Open room recording session?

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coolsoundman

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Hey folks,

I've done a recording before in my bedroom, but it was in like small different sessions. The last time that I recorded was using the Yamaha AW16G recorder and a couple of mics and guitars and bass and electric drums. Now, I still have the recorder and I have a Mackie CFX20 board. Instead of using my bedroom, I want to use the den room, which is a lot more bigger and has a gable roof (angle ceilings). Instead of recording everything in seperate sessions, I want to do a one room recording studio. I also want to use my accoustic drums rather than the electric. Along with my mixing board, I just bought the dbx drive rack and I have a behringer equalizer and a 4 channel compressor/limiter. On my mixer, I have 4 subouts and then theres the main mix out. I was wanting to use the mixer to insert all of my instruments (drums,guitar, bass) and on the AW have the vocals run direct into it. Would recording in that one room cause any problems for me? For my drums, I have a rug on the floor, hopefully to help dampen some of the sound and I don't know what else? And how would I go about using my rack equipment, on the hooking up of these?
I appreciate some suggestions.
 
Recording a band "all at once" presents a number of problems. Before starting be sure everyone knows their parts well, this is like a "live recording" and if one person messes up it means start over. Even the tightest band can expect multiple takes of every song. Cloce mic everything as much as possible, you will still get lots of bleed over and a lot of room ambience. Face gear (different amps) away from each other rather than all forward (like at a gig) and not toward the center of the room. Do not put the drums in a corner. Check your room for anything that rattles, mics "hear" rattles and noise more than ears for some reason unknown to me. Turn off all appliances in the room other than what you are using, TVs, stereos, fans and such often cause hum. Shift your furniture around and use it as baffels. Record something, then play it back, rearainge mics and try it again. Repeat this last step untill you get a decent sound, then record the song(s) over and over untill you get a decent take. All at once recording does not allow for many mistakes, there is very little which can be "fixed in the mix."
 
i think recording live in the studio is a great idea. as long as you have musicians who can play their part rather than rely on software to put together their performance, it will sound great. it's not about everyone getting a perfect performance, but getting the feel or the mood of the song.

here are a couple pictures of the doors in the studio, one of many bands who recorded as a full band in the studio.

one two

there are some things to be aware of. there will be a lot bleeding. to minimize, try setting up some sort of baffles like in the above pictures. mic placement is also critcal-- especially with the bleed factor. with your extended ceiling height, you may want to place one or two room mics as high as you can. you can either use those tracks to enhance the close mics, or use the room mics as your main source and bring in the close mics when you need a little more of a particular instrument.

you could also consider cutting the rythym tracks live, and overdubbling solos and vocals.
 
As Dani and funky said, you will get a lot of bleed and noise, and be prepared for multiple takes.

You might try, instead of having everyone in one room, have each person in a different room. That way you can isolate the instruments better. The multiple-room technique has challenges, too (if all the musicians can't actally see each other, for example) but you will get a cleaner mix that way.
 
or you put all the musicians in one room with the drums and have the guitar amsp in other rooms/closets, DI the bass if you have to
 
what I wanted to do is mic my drums (snare, kick, and two overheads) and run the guitar and bass guitar in through the mixer. And maybe in the next room, which is carpeted use that room as the vocal isolation room. But, I would also need to run one monitor into there for the vocal and another in room for the band too hear the voice. Then, there is the other way of doing it if I could use the compress/gate method on some of the channels, say the vocal, but I'm not really too sure about that. My means of some equipment is very slim, but I'm still open to some more suggestions.
 
As stated earlier, close mic'ing guitars and keeping mics pointed away from other instruments and towards the intended source will greatly reduce bleed. I have been pretty lucky in the area, very little crossover. As long as you can create some space between instruments. In a larger room this will be much easier. Good luck.

Here is an example of a live recording..3 mics on drums..1 on each guitar and I believe direct on bass. 1 overdub on the vox. Mind you the drummer who recorded this has killer mics and that does help.



While recording this, everyone was located at least 10 feet from each other.
 
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