Need Some suggestions for limited price budget

[lurgan liar]

I have recently been asked to record my frineds punk garage band...

I use my PC (SONAR) to record myself usually ...But this will not be possible to record these guys as i will need some means of recording their drummer...

So the question is how will I be able to record their drummer???...the only 2 viable options i can see is if i were to use a laptop ...or else a multi tracker....

I have neither of these ...and i am on a limited budget of about £100 / $200

I can get a lend of my friends Laptop which doesn't have a firewire connection ...so i'd need to get a sound card with USB connection for it ( can anyone recommend one in my price range)

Or I could maybe buy a 4 / 8 track digital recorder that can transfer the .wav files to my PC so i can mix them in Sonar....

If anyone has any better solutions to my problem i'd be really greatful if you could help ...(they are only looking a demo cd so it doesn't have to be of amazing sound quailty - however i still would like it to sound as good as possible for the limited pricebudget i have)

Thanks in advance

 

[minofifa]

what are you using to record yourself now?

i think, with such a small budget, you won't be able to find an interface with enough inputs to record each drum track separately. i think the best thing you do is buy yourself a decent mixer with 6-8 preamps. then mix in the mixer and send a stereo submix of the drums to your soundcard to record. This is assuming you have some mic's available to you.

 

[apl]

You can get a decent drum recording with two overhead mics, but it takes some doing, and you won't have much post flexibility.

Can you use your computer?

You could put up a mic and record a scratch track of the whole band. It'll sound awful, but you can use it as a time track. Then individually record each instrument using the scratch track as the basis.

 

[lurgan liar]

what are you using to record yourself now?

i think, with such a small budget, you won't be able to find an interface with enough inputs to record each drum track separately. i think the best thing you do is buy yourself a decent mixer with 6-8 preamps. then mix in the mixer and send a stereo submix of the drums to your soundcard to record. This is assuming you have some mic's available to you.

here is the equipment i have .....

PC - with just the factory sound card that came with it (need a sound card that has multiple inputs)

An Alesis 8 channel mixer

A 100 W Marshall Amp

A Boss GT-6 Multi FX Pedal

a Shure SM 58

Am considering getting a MXL 990 and a Shure SM 57

What would you suggest I do .....

 

[apl]

You might need to spend some serious money.

Can you rent or borrow mics? You could do a "live" one shot recording through the mixer into your PC.

 

[minofifa]

does that alesis mixer have main outs? if so i would just submix the drums in that first adn record the drums as a single stereo track, or two mono tracks, whatever gets you hot and bothered. then record the other intrument tracks over that, one at a time. doing a scratch track as apl suggested is a very good idea but may be hard for teh drummer to follow.

to get quality drums, you will probably need 4+ mics. I don't have a lot of experience recording drums though. I would stick to a 2 input soundcard considering your small budget, maybe a tascam us-122 or an echo mia.

 

[IronFlippy]

Your budget is highly limiting what you can do. Considering this is a punk band (and I'm assuming not pop-punk or anything) then you can get by on very little, so you lucked out there. Here's my suggestion:
Get the 57, use it on the snare. Position it so that the toms and cymbals bleed through. Use the 58 on the bass drum (not sure how this is going to sound, but it shouldn't be too bad). And there you go, a budget mic job for a drumset.

Try the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for your soundcard fix, it's only $99 US (I'd guess around 50 pounds GB). It has 2 mono inputs, and 2 mono outputs, which can be mixed to stereo.

On your budget, you're gonna have to drag your PC to the drumset, unless you can get it to your house.

If you can afford it, try to grab a small diaphram condsenser as well, for overhead miking (don't let the cymbals bleed into the 57 if you do this). It might be better to use your mixer into your stock soundcard and save on the Audiophile, and do like everyone else has posted, and just mix the drums to one track.

The Audiophile has S/PDIF I/O, and I'm pretty sure that the GT-6 multi FX has digital out, so you're good for guitar. The bass can be DI'd into one analog in and the drums can be mixed to mono for the other analog in. This way the whole band can play live, and the only overdubbing you'll need is vocals. This is assuming there is only one guitarist.

 

[XLR]

I'll tell you a trick I've used that may or may not be of any use... using two non-networked computers to record at the same time. Firstly, I usually only need two channels in, and my best AD converter is a 2 channel Lucid that I've got rigged up with my desktop box. But when I need extra AD channels in, I'll use my laptop along side the desktop, using the converters in my Digigram PCMCIA card which are pretty good. After the take (and I usually do long takes to make the process simpler) I copy the laptop files to a USB memory stick and bring them into the desktop machine. Then I align the tracks. Has worked well for me and only takes 3 or 4 minutes to make the file switch. I end up with better sound quality than if I had used the 4 channel RME converters that are onboard my desktop machine.

Tim