Results of "Live band recording" (few inputs).

CMolena

Active member
Hey, guys.

I recently started a thread at the recording session with the tittle above.

I'm posting the results just so that you guys can make any comments you want about it. I had only 4 inputs.

Me and a group of friends, we have a group that put up shows for local bands in a bar (like the CBGB of Brazil...not really, but close). Along with that we make sessions for youtube, so the band can have some material of them to share throughout the internet. And we lvoe that raw live vibe of a band playing in a bar, so that is a thing to keep in mind while listening to the results.

I engineered the session and here is how I placed the mics:

Drums: One OH pointing straight at the snare as you can see it in the video - in the mix I just had to boost the low end a little so that the kick drum would be more present;

Guitars: I had trouble with this, because they had 2 guitar players and I had one mic for guitars. So I just placed it right below the OH mic with the 2 guitar amps pointing to it. We had to boost the volume reaaaaally loud so that it reach the mic without catching so much bleed from everything else - I literally had done nothing but a 150hz cut in the mix.

Bass - Shure SM57 right on the speaker of the amp. - compressor and eq

Vocals: I took the line out of the mixer so the vox were pretty much without bleed - I just compressed the hell out of it and cut 150hz aswell.

Here is the link...and sorry for the long post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8lfMh8VJ1g

(We recorded 3 songs of them...and they are in the related videos if u want to see).
 
Hey Cmo, can you record the bass DI and save a mic that way? DI bass sounds great, imo, many times even better than an amp, and would save you a mic. I think it sounds very good considering the limitations.

The guitars sound thin, so I think there might be some phase cancellation or something going on. I'd DI the bass, maybe take that mic from the backup singer, and use those to isolate the guitars more. Curious to hear what the forum thinks.
 
Man I bet the band had a ball! Looks like a really cool and fun session. When it was over were they diggin' it? Bet they were! That drummer done good! Performance was really cool. No offense to the lead vocal, but I bet a few more passes would have caught him a little more in tune.

Don't know what you want to use this for, but I think you did a great job with the resources at hand. Tell the band congrats on having the balls to throw that up there for the world to see. Really lot's of fun!! They seem well rehearsed. Nice job!
 
4tracker's probably right about a DI on the bass. It wouldn't hurt to try. Especially if that meant you could turn the guitar amps down a little so the vocalist could hear himself.

That ends up being my biggest issue: the vocal performance is really rough. It sounds like he couldn't hear what was going on at all.

Otherwise, the instruments sound pretty passable.
 
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