My first time recordin other band, advice needed!

[TamaSabian]

My first time recording other band, advice needed!

Well, this weekend will be my debut recording other band different than mine. They play country/folk/blues covers and they want a demo. So we will be doing 3-4 songs as much. I want to know what´s the best option in order to make it decent???. I mean how to record them???. The recording will be at home, nothing fancy everything in 1 room, very basic I should say, but with enough gear to make it sound good. I need to record bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, harp and vocals. I have talked to them and they want to record together, I can do that with headphone monitoring but there will be a lot of bleeding, that´s why I suggested doing vocals and acoustic´s later. I got a feeling that they will insist and try to play all together (give me more bleeding man!!!), if that´s the case how should I mic everything (bass included)???. How the players should be??, making a circle, in opposite corners???, etc,etc.
What mics I have???. SM57, AT25, 2MXL603 and 990 for vox. Everything plugged into an MG16/4 then to my Delta1010lt.

Hope you help me.

Thanks
TS

 

[AlexW]

Run the bass direct. Get a direct box if you don't already have one. Have the players monitor it over headphones. Try and have them overdub vocals as well. Shouldn't be a big deal. If someone wants to sing during tracking that's ok but treat it as a scratch track if you print it at all. The bleed shouldn't be too bad--bass is the worst culprit and as long as that's taken care of just play around with the position of the players and your mics to limit bleed but capture the overall sound.

 

[TamaSabian]

Thanks Alex. I´ll go direct with bass, I know they´re coming with a VOX amp , but I´ll go direct anyway. Electric guitar miced, acoustic and vocals as scratch, then overdub those.
Any idea about players positions to reduce bleeding???.


Thanks
TS

 

[AlexW]

Put everyone out in front of the drum kit. Have the guitar cab a few feet in front and pointing away. Close mic it. If you can spare a room mic for your drum kit, put it about 3 feet in front. When I've done this the drums are always the loudest thing in the room, so the bleed is never unmanageable; and a bit of bleed from the guitars can help the overall sound anyway. I think you'll definitely want to go back and overdub the acoustic guitars and harp--there's probably no way to mic these effectively without getting too much of the drums in them; but you can try. If it works, it works.

 

[TamaSabian]

Put everyone out in front of the drum kit. Have the guitar cab a few feet in front and pointing away. Close mic it. If you can spare a room mic for your drum kit, put it about 3 feet in front. When I've done this the drums are always the loudest thing in the room, so the bleed is never unmanageable; and a bit of bleed from the guitars can help the overall sound anyway. I think you'll definitely want to go back and overdub the acoustic guitars and harp--there's probably no way to mic these effectively without getting too much of the drums in them; but you can try. If it works, it works.

Thanks Alex. I think it should be easy cause there won´t be any drums, just bass, electric and acoustic guitars, harp and vocals.

Ts

 

[TamaSabian]

"Run the bass direct. Get a direct box if you don't already have one"

A DI is required???. I always go direct to the mixer. If so what brand would you recommend???.

Thanks
TS

 

[AlexW]

Countryman makes a nice one (it's got an 85 in the model number I think). If the impedance is high enough on your mixer line ins you might not need it.