their songs on the fly, and then possibly use that as a base to play those songs live (though its never really the same song twice) ... i play in an experimental noise group, which does pretty much the same thing... so every practice is recorded...
i used to record everything on 4-track tape, but that gets expensive.... with a daw setup you just push the delete button if it happens to be junk...

gl