recording a heavy band live: advice?

[jeff_shirilla]

hello all!

i'm recording a friend's band next weekend at my house and need some advice. normally, i use different rooms in the house to isolate the instruments but these guys want to set-up and jam in the same room. they play really heavy and really loud, so bleed is going to become a big issue. i don't have to worry about vocals as they are going to overdub those later, but any advice on how to proceed with everything else? i'm not so worried about the guitars (they have 3 of them) and bass as i am the drums. help?

[jndietz]

Originally Posted by jeff_shirilla

hello all!

i'm recording a friend's band next weekend at my house and need some advice. normally, i use different rooms in the house to isolate the instruments but these guys want to set-up and jam in the same room. they play really heavy and really loud, so bleed is going to become a big issue. i don't have to worry about vocals as they are going to overdub those later, but any advice on how to proceed with everything else? i'm not so worried about the guitars (they have 3 of them) and bass as i am the drums. help?

wow you have been a member here for seven years yet you have only two posts! LOL!

When recording all instruments at once, if you want to do it easily... throw a microphone in the middle of the room (maybe two, a kick/bass amp mic and a shure sm57 [can't go wrong]) and call it good and mix accordingly. otherwise...

personally, i would allow each guitar amp have its own mic, including the bass amp. mic the drums with one overhead and one on the kick. then you should be set. tell them to play pieces of their songs, record it, tell them to stop, then tell them to STFU and not play their instruments so you can hear the recording. once you the settings you want locked in.... record away!

[jndietz]

if you are using a DAW, then it would be helpful to multi track record if possible

[jeff_shirilla]

hey man! thanks for the fast response. i normally try to search the forums for answers before i bother everyone with my dumb questions, so i guess that explains my 7 year posting hiatus.

i'm miking all the instruments and normally use 8 mikes for a 5-piece drum kit: kick (shure PG52 or blue Kickball), toms (sennheiser e604s), overheads (a pair of audix f15s) and snare (SM57 top and bottom). i'll use SM57s and a sennheiser e609 for the guitars and either the PG52 or Kickball for the bass. i recorded my band's rehearsal as a sort of "dry run" last week and got a lot of low-end rumble via the blue Kickball at the kick drum and the SM57s on the snares (the e604s were pretty quiet) which muddied everything up. i'm thinking of switching the Kickball with the PG52 since the former is a phantom-powered dynamic mic and i think that may be bringing in the extra low end. i wish i had the dough for one of those isolation panels to put in front of the drums but that ain't happening any time soon.

oh yeah... i'm using my trusty ol' VS2480 to capture this madness so every mic gets its own channel.

[dinorocker]

Given that things are going to be chaotic anyway, I'd suggest the following:

- First of all, get a DI out of every amp and get it onto a separate track. yes, DI does not always sound as natural as mic'd amps, but in this case, I doubt that this is really going to make that much of a difference. To cover all your bets, mic the amps as well, and in the mixing process, play around with a cobination of DI'd and mic'd tracks.

- Close-mic the drums for everything if you have enough tracks on the board. If not, use a small summing mixer. *Definitely* record the two overhead mics onto *separate* tracks (you might sum everything else, but not these). You may want to use the mic setup described here:

http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=39030

- For close micing, make sure that you make use of the cardiod pattern design of the mics, i.e. the back of the mics face the rest of the group. It won't do magic, but it will help.

- Definitely track the vocals onto individual tracks as well - if for no other reason that this will provide you scratch tracks to guide the singers later. During a "live" gig, singing styles and "moods" tend to be very different from singing to a canned sound track - you want to capture those.

- Go have a friendly chat with the neighbours before the session so that they don't call the riot squad

[killmachine]

my plays heavy stuff and in the past have recorded like that.

If you can talk them into sticking there amps in a different room that'll help for sure. If they're that dead set on having all the amps in the same room. Use the above advice and incorporating tube traps around the drums at least will definetly help baffle the sound. Or if you have access to partition type walls you can make little walls around each rig. If you don't have access to any type of baffle use couch's around them and place the mic's so the couchs and furniture can block some of the other instrument bleeding.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it to much. They should know in advance that it's not gonna be like a true multi-trk take. So baffle carefully and try to get the best out of mic placement. I would also get the amps to come down a bit, and try to get the drummer to be concious about how hard he's playing.

Your editing capabitlities are going to be limited, so just make sure they use a click track and you should have pretty good results.

[FALKEN]

amps in another room, mic'd and in the headphones of the guys...

really...once they get used to it it won't be a big deal. also having the amps at a somewhat lower volume than normal will be good too. this will also make punching easier if you can do it.

if they want the amps in the room, just make sure they are angled away from the drumset!! put a table on its side and behind them if you can...that might work okay.

but before trying anything i would just have them set up like they want and just see if it sounds good. if your room is good, chances are that it will.

oh yeah...dynamics on the overheads are a good idea here.

[killmachine]

we used cond when we did ours and it turned out just fine. Cymbals were a bit harsh because the mics had to be place much closer but worked out in the end. Maybe a definete xy pattern overhead set up, just because by nature I think it's much easier to control.

The total sound of the room is def important and I'm glad someone mentioned that. We did ours in a college jazz band recital space. Not a hall but a medium sized room and it worked well.

hell we even managed to get 4 PZM's as room mics stationed around the drums in quad's, and the way we were set up any bleeding the ocoured in the room mics the instruments were place in a way the only added to the spacial effect of the 4 PZM's.

It turned out very Albini' ish which I'm a big fan of his work so I was pleased. But back in 2001 our songs sucked and so that killed that......



hahahaha

[jeff_shirilla]

cool! thanks for the tips, guys!!!! these guys play really primal, sludgey music and want to replicate what they do live and in rehearsal... they feel their sound would be compromised by multi-tracking or playing in separate rooms with a headphone mix. they're looking for an ugly, gnarly sound but i'd still like the drums to turn out okay in the mix. as far as baffling goes, would it help if i put some pillows or something around the kick drum mike?

[FALKEN]

dude i was just thinking about your situation. if there is a really good sounding club in town maybe you could rent the place out for a day (before they open up). then you could have them set up on stage and really play "live". you could also mic the kick and snare and vocals through the PA for more of a live effect. just a thought.

[guitarboi89]

would it be possible to di the guitars and bass, and then reamp them later on? That way you would get clean drums, relatively bleed free vocals and still maintain the "feel"

[killmachine]

yeah I was thinking about this earlier,


just make sure you have them set up like they're playing on a stage, that'll let you be able to control things like your watching them live.

If you have them set up pry the way they rehearse, you might have amps facing each other.

That can be bad news.

[Dani Pace]

I had a similar situation or two. I found setting the amps in a horseshoe around the drums (faceing away from the drums) helps a little. Also the bigger the room, the better your chances of getting that "live" sound.