Have digital recorder...now what?

[Hexenmeister]

My bandmates and I have been doing a little bit of home recording. The only equipment we have is our guitarist's Sony digital recorder (sorry, don't know the model #),some microphones, and a CD burner. We tried tracking everything individually, and the final product is a fairly decent demo quality recording. The sound is very clean, but lacks fullness.

We were wondering what we could do to get a slightly better sound keeping in mind that none of us know much of anything about recording. Would a software program be appropriate (Cakewalk?) or some kind of mixer? We know were not going to get a professional quality sound. We'd just like to add a little more "oomph" to our recordings.

 

[mshilarious]

Best place to start is with the gear you have. Give us some details on the instruments you were recording, the mics, the room, how you did tracking & mixdown, EQ & effects, and you'll get lots of good advice.

 

[Hexenmeister]

Best place to start is with the gear you have. Give us some details on the instruments you were recording, the mics, the room, how you did tracking & mixdown, EQ & effects, and you'll get lots of good advice.

Hmmm, okay. I'll do my best. Basically we're recording guitar, drum, bass, and vocals. First off the guitarist recorded his part plugging directly into the recorder, then he recorded his vocals over it. He then moved all that onto one track.

Next, we recorded drums using only two mics one set up near the snare and one overhead (probably not the best set up, but it sounded okay so we kept it). We recorded the drums onto two tracks. Then again, moved everything over. Lastly, the bass was recorded directly into the recorder.

I really don't know much about the EQ and all that because our guitarist is the one who fiddles with all the knobs on the recorder, but there aren't that many options just low, mid, and hi.

The mics were use are pretty cheap. They're brand names like Shure and Nady, but probably the lowest models of each. They aren't specifically recording mics either, just general purpose vocal mics. The room is my basement. Probably a pretty crappy place for recording since we're surrounded by cement, but we we've covered the walls partially with that egg carton foam stuff, mainly around the drums.

I don't know if micing the amps instead of plugging directly into the recorder would be a better option. We also talked about simply double-tracking the guitar to get a bigger sound as well.

 

[notbradsohner]

mic the amp, and double the guitars

 

[Hexenmeister]

mic the amp, and double the guitars

Okay, that sounds easy enough (since they're the two ideas we already had).

So you don't think we should bother purchasing anymore equipment?