Only 8 mic pre's, some ideas on recording full bands + drums please

I recorded my band using a Firestudio Project which also has 8 inputs. The way we went bout it was:

-bass in direct
-keys in direct
-guitar cab mic'd (in homemade iso box)
-guitar cab mic'd (in another homemade box)
-kick drum
-snare
-overhead left
-overhead right

we spaced ourselves and our amps in the room away from the drums/drum mics. the boxes did a good job of keeping the drums out of the guitar recordings, and vice versa. as fun as it is to record live though, if you have the time, i'd record track by track.
 
saads said:
Haha. As much as I'd like to believe in the live vibe thing, RAMI is right. You'll be much better off tracking everything separately.
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Done it both ways, and will continue to do so. No argument that you can get closer to technical perfection by overdubbing everything. The music I prefer to listen to and record, however, is live, especially with an audience present. Technical perfection doesn't always feel like 'real music' to me. Personal preference.
 
Spare Dougal said:
1. Kick & Hi Hat: If you filter the high end out of the kick and the low end out of the high hat - a crossover somewhere between 800Hz and 1kHz - when you come to mix you can copy the audio onto another track, apply the same filters and pretty much have 2 channels out of one. If you need more top end click in your kick then you can always sound replace the kick with a sample. At least you'll have the original feel.
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There's a lot in the kick above 1k I'd hate to give up for most genres.

Spare Dougal said:
3. Toms: If you mix all the Toms down to one track then, in the mix you can cut and paste each Tom onto it's individual track and pan them separately then. Alternatively, take sample hit's of each tom and again replace the hits with the sample. This will give you control over sound and panning without having to mix them into the overheads.
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Or automate the pan. Either way with the toms mixed to one track there will be overlap between the decay of one tom and the attack of the next one, and that decay will follow the pan settings of the next tom hit, which doesn't sound at all like real panned toms. I would say either keep them mono during mixdown or record a stereo mix of all the toms.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
There's a lot in the kick above 1k I'd hate to give up for most genres.
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Correct but we are talking about a compromise here to give most maneuverability after recording here. We're not talking about ideas. Also if you read my comments I said... 'If you need more top end click in your kick then you can always sound replace the kick with a sample. At least you'll have the original feel'

bouldersoundguy said:
Or automate the pan. Either way with the toms mixed to one track there will be overlap between the decay of one tom and the attack of the next one, and that decay will follow the pan settings of the next tom hit, which doesn't sound at all like real panned toms. I would say either keep them mono during mixdown or record a stereo mix of all the toms.
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Also true, but I've done this before and you can get away with it sounding realistic if you mix it with this in mind. Again we're not talking ideals here. Plus as with the last comment I did give the altnerative of... 'take sample hit's of each tom and again replace the hits with the sample. This will give you control over sound and panning without having to mix them into the overheads'
 
Replacing drum parts seems to go against the spirit of getting a live feel. I'd be more likely to get the drums sounding right through better tuning and playing and put two mics on them, kick and overhead. But whatever works.
 
you most definitely need the kick and the top snare.
Not sure about the hihat though...
Try to get a blanced tone out of the overhead. EVERYTHING should be captures by the overheads AND balanced. this means to cymbals that behead you on the drummers hits them. This will give a good balance tune to start with that you can refine with the kick and snare mics.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Replacing drum parts seems to go against the spirit of getting a live feel. I'd be more likely to get the drums sounding right through better tuning and playing and put two mics on them, kick and overhead. But whatever works.
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It's only the toms for the tail of the toms to allow more flexibility in panning and an additional kick mic to ad some top to the kick. You'd still have all the same feel and if you took a soft, medium and hard hit of the toms you could match them up where needed. It's a bit of editing which will give you more flexibility in mixing, but just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use them. If the original has a better feel and sounds better I'd use it.

It depends on the style of music and the performers. If you're doing something like jazz with a great drummer, I'd only put 3 or 4 mics up to be honest, but If I'm doing rock or want a very produced sound in the mix, I'd go down this root. Anyway, replacing drum sounds is a pretty standard thing to do in certain genres even with 12 or 14 mics on the kit (not my cup of tea mind). This is just an option which will give the most flexibility in my mind, but still allowing to stick to the original feel.
 
Spare Dougal said:
:laughings: I want to find a band that have the guts to record to 8 track 1inch tape. No micro editing, no autotune. I'm up for it :)
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I did my first multitracking on an Ampex 8-track 1-inch while in college. I thought it was amazing!

I know several acoustic bands in this area that do all their recording live-to-multitrack.
 
clivus said:
I did my first multitracking on an Ampex 8-track 1-inch while in college. I thought it was amazing!

I know several acoustic bands in this area that do all their recording live-to-multitrack.
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I do all my recording live pretty much, but just not to 8 tracks. No one's brave enough :)
 
Get a Mackiie Onyx firewire mixer with 16 inputs and mic everything you want into the computer - much more flexibility.
 
Yeah, two overheads kick and snare would be a pretty standard approach. Depending on what kind of sounds you want, you may not even need that many. I just did an interview with Gabe Roth from Daptone where he talks about using a single mic on Questlove's drums for the new Booker T record.

If you listen to that 90s post rock stuff like Stereolab or Tortoise a lot of that is just overheads, overheads with kick only, just overheads, or overheads with kick and snare. Lot of great drum sounds there.

(That said I've gotten drum tracks from Peter Katis to mix and there have been 18 tracks of drums. And that sounded badass too.)
 
This thread caught my eye because I recorded acoustic drums for the FIRST time a few months ago and I was nervous that I would botch the whole thing with my inexperience. The artist I was recording had hired a bass player and drummer to come down for the day(they are both from a town 100 miles away) and it was very important that we nailed the first time.

Allow me to preface this with the disclaimer that I am not pretending to be an experienced engineer.

My recording set up at the time:

Focusrite Sapphire Pro 10

ART MPA Gold (on kick and snare)

M-Audio DMP3 on OH's

Rode NT1-a for OH's

Audix D6 on kick

Audix i5 on snare

Reaper

I used the Jon Glyns technique

http://www.blaxploitation.com/drums/glynJohnsMethod.pdf

The drum tracks were recorded in my untreated bedroom (16' X 12' 10" X 7' 10")

I can't remember the brand of kit the drummer used, I believe it was a Ludwig, don't quote me on that, but the kit sounded great and the drummer is VERY talented.

Here's the raw drum tracks....they are panned with a limiter on the master bus to bring it up to a reasonable listening level.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22186849/SIXER IN C-TOWNHRrawDRUMSwav.wav

Not too shabby considering the room and my limited experience.

Here are the processed drum tracks.....

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22186849/SIXER IN C-TOWNprocDRUMSwav.wav

I use UAD plugins almost exclusively and these were were processed with their Neve 88RS channel strip emulation and an EMT Plate 140 reverb.

Here's the drums in the context of the full mix. (About 75% complete and unmastered)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22186849/SIXER IN C-TOWNpromo2.wav

Hope that this illustrates the point that good results can be achieved with 4 mics in an untreated room with modest to average consumer gear.
 
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