Recording Jam sessions

W

Wirolain

New member
Hey everyone!
So to get to the point right away, we have a band and a practice spot, which is about 270 sq ft (25m2). Instruments are a guitar, a bass and drums, with vocals and backing vocals.
I would love to record our jam sessions for song ideas. The gear we have is two condenser mics, and two dynamic ones. The dynamics are for vocals.

How would you suggest to set up the mics to capture everything, enough to get somewhat clear sounds? To work on songs later on.

I've been thinking about placing the condensers to the guitar and bass amps, but would that capture the drums as well?
Or should I try to place the mics around the room? If so, how?

Are these stupid ideas? I really don't have any experience on the matter, so any input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
You don't say what recording equipment you have. I've used a Zoom H4n with the two internal mics pointed at a couple of guitars, a condenser mic at the drums, and a mic in front of a PA speaker for vocals. It worked ok I didn't have a cable at the time to feed the PA directly. If you were just trying to work out song ideas, it would be more than adequate.

It's difficult to say where to put the mics for the best sound, because the room will affect things. You could put the bass and guitar amps close to each other and put one mic on those, then one over the drums. Assuming you have a PA system, and have an extra channel, you should be able to feed a track from the PA mixer.
 
Ah sorry. We do have the basics, like DAW and a multi channel mixer, through which our vocals go to the PA system, so I do believe we can record all the mics at the same time.
So I don't think we need to use a mic for the PAs.
But you would recommend using one of the two available mics on drums specifically?
That amps close together thing might work..
 
Too many possible permutations and you will have to experiment to find the best option. I would put one condenser on the drums, one in front of the band aimed at the guitar amp, one dynamic on the bass amp and the last for vocal.

Better would be to split the bass out and DI it, dynamic on guitar cab, two condensers for drums
 
Wirolain said:
Hey everyone!
So to get to the point right away, we have a band and a practice spot, which is about 270 sq ft (25m2). Instruments are a guitar, a bass and drums, with vocals and backing vocals.
I would love to record our jam sessions for song ideas. The gear we have is two condenser mics, and two dynamic ones. The dynamics are for vocals.

How would you suggest to set up the mics to capture everything, enough to get somewhat clear sounds? To work on songs later on.

I've been thinking about placing the condensers to the guitar and bass amps, but would that capture the drums as well?
Or should I try to place the mics around the room? If so, how?

Are these stupid ideas? I really don't have any experience on the matter, so any input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Are the condensers Cadiod or multi-pattern?

Regarding the first question - no it's not a stupid idea - I would put Condenser 1 between you guitar and bass - with Cabinets kinds facing each other like a V pattern - I would put Condenser 2 in front of the drums - then Dynamic 1 & 2 for the vocals. See how it works.

Alternatively you could get a direct box and run the Bass direct - then Condenser 1 and Dynamic 1 on the Drums - Dynamic on the kick and Condenser 1 as an over head - Then share Condenser 2 as a shared Vocal and BackGround mic.

This assuming you have the rest of the tools - A Mixer, DAW and so forth.
 
With the smallish size everything will bleed anyway, so separation is never going to give you clean results, so I’d go with the ‘area’ approach described above too.
 
The mixer has a USB interface, so we can plug it straight into a pc and record to the daw.

The condenser mics are cardioid mics, so I can't just put one in the middle of the room and work with that.

I have read a lot of good things about the Zoom H series, so that will be on my buy list in the future, but right now it's not possible.

Yeah, it is a smallish room, so I never thought about getting really clean sound, but just so we could hear at least somewhat how the instruments play and get a feel of what is being played.
It is meant just as a tool for writing, so it's not to be published anywhere.

I will try that V amp style and the drums, see how that works!

If there's anymore ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.
Thanks guys
 
If this is just so you can record your jams to listen back to ideas later, then you don't have to be so fussy. Set the 2 condensor mics to pick up a 'stereo' image of your band set up - like you were on a stage playing to an audience - but the mics are the audience. Play for a little while, then stop and listen back. If the drums are too loud, etc, move the mics accordingly.
In one of my last bands, we were practicing in an untreated garage (only some very thick foam above the drummer) and wanted to get some songs for our website. We were using IEMs for vocals only, no PA speakers in the garage. We set up a Zoom recorder in about the middle of the room to record all the instruments, with the lead singer outside the room singing so we could hear him in our IEMs so that our arrangements stayed together. It took 3 or 4 tries of moving the recorder around to get the proper balance (and the foam on the ceiling did quiet the cymbal reflections from the ceiling).
 
mjbphotos said:
If this is just so you can record your jams to listen back to ideas later, then you don't have to be so fussy. Set the 2 condensor mics to pick up a 'stereo' image of your band set up - like you were on a stage playing to an audience - but the mics are the audience. Play for a little while, then stop and listen back. If the drums are too loud, etc, move the mics accordingly.
In one of my last bands, we were practicing in an untreated garage (only some very thick foam above the drummer) and wanted to get some songs for our website. We were using IEMs for vocals only, no PA speakers in the garage. We set up a Zoom recorder in about the middle of the room to record all the instruments, with the lead singer outside the room singing so we could hear him in our IEMs so that our arrangements stayed together. It took 3 or 4 tries of moving the recorder around to get the proper balance (and the foam on the ceiling did quiet the cymbal reflections from the ceiling).
Click to expand...
+1 ! Google " co-i stereo mi c setup" and "Gerzon array" a stereo bar can be bought quite cheaply from Amazon. The great benefit of the 'pseudo audience' as Mike suggests is that it give you a very good idea of your band's internal musical balance. If the balance sounds ***t on replay then SOMEONE in the band needs to turn down! Most commonly vocals get lost because feedback limits the sound level a PA can deliver.

I would also bet that mixer only records at 16 bits and therefore you will have to keep an eye on levels, make sure peaks go no higher than -8dB or so. With care, 16 bits is easily good enough for a live band, after all peeps used to use '9 bit' tape machines!

Dave.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top