a 5 piece band?

[UnholyDemon]

Hey I'm Seth and I'm lookintg to record my band. Our music is like New York Garage Rock meets The Rolling Stones. I need a simple setup that doesn't need to sound amazing. Basically for recording demos and ideas. My biggest problem is that I want a LIVE recording, I don't want to overdub anything except for the vocals.

All i have right now is the microphones, which are more than adequate. (Industry standard stuff: E609, SM57, AT4033 etc.)

I need info on what I NEED to record two guitarists, one bassist, and one drummer, live, NO overdubs. I wanted to go the Multitrack cassette route, however, even an 8-track 488 cassette recorder can only record 4 tracks simultaneously. (I'm assuming that I need at least 6 tracks simultaneous recording, unless you can show me otherwise?)

What would be the CHEAPEST way of going about this?

Please help!

Thank you

(I'm experienced with recording, engineering, mixing, and mastering audio, however, I'm used to recording just an acoustic guitar and vocals)

THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

-Seth
Recording

 

[Ironklad Audio]

the cheapest/easiest way, IMO, would be to stick a kick mic and mono OH on the drums, one mic each on the guitar cabs, and DI the bass

run all that into a cheap 6-8 channel mixer...send the mixer's main outs to a cheap-ass cassette deck, and voila

 

[UnholyDemon]

any other ideas anyone?

 

[tmix]

I honestly think that if you have computer at your disposal, I'd download a freebie copy of Audacity, and rustle up a mixer with phantom power (if you are going to use th 4033) and submix the band into stereo tracks like Iron Clad offered. At least the audio would sound better than the cassette.

Anything more than that, to get multitrack capability for input is going to cost you.
How much is cheap?

 

[UnholyDemon]

well, what would be the minimum to record to several tracks seperately, live?

Delta 1010 plus mixer?

 

[surfmaster]

i just picked up a tascam 1804 for $300 from sweetwater, that may be an option for you. 8 inputs, but your gonna need four preamps because four of the inputs are line.

 

[Dani Pace]

You said you wanted to record your band "live." A really good room is the first thing you need to consider. In order to get a decent live recording you have to start with a fantastic live sound. The reason is simple, whatever you record is what you get. There is very little that can be "fixed" so it has to sound right the first time. Bigger rooms are better as a general rule, especialy if you will be playing at "live" volume levels. Expect a lot of bleedover on live recordings, large rooms let you spread things out more which helps to cut down on some of the bleed. You can use the line out or monitor out from your PA as a pre amp (use this for vocals, mic amps and drums seperately.) Live recordings often sound muddy, small rooms, high volume and too much efx are the main reasons. Good musicians, with good gear, in a good room can produce good recordings with a minimum of recording gear, bad musicians, with lower quality gear, in a bad room will sound bad no matter how good the recording gear is. The point I am trying to make is, get a great live sound to start with. A great sound can be recorded with a minimum of recording gear and still sound decent. Of course use the best gear you can afford but don't think you need a million bucks worth of gear to get decent recordings.

 

[UnholyDemon]

I picked up a Roland VS880EX multitrack on the cheap (150$) SO Im using that. Thank you all!