Huge Post. Lots of questions.

[snfflsmrf]

Okay. I have a lot of low-budget quality stuff, but I have managed to get decent sound out of it all before. I am having issues figuring out what way I should record my band. Normally, I use a mic on each drum piece (High hat, crash, ride, toms, bass, snare, etc) and direct feed the guitar and bass and vocals into my comp and overdub it all. Needless to say, it sounds very bad. I have since swayed into the "mic everything" theory and have bought a mixer that can accommodate 16 XLR inputs. I also remember having a reel to reel. Here's what I'm looking to do:

mics from drums into mixer into Reel to Reel
mics on amps into mixer into Reel to Reel

I would then digitize that by sending the Reels into my CPU. From there, I would over dub any additional tracks including vocals.

My problem is that I need to make sure each band member can hear everything alright. I was thinking of putting each member in their own seperate room and using monitors to give the drummer the bass and guitar sound and myself and the bassist would be in nearby rooms so we could hear the drums. The problem here is the bleed that would occur by putting a monitor near a drum kit. I can't use headphones. What do you folks think I should do? Any and all advice is welcome. if you need more info, I can help...

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

You need to use headphones, or live with the monitor bleed.... those really are your only two options.

The only other way is to record the band live - rehearsal style -- but bleed will still be an issue.

 

[Massive Master]

Bleed = Ambience you don't like.

Ambience = Bleed that you like.

Make lemonade from those lemons...

 

[snfflsmrf]

Solution

Thanks for the tip. I like the whole ambience bleed thing. Do you think that even with the bleed issues that this method of recording is better than overdubbing or doing direct signal? What would you do if you were me?

Direct in or mic?

Digitize the reel to reel or go straight to CPU via soundboard [onboard ]?

What do you folks think?

 

[earworm]

hey man,
last weekend i recorded a jam session of my and my brother,
i miked the drums, 8 mics on that,
1 mic on guitar,
we all played in one room (me and my brother, two guys that is)
and my bro played INCREDIBLY LOUD, so loud that i thought that even my overhead mics wouldn't handle the volume of the guitar!
hahaha
i had headphones on to protect my ears, i broke two drumsticks,

GOD IT WAS FUN !

i'm uploading examples, and honestly, the bleed was ok !
you can hear the guitar in several mics, but its OK,
cause i put gates on the toms and kick, not on the snare, did that afterwards during mixing,
oh yeah, did u mess with that? gating instruments during mixdown?

i'd only do that if u recorded your drum overheads, otherwise your kick and snare might sound ugly

i got one sample online already:

http://belgianunderground.com

on the index, click on "fuzz in stereo, just a sample "
its not a song, its a jam

here's my setup:

beyer m201 on snare
shure sm57 on two small toms
sennheiser m421 on floortom
sennheiser e602 on kick
oktava mk012 on overheads

sm57 on guitarcabinet (marshal jcm900 + 4x12 hiwatt)
and i mixed that signal (during recording) with a mono output of a
Boss GT+6, thats where the crazy fuzz sound comes from

if we had a bass player i'd let him play trough a compressor,
and give him headphones,
if there was a singer i'd put him in the hall(corridor, how u call it)
give him headphones and let him scream

the dynamics i used are DBX166 compressors (XL and an A with gates enabled to get rid of some bleed)
snare goes trough a joemeek vc8 (no gate)

to have cleaner recordings, only record the drums,
let a bass player play trough a compressor, give everyone headphones,
put the guitar amp in the hall, or record guitars afterwards,
but honestly, lots of amateurbands fuck up when they don't play live together

i can live with some bleed, but i've been working on it for a few years

hope this gives you a bit more inspiration..


ps, since i'm the drummer its impossible to tweak settings during recording,
i press record, and one hour later i press stop,
i did have nasty distortion and clipping on the guitar by times,
but that sounded even nice !!! HAH

 

[snfflsmrf]

Reply

Yeah. See thew problem is that I don't have the right mics for this stuff. I'm basically using vocal mics for mostly everything. I only have a handful of instrument mics. The room we play in is very small. We can barely all fit in it. Maybe the bleed won't be much of an issue. Either way, whatever I get out of it will be worth not spending $1,500 in studio time for a four song demo!!!

Still, even though I have shitty mics and very minimal "studio" gear, do you think that my setup will yield some decent results? I am using Reel to Reel which I really like the sound of. I am really just trying to sway away from over dubbing as it doesn't sound nearly as good as our live sound. I just hope that the mics don't present too much of a problem. I mean, I could EQ with the mixer so it shouldn't be that bad. My only worry is my lack of compression. I could simply add in a general compressor afterwards I suppose. What do you think?

 

[PERRANFULO]

http://forum.dijonstock.com/viewtopic.php?t=2107


good info