Need some live, basement recording advice

[j7b]

All,

I and my fellow band mates need to record 4 songs to submit to a local rock search contest. Since the entry is due by 10/01, we don't have enough time to record track by track and mix.

Our only option is to record the stuff live. Which is okay; all they need is to be able to hear you enough to know your worthy of entering the contest. It doesn't need to be studio quality.

I'm looking for advice on how to set up our equipment to get the best result.

We have:

-TASCAM US-122 (USB device, 2 inputs (mic or guitar), phantom power on both)

-PA system

-1 Condensor mic

-5 Schure mic's

- Recording area is a wide open basement.


Specifically

1. How would I get the best acoustics? Band on one end of the basement, mic's on the other? In the corners?

2. How should we mic the stuff. One idea we had was to use two of the Schure mics for the drums, and one for the vocals. All 3 of these would run into the PA, where we could adjust the levels somewhat, then run it into the Tascam. Then place the condensor mic in the middle of the 3 guitar amps.

If we took that approach, whe thought we'd seperate the drum kit from the rest of us, and maybe hang a large piece of carpet between us to shield the condensor mic from the drums.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Seanmorse79]

Live stuff is fun

There are gobs of different ways to go about it, but I'd do this:

- Condenser as an overhead for the kit
- Shure #1 out in front of the kit
- Shure #2 vocals
- Shure #3 on guitar cab
- Shure #4 on the other guitar cab
- Bass direct into the board
- Shure #5 placed back as a room mic

Make everybody warm up while you apply EQ, panning, mix to taste, and stereo out of the board into the Tascam.

 

[sloop]

Since you are tight for time

It sounds like you need a simple recording.

Set up the PA. Put the vocals throught the PA--nothing else since you are in a small confined space. Set 1 microphone in front of each speaker. The guitar, bass and drum will bleed into these mics.

Play a piece, record it and play it back. Adjust the mic placement, vocal levels until it sounds like what you want.

 

[Ed Dixon]

Do you have another mixer, other than PA, to front end the TASCAM unit?

When we last did this, we tooks the feeds from the PA board and sent to a second mixer. We then used the output from each as inputs to the recording process. We used separate mics for any source not already in the PA.

Ed