Recording Band Rehearsals

[ashean]

Hi there,

My band has been doing recordings of our jams (electric guitar, electric bass, and Drums, no vocals) using a single 'Realistic' PZM mic into a Behringer BCA2000 into laptop. Its pretty awesome how well it turns out given the low setup complexity, and the levels are usually turn out pretty decent. We're now starting to wonder what the next step would be to improve the quality of the recordings, without necessarily going to the lengths of mic'ing the instruments individually (we rent rehearsal space so can't afford to spend too much time setting up).

1. Would an omni directional condenser mic like a Studio Projects B3 give a better recording than the PZM?

2. What about a matched pair like Studio Projects C4's, or maybe two B3's, or two PZM's, to get stereo? Having two mics would also mean that we would have two recordings to choose from (or blend), taking a bit of the gamble out of the placement of the mic's.

How do you guys do it, and what mic's do you recommend?

Thanks!

Ashe

 

[gbondo9]

Well...

What exactly are your intentions? What do you want from these recordings?
Do you plan on distributing this to anyone?
Is it just for you? If so - why exactly are you listenting to your own recordings (just for fun or do you play along while listening...etc..)
What are your long term goals for these recordings? After this upgarde are you going to want to upgrade again?

Todd

 

[ashean]

So far, we are just listening to them ourselves. We just improvise/jam for a couple of hours, edit out the crap, cut it into tracks, run a bit of compressor over it, and we've got a new cd to listen to for the week. So at this stage, the better the recording quality, the more enjoyment we would get out of listening to it afterwards.

If the quality was better, we would consider using it for other things... demos, samples, playing to friends, etc. But at the moment, it's probably the composition rather than the sound quality that is holding us back!

There is something nice about the raw live sound though... in the old days weren't all recordings done like this?

 

[sloom]

We used to record 4 tracks to cassette in a live room: Bass direct to the mixer; 57 on guitar cab; drum submix to mono track; vocal (room) mic. There was lots of bleed, obviously, into the drum mics, but in mixing down I just ignore what I'm not interested in, and mix/EQ for what I'm after.

You hear in a live room anyway, sound is always colored by the environment... possible too much isolation is undesirable, after all?

The old Blue-Note sessions, I understand, had one omni mic in the center of the room. Mono rocks!