My recent session pix.

[Nate74]

It's been too long since I've had a chance to track a full band in my home studio, but when one of my current projects wanted to record, I decided to have a go at doing the full thing. In the past several years, I've been doing mostly solo acoustic projects, guitars, vocals and some mixing for various projects, but nothing with live drums.

With the help of this board and some other sources, we actually got a really good drum sound to "tape" and the guitars are sound really good too.

At this point, all that's left to do is finish the lead and backing vocals and then mix.

Thought I'd just share some pix we took.

A few bass traps are missing from the control room pic, they were relocated into the room where we recorded the drums.

The setup:

Drums:
Kick - Beta52
Overheads - Rode NT5s
Snare - Audio Technica ATM-25
Toms - Audix I5s

Guitars:
Dr. Z - e609
Mesa - I5
Room - Mid/Side with a NT5 and Studio Projects C3 (figure 8)

Bass:
Direct plus a PODXT

Vocals: TBD but probalby a Rode NTK or the Studio Project C3.

Just wanted to share.

[JuliánFernández]

Cool! Post samples man!

[Nate74]

Originally Posted by JuliánFernández

Cool! Post samples man!

Will do. I haven't gotten too carried away with sample mixes just because the other guys in the band get a bit carried away with their "suggestions." But I should have some stuff to post in the mp3 section in a few days or so.

I may also post just the snare sound we got from the ATM-25. It sounded boomy and lacked the definition I was expecting. There's plenty of snare through the overheads so the overall sound seems fine, but the snare track really surprised us...

[TexRoadkill]

Originally Posted by Nate74

I may also post just the snare sound we got from the ATM-25. It sounded boomy and lacked the definition I was expecting.

Huh? Why would you expect that out of a kick mic?

[mrhotapples]

I'd be willing the bet that the placement of the mic had more to do with the snare sounding dull than the mic. The ATM-25's frequency response isn't exactly worse than the standard fair SM57 most people would go to. The curve is DIFFERENT, but it isn't going to make something sound dull. Micing a snare when there are so many ways to tune one is fucking hard when you do it every day, and I'd imagine it's a lot harder when it's been a while.

Go back and sample that shit but try EVERYTHING.

The last time I got a good snare sound without destroying it with compression and EQ was with an I5, though...On a cranked phosphor bronze breakbeat snare with too much ring. I5's are great for killing tone. Give that a try.

I dunno. So tired...Happy New Year!

[Crumbles]

What's going on with the guitar amps?

[Nate74]

Oops, now I'm totally red-faced. After your reading your post Tex I double checked the mic and I goofed... I meant ATM23 not 25... my bad.

I'm finding as I mess with the mixes that the low mid "thwack" of the ATM23 is a nice balance from the higher end "crack" of the NT5 overheads. Luck seems to have prevailed where skill was a bit absent.

As for the guitar amps, we close miced each one and I took down one of my 2x2 2-inch thick absorbers from my studio to try to get a little seperation between the two. We also did a mid-side setup about 5' out so we wanted the sound source to be fairly close together... it actually proved quite nice though I've dropped the close mic on the Mesa to about half of the the 609 on the Dr. Z. The Dr. Z is just a better sounding amp for what our guitarist is going for I guess.

Here's a link to a mix I put together for the band to check out . Just a touch of reverb, some light compression and a touch of EQ; just my go-to settings.

I was messing around with some organ sounds but will probably abandon the idea for the real mix.

http://www.midnightgrooveband.com/MP3s/Gravity_B3.mp3

All in all, for a weekend warrior, I'm pretty happy with the way it's shaping up...