Recording some Hippies

[steppingonmars]

Hi all

Well after taking a break this summer I've been asked to record a folk band. There's a mandolin player, a drummer, an acoustic guitar player and a bass player. I'm sure they would like to do it live with the drums, but I only have one room so there's going to be issues with the sound isolation with the drums. I have a couple of gobos I could use. The other thing I could do is record the bass and drums together and the guitar and mandolin after.

Anyone had any experience with a band like this?

 

[gecko zzed]

Record them live.

Keep them as far apart as possible, but don't sweat on the bleed.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Sound isolation doesn't even have to enter the conversation. Just go for it.

 

[steppingonmars]

What I did was set up gobos with the mandolin and guitar player together, and the drums and bass together, I'll DI the bass, I can always reamp later. I'm doing stereo x/y on the guitar and mandolin, but making sure one mic can do the job if I get too much bleed so I can mute it out later if needed. I thought this way if it doesn't work out we can track the guitar and mandolin later without worrying about them bleeding into the drum mics. Do you even bother with stereo mics on the guitar/mandolin? Right now I'm using SDC, but maybe I should just use a couple of 57's?

 

[gecko zzed]

I would go for four mikes on kit (kick, snare and overhead x 2), DI the bass, a mike each on mando and guitar.

 

[moresound]

I would go for four mikes on kit (kick, snare and overhead x 2), DI the bass, a mike each on mando and guitar.

^^^^^^^^+200000000000^^^^^^^^^

And like he said don't worry about a little bleed ~ I find that it fattens up the mix.

 

[steppingonmars]

Well I did some experimenting today, there will be more than just a little bleed There's gonna be a lot of bleed from those drums, hopefully the drummer will play nice and quiet or with brushes I can only see it working out this way. First I recorded some drums by myself, then some acoustic guitar. With the gobos in place, the levels were hotter from the bleed of the drums than with the acoustic guitar by itself. I guess we'll have to see tomorrow.

I'm gonna cover my bases and let them know non the less as I don't want to look like a jackass at the end. I've done bands live before, but that was with guitar amps wailing away.
I have 16 channels at my disposal so I'm gonna di the guitar and mando and mic them so if it doesn't work out we can overdub them later.

 

[bassbrad]

Getting a DI signal from the instruments will ensure that you can have separation then all you have to sweat is bleed from the other instruments in the drum mics. Still use the mics on the instruments for ambience and such.

 

[mcmetal]

Recording hippies?
Yeah,don't sweat a thing.Just pass the proverbial pipe around a few times and it'll work itself out.












Just kidding of course.Now go watch that double rainbow clip on youtube a few times.

 

[witzendoz]

Here are 3 bands that I recorded tottally live (including vocal) in the room together with no or very few overdubs.

Indigo Duck
The Bayou Brothers
Jook Joint Band

Set them up with the drums at one end of the room, amps at the other, screen the vocal as much as you can and hope they can play with a volume less than 10.

I love recording this way.

Cheers
Alan

 

[steppingonmars]

Well I finished recording them and it came out well. He was singing on one of the tunes so it got picked up on the mandolin mic and since we did the vox after it's kinda ghosting in a spot, I'm gonna try and edit the vox to mask over it though. I had gobos in front of the guitar and mandolin for it, but the drummer didn't play too loud so it all worked. Maybe I'll post some of it when I'm done and get paid

 

[drstawl]

And like he said don't worry about a little bleed ~ I find that it fattens up the mix.

I have to agree that the only reason for separating the sound sources would be for the ease of mixing this back into the final production.

The better recording might just be obtained with the band in natural proximity to each other and a pair of nice overheads.

 

[grimtraveller]

Well I finished recording them and it came out well. He was singing on one of the tunes so it got picked up on the mandolin mic and since we did the vox after it's kinda ghosting in a spot, I'm gonna try and edit the vox to mask over it though. I had gobos in front of the guitar and mandolin for it, but the drummer didn't play too loud so it all worked. Maybe I'll post some of it when I'm done and get paid

Unless everything was electric and loud as in a kind of "heavy metallic on folkie instruments" kind of thing {which, incidentally can sound cool}, or heavy, loud and intense but acoustically so, I would've been surprized if you hadn't captured them well. Gekko zzed's solution seemed to me to be logical and logical again. I find that bleed can be good ~ as long as the general tracking was satisfactory and no changes need to be made. Then it can be a pain in the patootie !

 

[legionserial]

The only thing you need to worry about when recording hippies is making sure you capture clearly the sound of their screams after you've set them on fire.

 

[mcmetal]

How do you hide money from a hippie? Put it under the soap!

 

[rayc]

Now, now, my wife's a hippy!
then again she loved the Doug Anthony Allstars' song I Wanna Spill The blood of a Hippy. At least she's ahippy with a sense of humour & irony.

 

[steppingonmars]

Well here's the end result. I'll show you the worst one, any suggestions on the mix would be appreciated

http://www.box.net/shared/uh7qsh6vxd

 

[IndustrialOkie]

the only thing you need to worry about when recording hippies is making sure you capture clearly the sound of their screams after you've set them on fire.

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