Jam Session Recording

J

Juniorrocker

New member
I am not sure if I am even on the right track with this, but I am trying to record a jam session that I have at my house. We typically have a drum kit, bass, and 2 or three amplified guitars. We have recently begun to add vocals as well.

I have tried unsuccesfully to record this mayhem with a single large diaphragm condenser mic placed in various locations (floor, mid, and high in the center or back of the room). I added a compressor to manage some of the distortion that I was getting which helped a little but nothing really seems to work with that configuration. The variety of sounds and the random distribution of amps around the room creates havok for that one mic and I get either bass heavy with very trebley guitars and drums or just the opposite.

I am thinking that this might be solved by adding some more and different types of mics and placements, but am looking for a littel guidance.

1) Can this be done at all? The room is a carpeted basement with cement walls on one side and standard construction (studs and sheetrock on the other side. The ceiling is reasonably high about 8'.

2) Given the limited info that I have provided what would be a decent mic setup (hoping that the answer isn't mic every amp and all the drums, that is a little intense for me to manage).

Thanks. :cool:
 
How many mics are you using? There are configurations that will work (since you don't want to mic each amp and put at least 4 on the drums) but it will depend on how many mics you can set up and what type (condensor, dynamic).
Give us that information and you can get some help...
 
Are you using a multitrack machine? If you are, record each thing to a track. I've done this live at gigs with just a 4-track. I used an effect send for the vocals(which also caught most of the drums-he was wearing a headset) Track 2 was kick drum,(just a mic inside with a blanket over the front to isolate.) Track 3 was elec.guitar(if using more than one, you would have to aim both amps in a "V" pattern to share a mic.) And track 4 was bass guitar (direct-in to the recorder)
This of course, takes some "hit and miss" to get levels and the players can't crank their amps so loud that they bleed over too much. But once you have the settings and placement down. it's fairly easy to set up again and again.
Mix down to a master and add reverb to voc. track or whatever you like and you can make some pretty decent recordings this way.
 
Mics

I have been using one mic which doesn't work very well. I have a multi-track recorder, and am considering getting more mics to solve this problem, but I am not sure about the type or placement of these. I was thinking that 3 might do it?
 
prolly some of your problems is in the room. does it have alot of echo?? try dampining the rom by posting some sort of absorbent material on the walls like, small (2 x 2 or 2 x 4) sheets of carpet, carpet pading or some kinda of foam. If you have a little more money you can spend about $100 on a small kit that looks a little bit better and will prolyl work maybe jsut a little bit better, but i've always stuck with basic items around the house.

Also it would work better if you could atleast get 1 other mic like the one you already have, and place one on each side of the room and pan each on the the left or right for a stereo sound. that might sound a little better, but if you could get some more cash, i would get a few more mics so you could have some kind of control over the music. good luck.
 
Thanks for your help

Your input has been helpful and has given me some stuff to try.

Would you recommend that I add another large diaphragm condenser, or should I add one or more of those skinny small diaphragm ones?

Thanks again! :o
 
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