Looking for tips to record a live band demo

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Raybies

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I'm trying to record a somewhat live demo for my band. We have guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, I'm going to just record the instruments live and overdub vocals at another time. I have a Toneport UX2 which I can record 2 mics at a time, I have a Shure SM57, SM58, AKG D5, and an Audio Technica AT2020 condenser.

I'm looking to get some ideas of how best to position the mics (and which mics to use) to get a reasonable live recording of the instruments.
I'm thinking of putting one mic up high and one mic closer to the drums. Any ideas appreciated!

Thanks!
 
why not try this. play live but only record the drums with an overhead and kick mic. then overdubb guitars and bass and vocals:)
 
its going to be difficult to get a good result with only 2 inputs, but you cuold try what the chicken master says, or try two mics at either side of the room to get some stereo seperation - you'll lose the kick though. You best bet might be to buy a cheap microphone mixer and mix the four mics down to two tracks, you can get a passive microphone mixer for next to nothing if you look online.
 
If the room sounds good I would want to use two condensors and just stereo mic the room. If the room sounds bad I would look for another room.
 
Provided the band sounds good in the room, I have had usable (for a demo) results with a pair of dynamics spaced about six feet apart, parallel, and facing the drums from about six feet away. 3-piece band, bass on one side of the room, guitar on the other. One take was a guitar on each side, and we overdubbed the bass.


I'm going to edit to add: If I would have had condensors at my disposal, then they probably would have sounded better. The dynamics were all I had at the time.
 
Also, that UX2 is a guitar DI, right? Could you run one or two guitars into its guitar interface and simultaneously use the XLRs for mics on the kit? If so, you'd get full separation on your tracks. Your only problem then would be monitoring.
 
Raybies said:
I'm trying to record a somewhat live demo for my band. We have guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, I'm going to just record the instruments live and overdub vocals at another time. I have a Toneport UX2 which I can record 2 mics at a time, I have a Shure SM57, SM58, AKG D5, and an Audio Technica AT2020 condenser.

I'm looking to get some ideas of how best to position the mics (and which mics to use) to get a reasonable live recording of the instruments.
I'm thinking of putting one mic up high and one mic closer to the drums. Any ideas appreciated!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If you're looking for information on Mic positioning there's all sorts on the Sound On Sound website were you will find legendary engineers have shared how they mixed up sessions for all time classic records. So I would say you'll pick up great advice on that website. For information on pre recording preparation and mixing and mastering here's a really good article on producing a covers demo which I keep going back to.
 
Clinton PPP said:
If you're looking for information on Mic positioning there's all sorts on the Sound On Sound website were you will find legendary engineers have shared how they mixed up sessions for all time classic records. So I would say you'll pick up great advice on that website. For information on pre recording preparation and mixing and mastering here's a really good article on producing a covers demo which I keep going back to.
Click to expand...

I am going to guess he has figured it out since his post was 4 years ago...

:)
 
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