Recording a live band - help!

espskully

espskully

New member
I have been approached to record a band over a month's time. It consists of 2 guitars, 2 vox, sax, bass and drums. I am getting a Mac Pro this week and a new sound card/ pre amp - I was looking at the Firepod which is 8 in 8 out and has 8 pre's. This would be pushing it with that many instruments, no? Or can I get away with just 2 mics on the drums? Or could I record the output from the mixer into my machine (would that be a stereo mix of the drums?) Do I just do that for all instruments - take the outs of the house mixer and into the Firepod?

Also, what to charge for this? It would likely be over a month - so 4 shows. I would also handle mixing/producing duites.

Any feedback/ advice for me?

Cheers,

Aaron
 
montage said:
Can you plan on a "dress rehearsal" recording to try out your set-up ideas?
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The cool thing is that it'll be at a jam that this band hosts - and over the course of a month (4 jams) so yes - I can use the first jam to test things out. But I'd like to go in a little prepared. One tricky thing is that the levels go up up up thoughout the course of the show. By the end of the night it's probably 30% louder than when it starts. Any idea how to account for that? There will be a soundman too - so I guess he rides those levels.
 
You could go with just an overhead and a kick mic for the drums. Or you could use an external mixer to submix more drum mics down to a pair of tracks.
 
I just did a live show with (2) guitar player, (1) bass, (1) keyboard, (2) singers and a drummer and recorded to ADAT. This meant that I had to group the drums. I premixed the (4) channels of drum mics to were they were good then grouped them out to 2 tracks on the ADAT. It's a bit risky but that's what you gotta do. I wouldn't go any less than 3 mics for the drums. Make sure the drums are real good or you'll be screwed.
 
riffy said:
I just did a live show with (2) guitar player, (1) bass, (1) keyboard, (2) singers and a drummer and recorded to ADAT. This meant that I had to group the drums. I premixed the (4) channels of drum mics to were they were good then grouped them out to 2 tracks on the ADAT. It's a bit risky but that's what you gotta do. I wouldn't go any less than 3 mics for the drums. Make sure the drums are real good or you'll be screwed.
Click to expand...
I used to record live to ADAT in a similar way. In my case I'd use 3 drum mics (stereo pair from the front and a kick) submixed to stereo. I'd also submix the vocals to stereo, allowing as many backup vocals as required, it'd all submix anyway.

This gave me a drum kit stereo submix and a vocals stereo submix that took up 4 of my 8 ADAT tracks. That left the remaining 4 ADAT tracks for bass, two guitars and keyboard. One option to that would be I might fold the bass into the drum submix to give me a rhythm section submix, leaving an extra track open for an (often) second keyboard or other incidental instrument like harp or sax.

The upsides to this configuration was that I got a very clean tracking of a lot of instruments and vocals to only 8 tracks, and that with the front-loaded stereo pair of cardioids on the drums, the bleed (and associated phase issues)from the monitors and other amps onto the drum tracks was minimal. And it provided for a great sounding live mix with minimal work.

The downside was that it requires live mixing the rhythm and vocal submixes. But frankly that is not that hard to do well, especially if one throws a little compression across the bass and kick tracks to keep them obediant.

All in all, a very economical and easy to mix setup that sounds quite good in the final two mix.

G.
 
I'd take a mix off the board, like what was stated before....

at least you have 4 chances to get it right...If it doesn't work out the first time, there's always another show...
 
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