Only 8 mic pre's, some ideas on recording full bands + drums please

K

Kapo_Polenton

New member
Ok,

So I've got an out dated Firepod which works great but is obviously limited to either being chained to another Firepod or nothing at all. They aren't compatible with any of the new stuff. So why sell something that works perfectly fine is what I am thinking.. but then one can run into issues. Say i wanted to track a band.. to save on time I'd ideally like to record everyone at once and maybe only work on the vocals later in a more controlled environment. I was wondering if anyone has worked with similar gear but used an external mixer to mix down drums and send two stereo inputs into their DAW for production? Ideally what I was thinking of doing was using the 8 inputs as follows:

1- BASS direct
2- guitar mic'ed cab (iso box)
3- vocal scratch track
4- kick
5- snare
6- hi hat
7- bounced down drum mix L
8- bounced down drum mix R

Essentially what I would do is grab a small 6 input external mixer and split the kit. I'd bump up my ride cymbal so I could hear the bell, balance the toms, turn down the over head crashes and then send that out into a Left and Right side so sonically I have a stereo representation of the kit with the important parts (snare, kick, hi-hat) accessible to altering after the fact. This does I realize somewhat compromise my ability to manipulate audio mistakes where the toms and cymbal work is concerned but it can still be done with careful editing I'd think. Generally speaking, it is the snare and kick which seem to suffer most when I play drums anyway so that is what is nice to have the most control over.

Thoughts? I just can't see spending the cash on firestudio's or other interfaces right now. I'd rather spend on mics.
 
I record our band on 8 inputs. IE: Drums on input 1 (I set the mic up beside the kick aimed at the bottom of the snare and use the low EQ to control the level of the kick during mixing); Bass on input 2; Guitars on 3 and 4; Keys on 5; Lead vox on 6; Backing vox on 7 and 8. You have to experiment with the drum mic placement a little but this setup works pretty well.
 
four track for drums 2 overheads on kick and snare, bass, guitar, that is 6 tracks...duh. 2 more 1 for scratch vox, and if you have keys or another guitarist...
 
You're wasting a whole track on a hi-hat mic???? And you have no overheads for the kit????

I would ditch that plan and read up on drum micing techniques. I'd go with 2 overheads, kik and snare (4 channels).

Other than that, the idea of recording a whole band at once might sound cool, but I guarantee you that you'll get better results tracking individually.
 
HH is usually picked up enough in the overheads. I would more likely have a room mic track in its place. But that is just what I would do. Or use the mixer to combine all the scratch tracks into one channel, get 7 mics on the kit, and track the other stuff later. :D
 
RAMI said:
You're wasting a whole track on a hi-hat mic???? And you have no overheads for the kit????

I would ditch that plan and read up on drum micing techniques. I'd go with 2 overheads, kik and snare (4 channels).

Other than that, the idea of recording a whole band at once might sound cool, but I guarantee you that you'll get better results tracking individually.
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This needs said twice.
 
It appears he was planning on using overheads through the mixer. Not sure what he meant by turning them down tho.:confused:
 
Yehp. true that.

It was more the tracking individually thing though.

Unless you really don't want to, It'd be better to use your 8 channels (or less) to get a great kit recording, then build upon that through multitracking.

What os are you on op?
 
Sorry guys, more clarification perhaps.. I have enough mics to do the whole kit. What I was planning to do is se the overheads only for ambience on the cymbals really and this would give me the advantage to bring the volume down on the crashes in the mix. The toms would be mic'd but obviously they'd be a bit louder. The reason I am wasting a mic on the hi hat is because when i listen to my favourite recordings and isolated drum tracks from the 80's, it sounds to me like they have the kick,snare, and hats really befed up and processed for a reason. Those three really cut through.. for that reason I am playing a bit with the idea of givin the hat it's own mic as to me in the past, it sounded a bit distant and not right when I recorded relying on the overheads. (my overheads are behringer so not that great, the rest are sm57, and 52 for the kick)

However that said, a mixer is also a good idea for the opposite ..recording a vocal scratch track or bass I suppose. Hadn't thought of that. Of course this all goes away if i decide to track everyone individually.
 
