isolation...

[brandon.w]

I have a one room home studio. Bassically just a well insullated room...no foam yet (don't know if it would be worth it yet). I have a drum set, two guitar rigs, a bass rig, amped electric pianos and keyboards, along with a small collection of misc. instruments like trombones and conga drums. I record with a Yamaha MT8X analog cassette 8track...My setup is there to have friends and band mates come in, play, write, jam, and generally have fun. But I bought the 8track a while ago so we could actually get something down. I've done a lot of over-dubbing recordings with it, and I'm totally happy with the sound quality. My question is, can I mic all the amps, drums and whatever else and record onto this with no special isolation booths? will everything bleed into eachother? and if it does...would that really be so bad if I don't do anything for the mix other than adjust volume and possibly the tone a little? I would've gone ahead and tried this stuff out, but I haven't gotten around to buying the condenser mics/preamp yet. The sound quality I'm looking for is live, demo, or even indie release albums quality...I believe it's possible with what I've already done on my 8track, but will I HAVE to record everything seperatly? or can I get a good sound by micing a jam session?

[Tukkis]

You can remove alot of the spill from other mics by placing them correctly

You can even put up blankets around the drum kit or dividers of some sort

It doesn't really matter if there is a bit of spill because you're going for the live feel but the less there is, the easier it will be in the mixing stage

Cya
Tukkis

[KingNothing]

Yo dude. Ive spent hours and days messing around with the same problem you are asking about. The answer I have come to accept. You will not get any isolation without gates. And, for me, those are pretty much out of the question.

You can get a pretty nice sound without isolation. It is not totally needed, especially if you are going for, like you said, demo quality.

If you want to take it a step up from recording an entire jam session simultaneously, try multitracking the guitar over a drum track you record earlier. This will allow you to mess around with the drums as a whole, and tinker with the guitar to your pleasing.

Just some thoughts from someone in the same situation.

Late

[no_monkeybiznus]

Hi-I did some 8 track recording of a full band in one room a few weeks ago. We turned the amps down a bunch faced them towards a wall and covered them w/ a blanket, ran the bass direct, and listened through phones. There was a little leakage of drums into the amp mics, but it actually sounded good.

[Vurt]

Get yourself a bunch of service mats, Brandon. The kind you walk over all the time out in public but never notice. If you call a local provider (Van Dyne Crotty, Aramark, etc...) and are convincing enough, they may let you come down and fill up a car load of them. They're constantly replacing client sites with new ones, and throw the used ones in big storage cages. Just get a bunch of halfway decent ones, clean them, and use a staple gun to hang them all over the place. Works very well, especially for free.