Recording Jam Sessions

  • Thread starter Thread starter mfroot
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mfroot

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Hi everyone, I just discovered this board. I wanted to know what a good way to record jam sessions involving 2/3 electric or acoustic guitars. Basically, I'm not looking for anything to high quality. The acoustic guitars don't have pickups so a mic would be required. What would be the most cost effective way to do this? Can I just get one mic and set it up to record everything in the room, or should I just purchase a universal pickup for acoustics and plug both the electric and acoustic guitars into a 4 track? I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks a lot.
 
Get yourself a Behringer ECM8000 omni mic ($35). To plug it in, get something with a mic preamp and phantom power on it. This will vary in price, but you should be able to find something economical. Or maybe your four-track has something like this on it. The ECM8000 is an omnidirectional mic, so it will pick up about everything.
 
You can get a little minidisc recorder for under 100 bucks. Then a decent little stereo mic will be $50 or so. It's a good and very very simple way to record ideas and jams without having to drag around equipment (a little MD recorder will fit in the palm of your hand). No four track or phantom power boxes needed. I recently bought one for getting ideas down without having to fire up any recording gear, and to capture samples in the wild.

Slackmaster 2000
 
yeah i use a minidisc recorder all the tim eto capture things 'out and about'. those little sony stereo mics are surprisingly good!
 
Go with the minidisc.

I once was asked to produce a band who wanted to record a nerw demo tape. They had recorded their previous one in an expensive studio and they weren't satisfied at all. I recorded to get to know their songs better one of their rehearsels with a minidisc and they were just thrilled when I let them hear that recording. "Hey man, that sounds allready better than our Demo" :)
 
i've been thinking about the minidisc thing for a while myself, with a minidisc and one of those sony stereo recorders, would i get decent quality for recording drums?
 
I record our band jams on minidisc as well. I use a small mackie board plug in a couple of sm58 mics (all I have) and run it into the minidisc. It works pretty well. In theory you could mic a whole drum kit this way and record onto minidisc as well. The only thing that sucks is that you have to export the audio as an analog signal if you want to "transfer" it to your computer. Unless you have a minidisc player with a digital out (most if not all of the portables don't have this). Still I don't think the quality loss is too bad myself.

Chris
 
My portable MD has a digital out too, plus I've got a deck with various digital outs!:D
 
A company called Sound pProfessionals make great MD stereo micsw. I got their simplest one, for 50$ and it is great, as long as you don't put it too close to loud instruments. They also have a battery module, that makes the mic handle higher SPL levels. Highly recommended.

Oren
 
If you have 4 tracks to record on then use pickups or get a couple of 57's or ECM's for the acoustics.

If you dont care much at all about mixing it then just get 2 ECM's and mic the room in stereo.
 
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