I want guitar tones...

[stickHRbugg]

I'm gonna be recording some tracks this weekend with my band. The sound I want as far as guitars go, is something like Franz Ferdinand or Bloc Party, and for bass, I need something rather deep and dancey.

I'm a newbie, so my description isn't too detailed. The main thing I need to know is how I should mic the Marshall guitar cab, and whether and how I should mic the Yorkville bass or DI that baby. Previous recordings (www.purevolume.com/sorryaboutthecatfight) were done without any advice, and no production, just 4 mono tracks. Power to mono recordings, heh!

What I have to work with is an Apex dynamic mic, and Apex condensor mic.
I can post model numbers tomorrow, if it matters, but they're pretty cheap, as I understand.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

[DogFood]

Stickbugg, while I don't have the critical ear some here posess, I listened to yer stuff and it sounds like you are limited by your mics and by the device with which you record. sorry man. beg borrow steal some mics. you probably don't have time to scrounge a new recording device and learn it.
Directly imputing the bass will give it a much different sound than the mic'd stuff-probably removing some of the bad mic color and room reflection. I wonder if you will like the vocals, guitars, drums all sounding uniform and then have this alien bass sound in there.
Are you recording all at once or are you laying one track down at a time?
http://badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html read this concerning humor and getting the sound for your guitar.
I don't think there is an easy answer, yer going to have to work hard to get quality tracks.
Also, look in the studio catagory for tips on how to make your recording environment better. my guess is that your space needs sound absorption, high frequencys and low.

 

[Elmo89m]

just 4 mono tracks. Power to mono recordings, heh!QUOTE]

what do you mean by this? most everything is recorder to a mono track, that doesn't mean that your recording has to be mono. PAN it sucka

 

[stickHRbugg]

Yeah, I know it was recorded to mono, but I meant that I didn't bother panning everything. Those tracks were only meant to be rough demos to post online, til we had actual time to record. We started drums today, and they sound much better than last time, so that's a good sign.

 

[DogFood]

hey stickbugg,

have you posted the new recordings?

what did you do to get better recordings?

were you able to get signature tone you were looking for?

 

[stickHRbugg]

Hey, thanks for your input so far. We have completed the drums and bass for the new recordings, and are setting up the guitars as we speak. The snare and kick are definitely sounding better than the last sessions, due to better palcement of kick mic and snare eq-ing. I'm forced to pre-mix the drums via my Behringer soundboard, so i hope all the drums cut through the mix well. The bass is also sound better, due to using a better amp (Yorkville Bassmaster 200) and better guitar (Fender Standard Precision). In general, we've spent more time eqing and experimenting with mics and placement, are in a room WITHOUT furnace vents running overhead or concrete floors, and have 2 doors in between the control room and studio space. Now I can actually hear the drumming strictly through the headphones.

As for my mics, they are all Apex, which as I hear, are not that good, at all. Cheap little mics.
My soundboard is a Behringer, and I hear a lot of ambiguously negative comments about them. Anybody care to make clear what Behringer's reputation it?

So, they guys are probably waiting for me to get back to recording guitars now. Thanks for all the help so far, and let me know if you have any more advice for me.

 

[Codmate]

Good stuff! I just had a quick listen to 'Moneylender'.

I like the overly echoey guitar (especially on its own at the beginning) - it's different to what I would do, but good I think.
It's the kind of novelty sound that can make a track stand out.

You need to lose some reverb (natural or not) from the rest of the track though - the drums sound a little too live to me.

The bass needs to come up in the mix and it sounds a little uneven. It needs to be tracked again IMO.

The guitar should come down a touch and have a low shelf of about 6 to 10 db at 120 - 100 Hz to make room for the bass.

Bear in mind I just had a quick listen on rubbish headphones though, so take it all with a pinch of salt!

You would need to do lots of work to sound like the guys you mentioned. Bear in mind that these records have been recorded and mastered with lots of cash and many professionals behind them! It's good to have references to aim for, but it's also good to have our own twist on a genre.

Keep rehearsing - make those stops *tight*, listen to each other (at times the musicians sound like they're playing different songs) and don't overplay. Keep it up and this could be a good band.

Good luck and have fun!