I dont know what I am doing. But I am haveing fun messing up my recordings.

[Natpnumonia]

Well this is a hard one. My punk band has put out two demos of home recordings. The sound is not the best but We really dont know that much about recording.

Here is what I have to work with. The room we recorded in is about 10 by 20' and is about a 8 foot hieght. It also has a slanted roof kinda like this /\ right. The room is dry walled and has carpet. I have an 120 watt guitar amp a 500 watt bass amp and a drum kit. The drum kit does not have a front bass head or bottom haeds on the toms. I also have a small P.A. with two 12' speakers, it's about 100 watts and top it of with two AKG dynamic mics and all the cords are Monster cables. I have no drum mics. This is what we have been doing. We play off the floor and record right on a tape. The tape record is from the 80s and has two mic jacks we hooked up a $10 mic from wal-mart to it. its also has a 45 record player on it with a little mixing board on the front. Then we put the tape in to another tape player that has a line right in to a computer. When its in the computer I was a free wave editer to edit of cliks and pops. I really dont know what i am doing i just click on the compress buttons and the amplify buttons and the auto EQ untill it sound almost good.

Here is the problem, is there any way I can get a good recording from doing this? I have about a $100 spending limit, so the cheaper the better. If there is a book or a vidio that you would recomend that would be grea.
Here is a link so you can hear what we have gotin done.

www.geocities.com/rockin_pnumonia/

We are not looking for super great sound and I know that its goina be hard scine you guys can't look and work with the stuff that we have.
we just want to get it to sound as good as we can for a cheap as we can.
Remember we are a punk band after all.

Thanks
Nat Pnumonia
Rockin Pnumonia
www.geocities.com/rockin_pnumonia/
www.FraudRecords.com

 

[manning1]

100 bucks is tough budget.
once you have some more money
you might some time want to look at a yamaha mg mixer, a decent multi input sound card , and some multitracking software.
just search under my name for lots of tips posted in the past year.

 

[M Havlen]

Thats a pretty rough recording bro...my advice would be....get on the internet, download whatever free recording software you can find ( i think N-Track Studio still offers some free demo software), plug your mic into the mic input on your computer, play with the software and make sure the record level is NOT CLIPPING ( very important ) , try putting the mic in various locations in the room, and make a few recordings until you figure out what sounds best. essentialy, bypass all the equipmet you mentioned and record straight to your computer. Shouldn't cost you a dime! ( you really do have to invest SOME $ to get real good sound, but this should get you better fidelity than what you have on your demo's, as long as you have a decent computer. Go for the best initial recording you can get ( all the compression and EQ in the world wount help if the original recording is crap...) And, of course, this BB is an excellent source for info related to recording your stuff. Good Luck!

 

[Natpnumonia]

Thanks but now i have new problems

Ok I unhooked my computer and luged it up stairs in to my room. then we moved around the mic untill it sounded good.

the recordings sounded great. but I have a few new problems now.
Frist and the bigest is any time the bass is playing by it's self it sounds like almost water like. We think this is happening becouse of the amps location in the room. but any time we moved any thing it made the recodings sound worst and worst. I know my stuff is not set up the way it should be. we played a show afew days ago and we havent put every thing back were it should be.

the next problem is the level of loudness. it sounds great but it doesnt have the pop that pro recordings have. I saw some thing about this one time. it said something about computers not knowing real 0dbs or some thing.

so if any one can tell me the best way to set up my room to record. I can move my tv, bed or my dresser. I have made a pic that shows my room and how it is set up.

Thanks
Nat.

 

[Natpnumonia]

the pic is to big for me to post but if any one wants to look i will post it on my web site on monday or i could e-mail it.

Thanks
Nat

 

[Rokket]

Ok I unhooked my computer and luged it up stairs in to my room. then we moved around the mic untill it sounded good.

the recordings sounded great. but I have a few new problems now.
Frist and the bigest is any time the bass is playing by it's self it sounds like almost water like. We think this is happening becouse of the amps location in the room. but any time we moved any thing it made the recodings sound worst and worst. I know my stuff is not set up the way it should be. we played a show afew days ago and we havent put every thing back were it should be.

the next problem is the level of loudness. it sounds great but it doesnt have the pop that pro recordings have. I saw some thing about this one time. it said something about computers not knowing real 0dbs or some thing.

so if any one can tell me the best way to set up my room to record. I can move my tv, bed or my dresser. I have made a pic that shows my room and how it is set up.

Thanks
Nat.

It's tough to do anything about the bass sound because you can't plug it directly into your recording gear. With no budget, you are probably looking at the best you can get. Even with rearraging the room, it will not improve much. You need to check out the internet, especially ebay, and see about getting your hands on a cheap analog 4 track. You could probably get one there for the money you have. That's the best I can offer. I've tried it the way you guys are doing, but I was NEVER satisfied with the results.
Good luck, and do check out ebay. If you want anything decent, you will have to get a 4 track...

