I'm going to open a broad topic here

[ScreamingHead69]

This is a challenge I've been tackling for a while now, so I figured I'd throw it out there to let the experts pick at it and maybe I'll learn a thing or two. Or be told to stop being a dumbass and do it the right way, it's all positive growth in the long run.

Aight, you have an MR8-HD four inputs, and a mixer so maybe you can stick a couple extra mics on the drum kit. What's the fastest most efficiant way to record reletively clear sounding tracks? Preferably getting all the instruments (two guitars, bass and drums) in one shot so you only have to go back and overdub the vocals. Oh yeah, the guitarists and bassist are all playing half stacks, the drummer is great but he tends to hit a little light, and the room is really small.

Anybody?

[Jouni]

I recorded a very similar thing, small room, 2guits, one of them also sings , a bass and drums. could be doing that again tomorrow..

just wanted to know how is our playing actually, since the playingroom is too small to hear shit.. well, perhaps squat.

-I put 1 mic between the kickdrums pointing at the belly of snare.
cymbals are gonna bleed to all mics anyhow... a bit same with toms since all other mics were posted a feet off the grilles.

-one mic to bass

-one mic pointing between vocalists gitcab and vocalspeaker, they were side by side.

-one mic to the other "main" guitarist.

That came out great!,, A bit of EQ postprocess.. I've heard WAY poorer live gigs through mics and a big mixer or demos!..

...worked because of how we were positioned, what wasn't miced, bled enough.

cymbals and bass will bleed the most, no mics needed.
the mic between kicks needs some direction adjustment to get kick/snare levels close enough.
some fucking around with other mics direction and distance of actual target, and you're actually catching pretty much everything...


...actually, just dug it out and listening... not THAT good.. too much cymbals, not enough vocals... well, not bad for my first recording.

put up a clip, some hideousness is due probably to my mixingskills back a while.. and the playing sucks!

http://serif.pp.fi/muuta/rec.mp3

jeez.. some cymbal is making my right eye water on headphones...

[Rokket]

If it's at all possible, take the drums out of the room and mic him separately. If not, then jouni's suggestions will work, but it will take a lot of time and lots of starts and stops to position mics. Since you aren't going to do the vocals until later, why not record each track separately too? It seems to be easier than trying to capture that "band groove" in a room not meant for it.

[Jouni]

Muhah!! We've been ranting about recording our rehealsals again.. new guitarist, new stuff etc.

Now, I promised to tape our last session.. But somehow we ended up in a horry.. So, I had two mics, recorder, and no headphones to monitor nuttin'...

So!!... I just placed a stereo pair in front of the drummer, pointing away, at about the hight of kickdrums.. pointing to chesthight at cabinets...

I was worried that bass would take the fall, no biggie, it's me..
And that the vox would be all to left!.. NONE of that happened!!..

As I said, no headset to monitor, so I adjusted the levels by eye from the mr8hd display, so they weren't clipping,,, with some headroom...

when I get my headgear to mix that I'll throw a clip... But it sounded quite decent..

The new guitarist listened it afterwards from his headset, and was like;
"Man!!.. I hear stuff here I can't hear while playing!!.."

muhah!.. the mics don't have earplugs.. the drawing is close to precise on our room and positioning.

[Jouni]

Here's hell!!


"Death Only!"

http://serif.pp.fi/muuta/Death%20Only.mp3

ok... vocals are a bit down..

[MCI2424]

Originally Posted by ScreamingHead69

This is a challenge I've been tackling for a while now, so I figured I'd throw it out there to let the experts pick at it and maybe I'll learn a thing or two. Or be told to stop being a dumbass and do it the right way, it's all positive growth in the long run.

Aight, you have an MR8-HD four inputs, and a mixer so maybe you can stick a couple extra mics on the drum kit. What's the fastest most efficiant way to record reletively clear sounding tracks? Preferably getting all the instruments (two guitars, bass and drums) in one shot so you only have to go back and overdub the vocals. Oh yeah, the guitarists and bassist are all playing half stacks, the drummer is great but he tends to hit a little light, and the room is really small.

Anybody?

Drums on 1 channel mixed from a mixer. Bass on channel 2, guitar on ch 3

Bounce 3 channels to ch 4, mix carefully.

Record ch 1 and 2 and 3 vocals whatever.
Now you have 7 tracks altogether.

[ScreamingHead69]

All excelent advice, thanks dudes!