1st recording of band with 4 track tascam

[collectorcat]

Allright I wasn't sure where to post this so I'm posting it here. I was wondering if anyone would have some advice for me/us. We're going to try to record our band on my four track tascam porta 02mk II. The main problem I can already see is the amount of pieces we have verses the amount of tracks, but this is what I'm planning to do.
I'm going to mic 2 gtr amps, and bass amp with sm57s, the drums with sm58s ( I'm going to try the two mic approach over head and in the kick drum) and vocals and send them all into the board and then from the board into the tascam on one track and lay down the basic tunes that way. Why everything on one track? Well, we've got a pedal steel player thats going to come in and lay down some backgrounds at some time and I'm going to throw those on track 2. We've also got horns, tenor, trumpet and bone and those are going on track 3. Then, on track 4, the solos which will be layed down after. I know what you're thinking, stop being cheap and go in the studio!. Seriously money is an issue and if this can't work at all we're going to find a way to get in the studio. Thanks for reading my very long post and I/we appreciate any advice/feedback.
Chris

 

[Santiagoacr]

I think you are trying to cram in a bit too much in there! And are the pedal steel and brass so important that you have to give them a whole track? (while the main band recording is just on one track?) Personally I would rather opt for

1: drums, bass, guitar 1

2: vocals and solos (soloes won't typically be at the same time as vocals, so there you have some wonderful free space)

3: Guitar 2 & first part of brass

4: pedal steel guitar & second part of brass.

Then mix channel 1 center
Channel 2 center (you can then add some echo and reverb to the vocals, compression, etc...)
Channel 3 and 4 panned hard right and left, that gives you a nice stereo feel with half the brass on one side and the other half on another side

An alternative way of recording it is

1:
2: Used for stereo recording of band, similar to your channel 1. This might help avoiding instruments clashing with each other and can give it a nice spacial feeling.
3: pedal steel and soloes
4: brass and soloes

Then mix one and 2 hard right and hard left, and 3 and 4 to taste

this are just ideas, of course. Your plan might actually work for certain types of music.

Good luck with your recording, I think portastudios are a great thing and you can get excellent results out of them.

Santiago

 

[collectorcat]

thanks

Thank you for the suggestions, I think they're really good ones. I'd like to nut and bolt a little bit further with you if I could. Talk about exactly the type of music and what the horns are doing etc. Could we converse by email so we're not monopolizing the board? My email raindogwaitts@yahoo.com

 

[thediscoking]

This has been posted a thousand times before...... make this 1,001.

Click on this link:
http://www.itrstudio.com/index.html

Click on "Session Tips"
Click on "Home Recording"

Now, read.