help recording

[ecasini]

Hi, I'm new here, but in the few mins that I've been browsing around, I've found an AMAZING amount of info. You guys know your stuff


I have cakewalk guitartracks 2.0, and I want to record my whole band with it. I know the recording won't be amazing or pro, but I just want to lay down some tracks with the band. We have a drummer, bass, one guitarist, and singer.

my question is, how can I record the whole band??? Who should play first??? It would have to be done one track at a time.

I know how to use guitartracks to record, I just don't know how to go about doing the whole band.

any ideas, suggestions, help would be appreciated.

thanks,

-E

 

[James Argo]

First of all, let me say... Wellcome to the board.
First rule here if you seek for help...
YOUR BETTER INFORMATIONS WOULD HELP US ALOT TO HELP YOU...
Then make sure to suply you post with informations related as clear and as you can...
Now your questions...
How to record the whole bands ? It would be deppended on what gear you use. Do you use outboard mixer ? how many channels ? What's your sound card ? Can it record more than two channels at time ?
If you don't use mixer, just regular stereo soundcard, and cheap mic, then you're right, it wont be amazing. Just plug the mic into the preamp, feed the output to your line-in of the soundcard, record it tracks by tracks... edit later...
Who's first ?
How many member of your band ? position ? What genre ?
For general, usually drums first, then bass, keyboards / guitars, and last, vox...

 

[ecasini]

James, thanks for the welcoming.

yeah dude, I'm going straight with a cheap mic to my computer. I have a semi decent soundcard, nothing amazing. I also can't upgrade since it's a laptop, so what I got is pretty much it.

We have 4 people in the band, drums, bass, one guitar, and a singer. We might get another guitarist, but that's optional. The genre of music is rock. From classic rock, to milder alternative, to heavy rock, no metal.

how would the drummer guide himself where the song is at??? The guitar and bassist can go off the drummer, so can the singer, but the drummer needs some kind of guideline, how can I achieve that?

would a live cheezy recording would work??

thanks,

-E

 

[dachay2tnr]

ecasani - you're going to be somewhat limited if you are simply going straight into your sound card with a mic. I assume this means you are using the "mic in" port of the sound card, which means you are using pretty crappy pre-amps and the sound won't be good at all.

Do you guys have a mixing board that you use for live gigs? If so, you could use that to mic everything, and then run the output of the mixer into your sound card. This way you'll use the mixing boards pre-amps (likely to be much better) and can record everything at once.

Otherwise, you should approach it as James described. One instrument at a time. He gave you the usually preferred order. The drummer would typically play to a click track first. I imagine that Guitar Tracks has a metronome feature for this. Then everyone else would play to the drum track.

Please understand, here also, that micing a live drum kit with a single mic is going to be another disappointing experience for you.

All in all, you might want to think about making at least some small investments in more equipment. Browse around the various forums here, you'll learn a lot. Home recording, is not quite as simple as buying a computer and a mic.