Home recording set-up

R

Resende

New member
Hi all!

so, i have a band, and we want to start making a few decente recordings to show and promote. Doesn't have to be studio quality and anyway we don't have the budget for that.

So i've been figuring out ways to home-record us and have some measure of control in post. The band is 4 instruments: Piano, Voice, Guitar, and Percussion (light, a Flamenco cajón, basically a wooden box).

Do you think this setup would work?:

1 - digital Piano connects connects to DAW through MIDI cable
2 - Acoustic amplified guitar to amplifier and from amp to DAW (with some cable... possible?)
3 - the voice recorded with a Cardioid mic through sound interface to DAW
4 - percussion recorded with dynamic mic, through sound interface to DAW.

All 4 musicians would have headphones, so they get the 4 instruments in real time.

Although i think i can isolate the sound captured from the cardioid mic, i don't know if a couple of acoustic improvised barriers (maybe placing the percussion in a separate adjoining room) would allow me to get 4 clean independent tracks that i could post process a bit... or if this whole system i'm proposing would work at all...

people who have had similar experiences, could you please be so kind to drop a comment on this possible set-up? I'm a well rounded musician, but have close to zero experience with recording, so i'd really appreciate some input here! thanks!!
 
If the acoustic is going into an amplifier, you'll probably get better results by putting a mic on the amp.

From a technical "getting the instruments to sound good and not bleed all over each other", recording the whole band live is much more difficult than recording each instrument individually. It's possible your band will have an easier time performing the songs this way, but if you want the best results you can get, I'd recommend individually-tracking everything.
 
If you don't need studio quality why are you trying to go the studio way? It just makes things much harder.

Is the room you're rehearsing in sounding good? Then it could be as simple as putting one or two mics in the sweet spot and finding the right blend while you're playing. With the right blend I mean every musician should play at the right volume. When you find that sweet spot and that volume, concentrate on the music and let the recorder run.

For a demo, it's the soul of the band you're trying to record. Doesn't need to be technically perfect, as long as the vibe comes through.

And, BTW, what genre are you playing?
 
Are you sure you want to record the MIDI from the digital piano, and not the audio from it? IF it is MIDI, then you will be driving a VSTi in the DAW and may experience some latency issues.
You'll want to use an audio interface with at least 2 mic preamps, a line input and MIDI (or is the MIDI actuallu via USB?) and capable of at least 3-in A-D conversion (4 is you change to using the DP's audio output)
 
Hi Resende and welcome. Now, I am pretty sure you are not the usual 13 yr old rock/pop/punk bedroom wannabes who are looking to make a hit demo?

No, I strongly suspect you are all competent musicans and AS good musicians you will already have created a good internal balance in the band.

In the first instance I would see if you can borrow or hire one of the many "hand held" (but don't!) recorders now about such as the Zoom HN4. Thes have "adequate" microphones on them and are configured to capture a "Co-Incident stereo recording" and a CO-I* recording is, IMHO the way you should go. It is also the way it was done for decades BECAUSE record Cos' were only interested in recording EXCELLENT musicians! They were not going to mess about with some talentless punks who could not make a good, integrated sound! Of course, waaaay back just ONE mic!

Better than the Zoom would be a matched pair of Small Diaphragm Capacitors (the SE 8s get a V good rep) on a Stereo Bar and into a USB interface. For the latter I would go a step up from basic and look at the Focusrite 6i6 and similar offerings from Tascam, Roland, Native Instruments.

You will need a fairly big, decent sounding room.

*Google it.

Dave.
 
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