Recording band in a basement

[bobpick68]

I've volunteered to be the one to record our band demo and I was hoping for some tips. Here's the deal.. we have no budget at all but I do have enough stuff to record us with. I'm just looking for some tips on getting a "better than boombox" sound. We are set up in a partially finished basement (no drywall but i/o carpet on the floors and exposed insulation in the ceiling) We are a five piece Rock Cover Band. 3 guitars, bass, drums.

Gear to be used for recording (Please don't laugh)

MXL 990/991 Mics
Samson C01 Condenser
3x SM57's
3x SM58's
1x Shure Beta 52A Kick Mic
Lexicon Omega Version 2 Interface
XP laptop running Reaper

I'm hoping to get some general advice on making the best of a bad situation with no budget. In other words if you were stuck in a situation with the gear I have in a basement surrounded by concrete and you absolutely had to record a band what are some of the things you would do? IE mic placement, hang quilts on walls? etc etc..

 

[bobpick68]

I've volunteered to be the one to record our band demo and I was hoping for some tips. Here's the deal.. we have no budget at all but I do have enough stuff to record us with. I'm just looking for some tips on getting a "better than boombox" sound. We are set up in a partially finished basement (no drywall but i/o carpet on the floors and exposed insulation in the ceiling) We are a five piece Rock Cover Band. 3 guitars, bass, drums.

Gear to be used for recording (Please don't laugh)

MXL 990/991 Mics
Samson C01 Condenser
3x SM57's
3x SM58's
1x Shure Beta 52A Kick Mic
Lexicon Omega Version 2 Interface
XP laptop running Reaper

I'm hoping to get some general advice on making the best of a bad situation with no budget. In other words if you were stuck in a situation with the gear I have in a basement surrounded by concrete and you absolutely had to record a band what are some of the things you would do? IE mic placement, hang quilts on walls? etc etc..

I forgot to mention I will be using a Yamaha MG102C Stereo Mixer to sub mix the drum kit.

 

[moresound]

Well no matter what you can only record with 2 microphones at the same time.
You can either record the whole band with two tracks as in a live recording or take the time to do one instrument at a time (my suggestion) Start with the instrument that will be the most easiest for all concerned.

 

[Dogbreath]

Well no matter what you can only record with 2 microphones at the same time.
You can either record the whole band with two tracks as in a live recording or take the time to do one instrument at a time (my suggestion) Start with the instrument that will be the most easiest for all concerned.

Yup.
With two tracks at a time, you're limited on what you can do.

To track a live band at once, it's still gonna sound boombox-ish. You can put up a couple of room mics to capture everything at once but the slapback from the concrete is gonna whoop ya.

If it were me, and I only had 2 tracks to work with, I'd throw down a click track, then come in with the drums. I'd start with the 52 on the kick and a single overhead. Have the drummer play his kit like he normally does and find THE SPOT for the OH. Try it higher, lower, closer etc...

You could then come in with the bass DI'd and one of the guitars.

The last 2 guitars on the next go round.

Vocals and BU's would be last....imo.
ymmv etc....

 

[bobpick68]

Cool ideas. I was thinking about having a feed of the original artist song going into some headphones for the drummer and then build on that. Great ideas too about the order.

My concept for the demo itself is to record entire songs but to take 30-60 second highlight clips if you will from each song because we cover a pretty wide range of material going from bluesy stuff all the way to classic metal.

Again thanks for the awesome ideas on everything!

 

[constantchaos]

What you might try, my band did this to record some simple demos when weren't able to multi-track record. I used a Macbook Pro laptop and a tiny 6-channel mixer to do this.

Record each track seperately. It's very time consuming, but in the end it doesn't sound half bad. Use your mixer for the drums, get all the levels set, have the drummer play several test tracks and make sure you have the levels right since the mix out of the mixer itself cannot be tampered with once recorded. So if any one drum or cymbals are too loud on the recording, you have to re-record it after turning down that one mic.

Then just record the other instruments one at a time and eventually you can break it down and pan the guitars and vocals how you want.

 

[bobpick68]

What you might try, my band did this to record some simple demos when weren't able to multi-track record. I used a Macbook Pro laptop and a tiny 6-channel mixer to do this.

Record each track seperately. It's very time consuming, but in the end it doesn't sound half bad. Use your mixer for the drums, get all the levels set, have the drummer play several test tracks and make sure you have the levels right since the mix out of the mixer itself cannot be tampered with once recorded. So if any one drum or cymbals are too loud on the recording, you have to re-record it after turning down that one mic.

Then just record the other instruments one at a time and eventually you can break it down and pan the guitars and vocals how you want.

Thanks for the suggestions. It's going down Thursday night so we shall see. I will post some links or something when I am done tweaking everything.