Recoording live in rehearsal room

Garry Sharp

Garry Sharp

Lost Cause
Time to make a new demo, and any advice on the following gratefully received. Apologies for a rather long post.

We play best live, and I am very keen to do live recordings in the rehearsal room. I am much more interested in catching the spontaneity and groove of the band (they are all very competent, lots of session and/or live experience) than kidding myself I’ll get a professional quality studio recording with my gear. Doing one track at a time ruins it, takes all the fun out of it for all of us.

The room is 18’ by 16’, and one of the longer walls and both the 16’ walls slope almost to the floor (cause they are the roof). So there are no parallel surfaces (except 10’ floor to ceiling!). The vertical wall behind the drums (i.e. the back wall) are covered in acoustic foam and the two side walls for about half way down to the front are covered in a mixture of quilts, bits of carpet and medium dense, ordinary foam squares. We are delighted with the sound we get in there for rehearsals.

Line up is bass, guitar, drums, female lead vox and female BV. We use 4 vox monitors, one of which (12” + horn) is aimed at the drummer and also carries a DI’ed bass for him (the band generally follows the bass, which is me, for tempo) Bass and guitar come from the backline speakers, which as you can see from my little picture point back from the “audience” wall.

So, what I would like to do is put headphones on everybody, so the only noise would be drums and the mic’d guitar amp. (Bass will be DI’d) Appreciate that spillage will be a major issue but I’ve read so many producers saying that it’s not the end of the world I would like to see if I can live with it.

I have a Yammie MG12/4 mixer and an AW16G HDR, which is 16 track with 8 simultaneous inputs. Mic’s are Rode NTK for lead vox, AKG C3000B for backing vox (I know, I know, but I like the way that toppy sound sits in the mix), a collection of AKG drum mic’s (they’re the drummer’s and I don’t have the budget for a better set) and an assortment of Shure and Sennie dynamics.

Plan to submix drums down to 4 tracks, plus one each for bass, guitar, lead and backing vox. Might overdub an additional guitar part and more vocals.

I appreciate that I am probably completely mad, but I’m really keen to try this and any advice – mic placement, avoiding phase problems etc., would be very much appreciated.

Sorry again for the length of the post.

Garry
 

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There is no hard and strict rules in recording, if you feel it brings the best in the musician, try it! Use Baffles around the drum and also the guitar amp. Close mic most of the stuff. Make your band members face away from each other and probably you wont have any phase problems unless your paired mics are exactly in phase, in that case cross them a little bit. Only thing you have worry about is the drum bleeding into other instrument tracks. If possible put your vocalist in a different room. Good Luck and try to post the out come in the forum, we all could see how it works.
 
Thanks Jeyan. Was thinking I could easily make a drum baffle with some wooden rods and blankets. We have other adjacent rooms but I'm reluctant to put the singers in there because they are all bare walls and I want to keep everyone together.

I guess drum bleed onto the vocal mic's is the potential killer.
 
Hey Gary, sounds like you've got it figured out for the most part, and I'm a big proponent of getting the live feel most of the time, as well. I've found though that getting the drums, bass, and rhythm gtr is the core of that vibe, and that the song as a whole is usually better served by leaving everything else for overdubs.

Is there a way you can place gt amps outside your room to avoid bleed into drum mics? Amp signal in drums mics is the #1 thing I would try to avoid here. I've heard success stories of baffling, but haven't had or seen any really success myself. However you go about it, do your best to prevent those drum mics from picking up anything else.

good luck

Adam
 
Thanks Bull and SubA

I've come to my senses:) - I'll do exactly what you both said.

First 8 tracks will be 5 drums, guitar, bass and guide vox. Will add proper lead and backing vox on 2nd pass (have just got back from a day with wooden poles, quilts, blankets etc making a couple of little "boothlets" for the 2 singers) plus any guitar overdubs. Should be close enough to live.

And the guitar amp will go in a separate room.

Anyway, we are still working up our new backing singer and we have an important gig in a fortnight, so we won't actually be recording until middle of the month.

Thanks for taking the time to post - appreciated.
 
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