<--- gives new meaning to "newbie"

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sarCHASM

New member
alright. i'm the bassist in a punk type band that's been playing for a long time. just recently though, with the threat of me moving away to college, we've started practicing hardcore and looking to record. i don't know too much about technical stuff, but i'm trying.

my friend from his mildly successful band recommended not going into a studio first. instead, he is lending me a 4-track casette recorder. we have good amps, and one microphone which i don't know the name of. and i don't know the brand of recorder either. but since there are 2 guitarists, a bassist, and a vocalist, along with a drummer, how can i record all of that if there are only 4 tracks? this may sound ridiculous, but that's why i posted it on the newbie forum :)

what is the minimum number of mics we'd need to record our drummer? i'm hoping it won't be ridiculous, but we're not looking for anything near professional with this demo. we just need something to call our own.

thanks a lot for your help.
 
You can get a decent sound with 3 mics on drums. kick, snare, overhead.

You can do it all on a 4 track by mixng the drums and bass down to one track and then gtrs and vox on the others.

Find a local buddy that is into recording and get him to help you out. He will be stoked that he is doing a project and you will get some one that can help you with the technical details.
 
Welcome noob!

So, noob, you want to record ?

Well, this is how you do it, noob!

Depending on your little 4-track there...you can record 4 tracks at once....but THEN you can "BOUNCE" those tracks into 1 seperate track....now if its a digital 4-track chances are you can have more then 4 tracks on there...but if it is a tape 40track..youre stuck with those 4 tracks....so...Ill explain this as if you had a tape (because if you didnt...you would just keep recording and not bounce shtuff)


Record the drums first...with the guitarist playing...4 mics are all you can use so....use all 4.

Have one in the bass drum, one near the snear and HH, and 2 as overheads...you can also try using just 2 , one in the bass and one out in front of the set.


now...record those 4 mics....(have guitarist play quite or use headphones)


when your done you should be able to bounce those tracks into one track...that is make 4 tracks one....the only downside is that you can change levels when its in that one track so....better make sure its right before you do this.

then alls you do is record your remaining instruments on the remaining 3 tracks...simply right?



now....i hope i had that right....other ppl should reply saying more stuff too.


later, noob.
 
i like what i'm hearing..

but now i have an even n00bier question. do i plug the cords for the instruments themselves into the 4-track, or do i have to have a mic on each of them?

and once i do all that stuff, how do i make it a tape that can play in a standard cassette player?

thank you guys sooo much for helping me so far. i have a much better grasp already.

-Matt
 
mic everything, except for the bass, you can direct insert that.

to get it to play on a standard stereo system, you will have to do something called mixing down.

basically, this is taking the stereo outs on your 4 track into a regular stereo tape recorder. Hit record on the two-track and play on the 4 track, and you will be fine

why? you probably dont care, but ill try to explain anyway
when you put a tape in a 4 track, it records to four seperate strips on there. the problem with that is, regular stereo players only play 2 strips at a time, right and left. so, you need to condense all four of your strips, down to a stereo master
 
if were me i would use a computer. even a used amd duron a friend just got does 36 tracks or so. you can find used pc's for 100 bucks if you shop around. then youll need some mics, a mixer, and a sound card.
plus multitrack software. i use powertracks (dirt cheap) from pgmusic.com.
a superb product.
irrespective when using a 4 track or a pc. try recording your punk band like this. this is an old way of recording which resulted in more than a few hit songs.
lets assume you have 2 guitar amps, a bass player and a vocallist.
see if this technique floats your boat. it CAN sound fabulous for punk with
ONE RYDER !. you MUST experiment with mic positioning and the degree of distance between the guitar amps to each other and the drums (which must be tuned properly). also a good sounding room or space helps.....as follows. ONLY 3 mics.
space the two guitar amps about 15 feet or 20 apart and drums back about 10 or 15 feet from the amps.
one mic on each guitar amp, and one in front of the drums(also try overhead). the idea is the two guitar mics pick up the drums as well.
this is called a BED TRACK and is recorded to two tracks(or to one if you
want the old brit type of mono bed track). you run the bass direct through a DI or a bass effects box . when the band plays the vocallist is not recorded but overdubbed later.
part 2 in next message.
 
part 2. in the 3 mic set up think carefully of a triangle ie; the two guitar amps and the drums at points in the triangle. visually this helps. if it works.
what i do is draw a triangle on a pice of paper and write down the distances i used and mics for future use.
now - you can bring a vhs hi fi vcr into the equation if only using a 4 track. now you have the 3 mics recorded on two tracks of the 4 track,
or one if a mono bed track. the other two tracks can be used for adding other things like say drum overdubs and maybe reinforcing the bass
or maybe adding another rhythm guitar. this is where song planning real;ly
comes into play. having got 4 tracks recorded on the porta 4 track.
take stereo mix out to a vhs hi fi vcr and mix down to it.
one neat aspect of this is while mixing down if your porta lets you pass another signal thru it while mixing (or maybe use another mixer) you could add one or more tracks. lets say you added a track of say keyboard
at this point. so now you have the mix on vcr tape.
now play the tape back to a fresh cassette recording on the porta to two tracks. on the spare 2 tracks you can now record your final vocals and lead guitar breaks. part 3 to follow...
 
part 3. so now once again you have 4 tracks filled up. now mix down to a cassette deck or dat tape machine OR you could send the mix to a computer and record in stereo on the computer and burn a CD.
once again while mixing down you could add further tracks (as i said if you had another mixer). what is CRITICAL through all of this to stop noise build up is to be very carefull and record HOT (but not overly so) and experiment with levels.
instead of the vhs vcr. you could use 2 porta's. recording on one 4 tracks.
then mixing to 2 tracks on the second. adding two more tracks then. then mixing back to the first porta and adding 2 more tracks. then doing your final mixdown. its akin to the old days when big studios only had 3 or 4 track machines. so they bounced between them.
ive seen some people get great results with the foregoing. and loads of tracks. but you must really experiment a LOT.
hope this helps and good luck.
 
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