Help with Computer Recording

M

Metallica5

New member
Hi, I want to use my computer to record songs with my band. We don't have much money at all but want to cut a demo at home. There are 5 of us (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drummer, 1 vocalist). We want to record at once but still be able to control the mixing and be able to turn down things and turn things on on different instruments. How do we go about recording live like this? I don't want the mics bleeding into each other much because then I won't be able to turn stuff down the way I want to. I just got a soundblaster live soundcard, and I plan on getting sonar for recording, mixing, and burning. i also have a tascam multi-track if this helps any. I plan on buying a better mixer, but do I need a power amp to power the mixer? What else do I need to record this way? I have the mics. Headphones...Monitors...seperate rooms...blankets...closets...
 
As far as the equipment you need I'll let the others hash that one out because I'm not familiar with the equipment you already have however, I'm not sure what you mean by needing a "power amp" for the mixer? or do you mean pre amps? Your mixer of course needs a power supply which I would assume you already have and you would only need a power amp to either power up some pa speakers or passive monitors. You don't need a pa to record and you should if possible get active "powered monitors".
Some quick tips on your recording process, for a number of reasons you should start recording a song by just laying down the bass and drum tracks. Ideally the guitarist and singer will be going along for feel and groove, however their tracks will get done over later and original guitar and vocal track is dumped. This way you can more easily isolate sound, ie; bass, guitar and vocals can be direct into the board and only heard through headphones by the players.
Another benefit of this is you don't have to worry about too many players feeling good about what was recorded, thus less redo's.
and last but not least, you may only have one decent sounding room acoustically, thus you can use it for all instruments yet never lose that groove that occurs when everyone is playing together.
Best of Luck and hope this helps
JJ
 
well....

you're not going to be able to record any more than 2 tracks on your computer with that soundblaster card....

if you want to be able to set levels on individual instruments, etc. - you're probably going to have to get a better card (with more inputs)....for example - the delta 1010LT has 8 analog ins + 2 digital ins - plust midi and 2 preamps for only $350 (great A/D converters, too) - this will work with Sonar to alllow you to record 8 tracks at once (10 if you have a preamp/instrument with digital outs) - this way you can keep everything separated and be able to set individual levels, apply effects, etc. to each track

don't know what kind of mixer that you have - but don't forget that you are going to need a preamp for evey microphone that you are recording with...also, I'm not sure about the power amp question?? your mixer should have it's own power supply built in....
 
Nevermind my power amp question. But, I still have one more question, If I record everyone at the same time, how do I get the levels for each instrument seperate? Our amps don't have line outs on them, none of them. We all use combos but none of them have line outs. I was thinking that we can mic our amps and put blankets around them and put the amps in different closets, then buy a headphone amp thing and plug it into the mixer and listen to each other. Will this work. thanks
 
One way is to get (rent, buy, borrow) a mixer which has as many mic inputs as you will need for the whole band and connect the main outputs to the stereo line in of the SB live card. Mic up the whole band but plug the bass into a Direct box. If the reason you want to play at the same time is so that you have eye contact, you will need to put the amps in a seperate room and hook up a headphone distribution system to the mixer's auxillary send #1, set the guitar amps to a moderate to low volume. Let the drummer jam by himself for a while, tell him to hit a little harder than he thinks he will be playing, eq and pan the drums and set up a nice drum mix using the main faders of the mixer, do a test recording, play it back and fine tune your eq and levels, repeat until the recorded drum sound is exactly what you want because once its recorded you won't be able to change the individual drum sounds. Let the other members of the band play one at a time and turn up "Aux #1" on each of the channels until the headphone mix sounds good, DO NOT bring up the main faders of the other instruments, even though everyone will be jamming at the same time ONLY the drums will be recorded on the first pass.
Jam and record the drum tracks until you get the best possible DRUM takes ( if the bassist screws up it doesn't matter unless it throws off the drummer). when you have all your drum tracks done the drummer stops playing and you can mute or switch off the drum channels. The rest of the band can either do their tracks one at a time or all continue jamming together but only record one instrument at a time.

I know it's not ideal but it's the only way to keep the tracks seperate without buying a multi input card.

Good Luck. :)
 
Hi, I decided that I'm just going to get delta 1010lt so that I can record at the same time. How do I go about doing this?
 
Metallica5 said:
Hi, I decided that I'm just going to get delta 1010lt so that I can record at the same time. How do I go about doing this?
Click to expand...


how do you go about doing what??

buying a 1010LT...well - this site has the best price that I've seen ($329): www.digitalproaudio.com

record everything....geez, volumes could be written about this...

the brief, abridged, abbreviated, vague version:

mic what you want (snare, bass drum, guitar amp, etc.)....run those mics into some sort of preamp (the 1010LT only has 2 - unless you only have 2 mics you're going to need more than that)...run an out from the preamp into one of the 'ins' on the 1010....any line level signals (eg. guitar amp preamp out) can be plugged directly into the 1010....set up a track in your software to record from the 'in' on the 1010...hit 'record' and do your stuff

Like I said - that's the super-simplified version...

you should probably do some reading on home recording (web, books, etc.)...there are so many things to learn - but really, to me the best way to learn is to jump in and get your hands dirty and start recording

don't forget that you are also going to need a monitoring system, software and computer powerful enough to handle all of this recording stuff...
 
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