Newbie questions!

[Rickenbackerman]

Hi all, this is a real nice site!

I'm looking to get into recording my band live, in our practice room. We've got a fairly loud heavy 70's vibe thing going on, and it's all instrumental. Drummer, two guitars (100W half stacks) and me (bass, 8x10, lotsa power).

We've been recording our practices with two room mics going into two channels of a tascam 4 track. Sounds pretty good for the simplicity of it, but I'm trying to get a better recording (demo) I can pass around... the sound in the room does sound good to my untrained ears, for what it's worth.

Picked up a 12 channel kelsey mixer for $40, and we have a bunch of mics (SM57, two SM58's, some kind of audio technica condenser, and an audio technica ATM25, along with some other cheapies)

What I was planning on doing is running all of these mics into the mixer and from there into channels 1 and 2 of the four track. We will all be in the same room so there won't be much (if any!) separation... any thoughts, comments, ideas? If you want to tell me I'm crazy, that's ok too.

 

[Vurt]

I think it sounds like a great idea. What was the question?

 

[Rickenbackerman]

um, I forgot myself! I guess I'm just wondering if it's wishful thinking trying to record a loud band, live, all in the same room, into two channels, and end up with a good sound.

 

[elevate]

That's how Rage Against the Machine recorded their first album. They might not have gone directly down to two tracks, but it can be done with a bit of trial and error.

 

[Vurt]

I take it your 4 track only takes two inputs/time...

You're biggest problem will probably be monitoring and setting levels because you won't be able to hear very well. Do your best though because as you know, you won't be able to fix things once they're all routed to two tracks.

You might try to convince everyone that playing at lower levels could sound better on tape. Put the atm25 on the kick, a 57 on the snare, and the 58's on the amps and see what happens. The condenser might work as a room mic in from of the drums or someplace else to get the guitars. See if your "cheap" condensers sound good as drum overheads. Experiment with everything and do some searches here - there's a million different threads on this sort of thing...

good luck!

 

[TexRoadkill]

Your biggest dissapointment will probably be that mixer. Several channels open on a cheap mixer can add alot of noise. I would look to upgrade that ASAP.

You could try overdubbing to take advantage of the extra tracks. This will also minimize the bleed problems. At least overdub the vocals if you can.

 

[maurolin]

at low volumes the recording should be fair for a 4 track.

Anyone want a kelsea 16 channel mixer for $80 in great shape!

 

[ssscientist]

Only if you promise not to tack it on the end of a 4 1/2 year old thread and put it in the 'For Sale' forum.

Then I'll buy it.

On second thought, lemmie sleep on it...

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