live band recording

M

Modern_Talking

New member
this weekend i will be doing the sound for a 6 piece live band

they want me to record them at the same time while they are playing

problem is i have never done a live recording . any tips on how to get it right the first time or at least give them something decent .

i will be using a mackie 24ch mixing board some effect processors and some backup amps for the gutarists which i guess will be run into the mixing board .

i also have with me my boss 8ch hard disk recorder, but i can rent one that can record more than 8ch at the same time . the keyboardist uses 3 keyboards and wants each keyboard to run in stereo .

so someone could suggest if the hard disk record is enough to do the job or a computer is required and what is the best way to record them onto a recorder .

drummer will take up about 4 mics
1 lead guitar
1 rhythm guitar
1 bass guitar
3 keyboards
1 main vocals
2 backup vocals or harmony vocals
Electronic drum pad (SPD8) (this one maybe)

they will all be going into the mixer except for the guitar's that will have a line out coming out of the amp into the mixing board . So any tips on how to send it to the hard disk recorder . through direct outs or use sub groups or the main outs or ?????

Oh . one thing i want to mention is that i would like to record them exactly as i would hear them on the headphone which is connected to the mixer . The main guy in the band will do the band's balance through the headphone and wants the same quality to be recorded on separate tracks as on the headphone . so any advise would be appreciated .

thank you for taking the itme to read this .
 
Take the submaster outputs of the console [run the system in stereo] and add a pair of "room mics"... balance the sections later.

So you'll end up with drums on two tracks, instruments on two tracks, vocals on two tracks with two tracks of "room"... the only bitch of the beast might be getting the balance on the bass right as most bars either have too much or too little subwoofer in them but the "room" tracks should help fill that in.

Best of luck.
 
Dont record guitar line in!!!! Use an amp. DI the bass.
What you want is to minimise spill from other sources. ie drum mic picking up guitar. So try and use seperate rooms and feed the cables through so everyone is in the same room. If thats not possible then carefully place amps so as to minimise spill. Try getting some sort of room splitter. Just some thin sheets of wood or something will do. Place drum kit in corner of room and place seperaters infront of kit. Maybe leave a wee gap for the drummer to see the rest of the band.
The less spill you acheive, the more professional it can sound. ie less roomy and more in your face album quality. What you want is to try and acheive single tracked album quality from a live recording. Listen to the Nine Inch Nails live dvd, Halo 17. Probably one of the best sounding live recordings, and they were playing a gig to a large crowd! That team of engineers have sussed it.
 
Fletcher said:
Take the submaster outputs of the console [run the system in stereo] and add a pair of "room mics"... balance the sections later.

So you'll end up with drums on two tracks, instruments on two tracks, vocals on two tracks with two tracks of "room"... the only bitch of the beast might be getting the balance on the bass right as most bars either have too much or too little subwoofer in them but the "room" tracks should help fill that in.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...

hey thank you for the reply .

opps ! i forgot to mention that i am not recording them in a room . they are playing (the band) in a banquet hall and i am giving them my sound system . they wanted me to do their recording while playing live onto separate tracks (like a hard disk recorder) and maybe the next day they want to use that recording on the H.disk rec. to maybe burn a cd . also if any mistakes were made while playing live, they can just erase that individual track and re-record it .

The drums on 2 tracks sounds like a good idea from the mixer since there are so many mic hooked up to the drums . the instruments would be nice if i could send them indivudually to the h.disk recorder.
now if individually ch is not possible on the h.disk rec. from the mixer board then i guess i have to use the sub-outs (8 sub outs on the mackie) and like you said drums on 2 tracks (sub out 1&2), instruments on 2 tracks (sub outs 3&4) and vocals on 2 tracks (sub outs 5&6) .

ecktronic
Dont record guitar line in!!!! Use an amp. DI the bass.
What you want is to minimise spill from other sources. ie drum mic picking up guitar.

hello there . i was not quiet sure what you meant by this but this is the way i was going to hook up all the guitars .
3 guitar players . all have their own amps . i was going to put 1 each mic to or near the speaker of the amp(s) and hook up the mic cord into the mackie mixer board . so that their guitars can also be heard through the P.A system as well as their backup amps. then i though of running the line out from their backup amps into the hard disk recorder into separate input channels .
i hope i'm making any sence here .

just a quick not that this is a live band going to be playing in a banquet hall for a wedding . i've already check out the hall and the celings are pretty high and the hall itself is all carpet and quiet huge . i would say the hall can take about 300 to 400 people but they are having around 200 people or so .

any way thank you all for your inputs and maybe i should re-think this over and maybe tell them give the recording job to somebody else . don't want to screw up anything and give a bad name . :D
 
With the band in one room, you going to have some spillover. You can do some thing to reduce it, but it will still be there with live mics involved. What you want is as many tracks of the material as you can get. That way you have more choice when you mix the result. Once they are combined during the original recording, you cannot split them later.

Your job is basically two phases. The first is to record the raw material. The second is to mix the result as best you can with what you have to work with. No matter what it sounds like live, you always have more choices during mix down with good track material.

Ed
 
Borrow a DAT (or better, a digital camcorder) and hook up a decent stereo condenser mic (or a pair of decent mono condensers) to it. Place this somewhere beyond the front of the stage. Experiment with the position. This has two purposes. First, if the recording quality ends up being awful, at least you'll have something. Second, it will provide some ambient hall effects that you can capture later and mix in with the close recording to add a sense of depth that the recording might otherwise lack.

Of course, if you really take this to the extreme, you can mix in a lot of it for that 'live concert with screaming fans' sound. Not what they asked you for, but it's always best to have options. They might very well hear it and decide that what they asked for isn't really what they wanted after all....

Beyond that, pretty much what everybody else said. Close mic the instruments using a directional mic, then mix in Di sound to taste, as this will cut down on room noise. An SM58 is your friend for vocals. Keep the vocalist away from the drummer, both to keep the vocals out of the overheads and to keep the drums out of the vocals.

Above all else, leave yourself plenty of time to do multiple sound checks, ideally the day -before- you do the recording so that if there are issues, you have time to deal with them.

Oh, yeah. Extra cables. And a soldering gun and solder just in case. Comes in handy when somebody breaks a microphone and/or cable the day before a gig....
 
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