recording first band

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karambos2

karambos2

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Hi,

I'm looking for advice on how to record a band. I've never done it before. I produce loop-based music purely as a hobby and I've only ever recorded myself playing and singing. I've got a mac with an Audiowerk 2 card and thus have only got two ins and outs to play with. The band I'll be recording have also got no experience in a recording studio so there's a lot that can go wrong. They describe themselves as playing "Goth Rock". As you can imagine, they wear a lot of black. I'm not charging them.

Here's a list of my equipment:
Mac G3/233 MHz (overtacted to about 300), 60GB drive, 544MB RAM, CD-burner
Emagic Logic Audio Platinum 4.8.1
Audiowerk 2 Audio card
Internal instruments: ES1, EXS24, EVP88
Roland JV 1080 synth (+ vintage exp board)
Akai S3200 (32 Mb + effectsboard) sampler + 1GB JAZ
Opcode Studio 4 MIDI-Interface
Genelec 1029A active speakers
Behringer MX2642A 16 track Mixing desk
Takamine Santa-Fe (PSF-15C) acoustic guitar
Fender Tele
2 unnamed classical guitars
electric piano (Casio Celviano)
Midiman Oxygen 8
1922 Marschall Cab and 100W head
microphone (Neumann TLM 103)
Johnson J-Station guitar preamp & effects box
Pluggo Plugins
about 15 sample CD's
plus a 700MHz PC on which I run Sound Forge, Acid and Fruity Loops and network the two puters.

So you can see, it's not exactly Abbey Road.

Questions I have are:
1. Where do you start? Drums? Guitar? Voice?
2. As a producer are you supposed to supply instruments as well?
3. How long should a track take?
4. Would it be worth my while getting an audio card with more ins and outs?

I'm grateful for any advice / hints/ tips / links to useful articles

thx

Karambos
 
Did I read right that you've got one mic? Hokay, this oughta be interesting. It can be done, and it will probably sound better than my first recording on a POS 4-track with a POS mic in 1989.

First off, is it just guitar/bass/drums/vocal? Or all the key stuff too? That makes a difference in how I'd start. I've gotta believe the band has their own instruments, so probably they want to use their own.

So, if they use keys, start with cutting a loop and monitoring to that to record all the other instruments. If not, set up the entire band, or at least some drums, a guitar, and vocal in a room with the mic in the middle of it and record the song live. This track you'll probably throw out later, but it will be used for monitoring.

Next I'd record drums, using the mic as an overhead. If you're gonna use live drums rather than loops, you might wanna try to score a couple more mics, like, specifically, a Shure SM57 for snare and AKG D112 for kick. At least the 57, these are everywhere you must be able to borrow it somewhere. You can even dub the kick later but you'd need a pretty consistent drummer. If you go that route, it's better to record the kick separately, that is have the drummer play everything but kick then dub it. I like to that myself, but then I pretty much suck at drums so it's a necessity.

The rest is easier; record vocals with your mic, guitar cabs with your mic (or the 57 if you borrow it, or just use your preamp, whatever sounds best), run the bass direct thru your mixer or preamp and you're done, with tracking anyway.

How long does it take? My rule of thumb is one hour per track minute, at least for the first couple of tracks. After that it gets a lot easier.

Should you get an audio card with more ins? Not yet, especially with only one mic. You don't often want to record a whole band live anyway. After this, if you want to keep doing bands, I'd get a few more mics first, like a pair of SD condensors and a pair of 57s, then I'd learn to get a good drum sound with mic placement and mix that to two stereo tracks on your mixer. Once you learn to do that and sound good, then get some more ins.

If you decide you hate recording live drums and go back to synths + vocal, guitar you don't really need more than two ins.

Me, I've got ummm . . . twenty ins and outs. Turn back before it is too late!!!! But seriously I used two ins for years.
 
thanks mshilarious for the reply.

What do you mean when you say "dub" the kick drum? I don't understand the expression (other than "dub" as a type of reggae music). Do you mean "add it later using a sample"?

Thanks once again for your time in answering my (possibly dumb) questions.

Karambos
 
First you lay down a click track on the last track and set it to a tempo that each of the band players can play to. then record the drums. sence i see that you only have one mic try this: For drums place the mic about 5-6fett or so infront of the kit and set it up to about 5 feet tall. for bass, get a direct box and plug the bass straight into it and then plug it into the computer. for guitar amps, place the mic real close the the speaker. don't put it right in the middle. set it off in between the cone and the end of the speaker. for vocals, just have the guy stand about 1 fott or less infront of the mic and if he sreams, make sure that the levels don't distort. you may want to use compression on it. And get in the studio before the band gets there and set every thing up. don't wait until they get there to set every thing up or you will be trying to set it up while someones playing the drums really loud, people are laufing and someguys standing behide you talking to you.....you can get real comfused and it can cause a bad recording. Set every thing up and then relax until they get there.

good luck.
 
'dub' as is "feelin' irie 'cos I rub-a-dub styly!"

No, seriously, it's short for overdub, meaning to add or replace a part to a track that has already been recorded. If you are replacing a part, that's also called punching.
 
As a late footnote you asked if 'producers supply the instruments'. As a rule they don't but many do have their own instruments that are professionally set up and in good working order (e.g an acoustic guitar with good action that holds it's tuning). The reason being that as a Producer/Engineer, even before you plug in your first mic you should be checking out the sound of the instruments you're working with. If the drum kits tuning is all over the place and the snare skins as saggy and worn as an old womans backside then you're fighting an uphill battle from the start and no matter what recording technique you apply....it's still gonna sound bad.
 
Go pick up a couple of SM57's to use on guitars, snare and maybe vocals.
 
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