Well Rockishell, I can offer a few things to think about, which is not really an answer. First, before you set out to do something, you have to figure out what it is you are trying to do. Sounds simple, but it's not. What is the point? You want a good demo of your band? You want to record demos for other people for money? You want to make live remote recordiings of bands for money? You want to sit at shows behind a honking big mixer and pick up girls? First, you have $2000, which is a very small budget for recording a band.
My advice is almost always to do less better, rather than doing more badly. I'd much rather record with 2 good tracks than 64 that suck. I bet if I stick a couple of Schoeps mics into an Avalon preamp and record onto a good Walkman in stereo, I'll get a better recording than 25 SM58's into a Behringer board into an Alesis HD24.
Here's how a lot of people would do a live band with $2000- Put a
Shure SM58 on the lead singer, and one more for each other singers. The bass would have a direct line pulled off to the cheap Behringer mixer that all of this is going to. Shure SM57 on any guitar amps. Stick a cheap Audix drum pack on the drums. Use Hosa cables, they're cheap, right?. Then they would mix it on the fly with cheap headphones into an M-Audio USB interface into a laptop. There. - band recorded for $2000, if you don't count the laptop. Or- you're an analog guy- same deal, but the board goes into a Tascam cassette for mixdown.
Problems here? The preamps in the mixer suck, the engineer has to be right, and the band has to be cooperative. My version? 2 Shure SM81's in spaced stereo into an FMR audio RNP into a Korg PXR4 Pandora. Sennheiser HD280's for headphones. Advantages? My preamp doesn't suck. Stereo is much easier to mix on the fly than 18 tracks. Less cables. Drummer can't smack my mics. Much better overall sound. Disadvantages? I only get 45 minutes in stereo before I have to switch cards. I don't get to control the balance of the different instruments, the band or the FOH mixer has to do that. This must take place in a fairly good room, or it will probably suck. Crowd noise can be a big factor.
Plan C- I bring the nice band into a well controlled acoustic space called a studio. We can record the musicians individually with click tracks, using scratch tracks as a guide. We can use smaller numbers of much better mics. We can make composite tracks, re-amp to get the sound we are looking for, pitch adjust the incompetent bastards, and compress that damned screamer.
Disadvantage? The main vocal mic costs more than your entire budget. But gee, if we spent that much money at a good studio, they could make a pretty good cd. There's your plan D. Want to pick up girls? Buy the biggest, cheapest board with the most possible knobs.
So you see, it's back to the beginning. You have to know what you're trying to do. Want a good demo of your band? Take your $2000 to a good studio and spend it there. Want to learn about recording? Buy an 8 track standalone digital recorder, a midpriced preamp, and a small handful of good basic cheap mics. Want to record full bands for money? Get a *much* bigger budget, $2000 is not in the ballpark. First, define what you intend to do with the end product. Then choose the tools to make a product that will do that. My best advice? Do less better.-Richie