Good point... hadn't thought of that. I might be guilty of trying to accomplish too much in less time. The traditional route of individual tracking might still be best..
 
Your plan sounds pretty good to me and I disagree with the comment that doing instruments individually will give you a better recording. I'll give you a cleaner recording, but not necessarily a better one. I do a lot of recording bands live together and I find this more often than not gets the best performance results (case in point MixTips: Performance Is Everything). You can always do overdubs to a live band.

I'd take a few old school recording techniques and change a couple of things with your set up. This will give you a few options in mixing especially if you've got the mics and a mixer to work with is this.

1. Kick & Hi Hat: If you filter the high end out of the kick and the low end out of the high hat - a crossover somewhere between 800Hz and 1kHz - when you come to mix you can copy the audio onto another track, apply the same filters and pretty much have 2 channels out of one. If you need more top end click in your kick then you can always sound replace the kick with a sample. At least you'll have the original feel.
2. Snare
3. Toms: If you mix all the Toms down to one track then, in the mix you can cut and paste each Tom onto it's individual track and pan them separately then. Alternatively, take sample hit's of each tom and again replace the hits with the sample. This will give you control over sound and panning without having to mix them into the overheads.
4. Overhead left
5. Overhead Right - if you wanted if go proper old school, sum the overheads to mono and do a room mic in this channel instead. Mono drums can be cool.
6. Bass DI
7. Keys (can always overdub these if you want stereo)
8. Vocals

Doing this will give you the most control over the drums in the mix and still allow you to record everything at once to capture that performance. Recording like this can be really fun and you can still get some control when mixing. I've mixed dub tracks before, where the kick snare and hats where on the same channel and just separated them out by editing them in Pro Tools and treated them separately in the mix.
 
Man I wish I would have thought of idea #3 before I had a 16 channel interface! What a great idea Sonny!
 
Seriously, that is a good idea. Depending on how tom heavy the song is (say a Slayer tune vs. a mainstream pop/rock song) you probably won't even have to do that much editing beyond a few passages. A simple cut and paste. Props for that idea it is much appreciated.
 
RAMI said:
Other than that, the idea of recording a whole band at once might sound cool, but I guarantee you that you'll get better results tracking individually.
Click to expand...

I like the vibe that can be captured with live-to-multitrack recording. Yeah, you have to discard the takes with obvious mistakes, but if your band is well-rehearsed you can get great results. You can still go back and fix things with overdubs if need be.
 
Thanks Jimmy and Kapo. Just a shame I didn't get to you before you bought that US1800 Jimmy.

clivus said:
I like the vibe that can be captured with live-to-multitrack recording. Yeah, you have to discard the takes with obvious mistakes, but if your band is well-rehearsed you can get great results. You can still go back and fix things with overdubs if need be.
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Would wholeheartedly agree.
 
Yeah right. Vibe shmibe. Let's see how that recording turns out. I still guarantee you'll get much better results tracking the way 99% of music is recorded.

Please post your results when it's done. Thank you. :)
 
RAMI said:
Yeah right. Vibe shmibe. Let's see how that recording turns out. I still guarantee you'll get much better results tracking the way 99% of music is recorded.

Please post your results when it's done. Thank you. :)
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Haha. As much as I'd like to believe in the live vibe thing, RAMI is right. You'll be much better off tracking everything separately.
 
Both have their place.
I've never stopped before to think of whether or not a song was majorly tracked live or piece by piece. They both make for great songs.
 
grimtraveller said:
Both have their place.
I've never stopped before to think of whether or not a song was majorly tracked live or piece by piece. They both make for great songs.
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Don't get me wrong. I agree with those that say both ways can and have worked.

But I think this is a case of someone trying to run before they can walk. It's hard enough getting it right tracking one track at a time. It's even way more complicated trying to track all at once. Not trying to rain on the OP's parade or discourage him. But I don't think he'll be happy with the results. That's all I'm saying. :cool:
 
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