 

[M Havlen]

Considering your exsisting equipment, the only other thing i could suggest would be to use your 100$ to perchase a better mic. Mabey a condenser mic. It would probubly get you a better sound than the dynamic mic's you mentioned. You can only do so much with what you have . Keep after it!

 

[Natpnumonia]

Thanks I am happy with the recording and when the band is playing together it sounds great. I will post the new recordings so you can hear our progress and give us any other recording pointers.

Thanks
Nat
Rockin Pnumonia.

 

[Cosmic]

Hi Nat,

Your post is very good, because it illustrates what someone with no money has to suffer, and yet you want better; at least you have a decent room for starters.
Buy a $99 or so 4-track recorder. See if you can get three more mics. Even if they are $10 RatShacks. This will, I think, solve some problems:
You will get rid of what I guess is that Mother of a hum from the old recorder (unless you have an amp that's really that bad, but you would have heard that
Lead Vocals now have a mic.
The bass guitar cab now has a mic.
The drummer now has at least one overhead, but experiment; you want to hear kick/snare of course.
And you have one mic left for lead guitar cab purposes or for a second drum mic.
Google Blue Bear Sound. Bruce there has much valuable info on eq and such. Don't just hit auto anymore, get to know.
The funny part of this is you are really walking back into understanding how recording was done in the 50es.
Few Mics. Room dividers, especially for drums, still the case. Letting people balance their volume to each other.

And, beyond the noise, you guys sound pretty tight, I am hearing some Ramones there. So go to it. And ask more if you want.

Best,

CC.

 

[Cosmic]

For a follow-up, I saw in your post that you have two mics already, so I would guess you are using one of them for vocals already. So your mic budget just dropped a bit . If you feel you can only record the best all at once, the bass/guitar amps should be turned down enough to get at least some separation between you all, and if you start there, you should see some improvement.

Hope this is of help,

CC

 

[Natpnumonia]

You guys have no idia how much you have helped me out. So thank you, most people just blow me off but this board has really helped.

 

[Natpnumonia]

I have 3 mics all ready. I have to AKG d 8000 s they are not dynamic like i thought they are hyper cardioid. I got them two for $49.99. and the last mic is a 10 buck one from wall- mart. Our band has all way been on a really really tight budget. WE use to buy really cheap stuff but we have learned are leson from that one. our bass player bought a 180 dollar bass amp It broke 4 days after it got to him and now all most two years later they we still cant get it fixed. I got a rouge guitar amp and it broke 1 1/2 years after i got it. all the cheap cables broke the only thing that is still working that was cheap is the P.A it is a Kustom and It is 3 years old and still works great.

I put up a pic of how the room was set up when we recorded the other day.
there is also an Mp3 of what we recorded.

http://www.geocities.com/rockin_pnumonia/band.html

you will find the new recording and a pic of the room.

again thanks alot.
Nat
Rockin Pnumonia

P.S. yeah the ramones are the reason i started playing guitar.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

Sound by:

 

[Disposable]

You can get decent recordings using only 2 mics, I’ve done it…
This recording was actually done with one mic… a Radio Shack Condenser.
Direct to the computer, vocals added afterwards.

http://www.fronder.com/bands/116/music.php
"Propaganda Demo"

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

You can get decent recordings using only 2 mics, I’ve done it…

Let's just say your definition of decent and mine are opposite.

 

[Disposable]

True... haha.

Though we also have to take into account a difference of style...

 

[Markaholic]

Sound by:

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a serious note you obviously know how to get your stuff onto a computer....
So now get a free music production demo of like..acid ,traxtion ect......

Have atleast 2 pairs of headphones..1 for your drummer and one for your axeman or bassist.
Run a direct in from ..say...guitars...so the drummer has someone to go by(as you do not want your axeman,bassists amp bleeding thru the drum mics!)

Record your instruments...drums 1st..w/ 1 mic atleast on the kick and some others positioned around the kit differently....dump them into your free music editor(acid ,tracxtion ect..)then proceed w/guitars,bass,vocals in the same manner.

Just having seperate tracks to lower and higher your different instruments can make a HUGE improvement.

Watch your clipping...usually red lights on your meters!!!
Then experiment w/ plug ins and what not...dont give up...youll get there

 

[DingoPepper11]

Entry Level 4-Track

I know that the Guitar Center in Houston sells an entry level Tascam 4-Track cassette machine for $100. If you want to get into recording, I recommend something like this. You may even get one cheaper on Ebay, but for that price... you might be better off avoiding used equipment.

I've done some pretty low-budget recording in my day, so I know where you're coming from. I'm still more a musician than recording tech, so I tend to keep things simple. If you have a mixer of some type, you can use that. Or you can download the krystal sound engine (there's a link in these boards somewhere) for free; no strings attached.

Personally, I'm old school and have never tried digital recording. I probably will if I ever upgrade to a decent computer. But for $100, you can get the 4-track and get started. I've even been known to use a Peavy PA mixer/amp for mixing into a 4-track. There are lots of ways to get where you wanna be.