Recording a band "live" in a home studio

[JBT18]

How do you record an entire band at once in a home studio without each guys mike picking up the other instruments> We have each instrument pluged into different channels on the mixer but the vocal mike still picks up the guitar and the drums and vica versa so the whole thing is a muddy indistinct mess!!

please help

 

[boomtap]

You need lots of room, and lots of cables other wise bleed will be what you have to contend with when mixing. Shouldn't be to bad as long as you are not trying to "fix" mess ups, and the bleed is contending with the fixes. I have done lots of live stuff and have found that you need a few takes to sort of get the sound figured out. Then I just shoot for the best levels and the least bleed I can.

Most bands won't do this, but if you can convince the guitar player to use a POD or something, and the bass to go direct, then mic the drums, you can get a very clean live sound. If they insist on using amps (most do) then you will get bleed but should be able to contend with it.

Also try putting and micing the amps in diffrent rooms away from the drums/vocals and still let the band play in the same room together via headphones if possible. Just try and isolate the insterments without isolating the musicians as much as possible.

Good luck, I know you can get a great sound.

 

[Lt. Bob]

biggest thing I'd do is run the bass direct. You can usually get a bass player to do that. Then take the guitar amp and stick it in a closet.
If neither guy will do that .... then close mic everything so that the volume drowns out most of the bleed. You won't be able to fix mistakes though so try to get the bass direct and the amp in a closet. If the vocal is a scratch track with the intent to come back and do keeper vocals later .... then it doesn't matter how much it bleeds. And I'd recommend doing that .... you'd hate to get a great rhythm track and have to do it over 'cause the vox weren't good. Much better to do a 'scratch vox' and then come back and do it over.

 

[fldrummer]

yup..

Get the amps out of their and iso the drums as much as you can

Then do a scratch vocal then overdub it.

 

[thajeremy]

What kind of band is it??? I have a "Jam Band" who comes in a lot and they like the live sound. I just put a couple of OH mics on the drums, a Beta 52 on the kick, mic the bass with a dynamic, put a dynamic on the guitar and put an LDC several feet back from the guitar. He plays really loud so I rarely use the dynamic on his amp when I mix..but I like to keep it there cuz you never know. There is TONS of bleeding but they like the sound. I would tell you to start with cutting the lows out of EVERYTHING except the bass guitar. This will cut out a lot of the mud you are hearing. With the bass bleeding in on every mic...there will be plenty of low end there....

 

[deafsound]

Without getting too technical, I would suggest using the bleed to your advantage. Instead of trying to put the bass player way across the room, put him or her closer to the drums. The overheads will pick up some bass, but as long as there's no boo boos, the bass will sound fuller. Guitar is usually less of a bleed issue, seeing as how it's more directional. A large diaphram mic will not work too well for vocals in this situation, especially if they are a loud band, so a 58 or a 57 might just do the trick. They don't sound as bad as you think for studio recording.
Recording live is awesome if the band is any good. Bass players don't have to use crappy headphones to hear their tone, and guitar players can get the sustain they're looking for by having the amp right there.
Oh, and check your phase on everything!

 

[curtiswyant]

I'm in the same situation...I'm going to be recording my band in a few weeks. I figure I'll put the drums in the best sounding room w/treatment, then slam the guitar amps into another bedroom with gobos. The bassist and two guitarists will sit in yet another bedroom with bass running direct and one of the guitarists laying down a scratch vocal track.

 

[boomtap]

If possible I recomed keeping the band in the same room best you can, and just relocating thier amps with long cables to other rooms. Then monitor with headphones. I know that this isn't always possible but if it is you will get good results.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

You have :

....G
....U
....I....S
.. .T....I
B..A...N....D <-- The only time this happens is when you all play together.
A..R...G....R
S..S...E....U
S... ...R...M
......... ....S

A band is a living thing; each member gets visual cues from the others. Make sure everybody can see each other and it'll sound like a band.

 

[PowRGnome]

This is exactly what my band does and we have no real bleed issues. We've got a main room in the guitarist's mountain house (you know houses in the Poconos start at like 75K?) We're all in the main room with the drums set up in the corner. Around a corner, there's a bathroom. We stick the guitarist's amp in there, mic it up, then close the door and put a matress over it. I run my keyboard (on which I do bass parts) direct to the board. We all wear headphones. The drummer wears ear buds and firing range ear muffs on quiet songs to keep the phones from going into his overheads. A tiny tiny bit of guitar gets into his overheads, as does some sound of us shifting around while we play, but for the most part it's fine. The most trouble we've had is when the guitarist wants to do feedback (which sounds great in a tiled bathroom, btw) and he opens the door to do it. But, that's for noisey parts anyway, so it's not that big a thing. You can definitely make it work, the most important thing being that you and the rest of your band can see each other and the isolation issue being a close second.

 

[Frenchc]

Heres another way that I do it, Since I have only 2 tracks to work with on my Tascam this is how I manage it,

I mic the drums (kick and overhead)
have the guitarist play along with the drums while running headphones out of the guitarist's amp and splitting the signal to the drummer headphones and the guitarist's

after that we jsut go back and record the guitars, bass, and vocals

definitly not the best way to do it but with only two track on my DP-01 and the small amount of equipment I own this is what I came up with

Another way one of my friends use to do it is use the upstairs of his house where there is a hallway and three rooms, we put a guitar amp in one room, vocal in another, drums in the last. The bass went direct and the guitarist and bassist stood in the hallway and we shut all the doors

we fed all the instuments to a headphone amp so everyone could hear eachother and just layed down the tracks and overdubbed whatever we needed to, redoing all of the vocals

Just thought i'd give my less than ideal set up