recording a demo

[hardcore guy]

hey, im in a hardcore/metal band called Once We Were and we want to get a little demo recorded just so we can have something of ours to listen to or give out at shows or whatever. i know that with my experiance and equipment i can only make a diy recording but thats cool because i kinda like the diy sound anyways(i know some of you may not be able to understand this). i own a tascan 424 mkIII and i am borrowing tascam 414 from a friend. i have a few sm-48's and sm-57. i also have cool edit pro on my comp with a sound card that came w/ the comp. my band consists of 2 guitars, 1 bass, two vocalists and me the drumer w/ a four piece. i figured i'd record the drums and vox first because the drums are hard to record any place but first ( i know from experiance) and the vocals are mostly shouting, screaming, screeching, yelling and whatnot. i figured i'd mic every single drum and the cymbals would just bleed in through those mics wich would make it sound ok. i would put these through the 424 and mess with it many times to get the desired mix. then i would send the output rca cables to the 414, record the vocals on 2 tracks and the drums on two tracks at the same time. then i will mix it down to the computer on cool edit pro and keep the vox on the right and drums on the left. that way i can adjust them separatly once i get guitar into the mix. then i'd just separately record the guitars into it (easy). what do you think. any suggestions? anything you would change in my situation keeping in mind i have little to no money? let me know, thanks-laters

[Executivos]

I'd try recording just the drums on the four track...Kick/snare/left OH and right OH, and then do the rest of the tracking in cool edit pro. When the drums are done, Pan the kick hard left, snare hard right, mute the other two and hit play and record on cool edit. You'll probably need a stereo mini plug to rca cable...They are cheap, I get them at .99 store.

Then repeat that with the Overheads. You will have to do a little bit of editing to get everything to line up but it's not too hard and should work fine. Then overdub the guitars/bass/vocals and what not, skipping the four track. Trust me it won't sound like a pop record. I'd try to keep the overdubs away from the 4 track and send them to cool edit.

It shouldn't cost you anything unless you don't have that cable and like I said..... $.99

Good Luck!

[hardcore guy]

after trasnfering the drums and vocals to the computer i was planning on adding in everything else via cool edit pro and keeping it off the four track. i think your suggestion is good but the reason i need to do vocals and drums at the same time is because the vocals are very loud screaming and yelling and you wouldn't be able to do that while listening to headphones and keep the right time. one of these days i'll get a sound card with two inputs so i can do both at the same time and keep them separate on cool edit but for now i think i have to do it my way. thanks for the suggestion though, more are still welcome.

[3Sum]

when we only had 4 mics this is what we did:

shure beta sm58 (with ball on) - between hi-hat and snare
shure sm58 (ball off) - on high tom
shure sm58 (ball off) - on floor tom
shure bg 1.1 (mic cost me around 40 dollars: ball on) - on the bass drum through a peavey tko 150 bass amp

the bass drum sounds really really nice through that amp...

if you want to hear what the finished recording sounds like goto http://www.mp3.com/3_SuM and download Long Road To Nowhere... and thoughts on the drums in that would be fine too. Hope this helps dude! LAter

chris