Small room...full band....recording...???

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Dogbreath

Dogbreath

Im an ex-spurt
G'mornin gents (and ma'ams) :D

So our band wants to record as a unit. Mic bleed and everything. I built my room for a one man band...so it's kinda small. Roughly 14' by 20' and I raised the ceiling to about a 10' pitched roof.

I brought up that I could mix everything better if we mic'ed the drums and ran everything else DI and then come back and overdub guitar, and vocals after. Keepin it cleaner.

They brought up about the energy and "feel" of straight out jammin.

Good point.

So, I was thinkin that if I put a cocoon of sorts around my cab mics, like maybe a "box" made from extra gobo foam, that might help to get rid of some of the bleed.

But it still seems like I'm gonna have to run a DI'd bass (lack of another kick mic) and vocals anyway.....so I'm kinda thinkin...What's the point?

Any thoughts here? What've you done? How'd it work?

boobies-n-beer :D

woof
 
I pesonally think the "energy and feel" argument is often rather overstated: First, the "energy and feel" of live performance seems to happen a lot easier in a bar at 1AM than in a studio at 3PM. Second, when you actually play back such live "energy and feel" moments caught on tape, that "energy and feel" often winds up being more a matter of experiencing the moment though Budweiser-colored cans than an actual lightning-in-the-bottle moment of performance excellence. Third, a good guitarist (just for an example) should be able to get just as much "energy and feel" listening to the drums whether those drums are being played now live or now through a playback. Fourth, if the guitarist (again, just for an example) makes a mistake in the fifth measure, it's a lot cleaner to punch in on a separate track than it is on a live mix track. And finally, the whole "energy and feel" starts to head out the door right about when the tracking engineer hits that talkback switch and announces, "Let's try that again" for the third or fourth fourth take.

I'm not dissing live-style recording, it has it's own advantages and charms. I'm just saying that the whole "getting that live energy and feel" thing ain't all its cracked up to be either.

IMHO, IME, YMMV, ADAT, MBC, ETC.

G.
 
I've recorded bands on occasion in my space (which is not much bigger). One time for a 4-piece, we miked the drums live, the bass played through a small amp which was miked, but I also did a DI (we used the DI track)...and the the guitarist played in the room, but his amp was placed in an adjacent room, with door closed.
The singer did overdubs.

So...they still got a "live" feel and were able to play together, but it kept things separated and made for easier mixing. They all played with cans.
The bleed from the bass into the drum mics was minimal and not a problem. I miked the drums with a stereo OH pair...and only a spot mic on the snare and one inside the kick.
 
Cool...thanks gents ;)

Yeah Glen, I know what you're sayin about the "live" thing being over-rated. OTOH, we've had some excellent spontaneous jams that just fell together and had that groove thang happnin.
I think, part of what the rest of the guys were wanting to do was to be able to track every session and have it USEABLE. meh...not with what I've got to work with. :o

MiroDude :D
:drunk:

I think your idea could work as far as puttin his amp in another room. Never thought of that.(My "other room" is the rest of the garage and it's freakin cold out there. :) ) so trackin it all with cans, amp in the garage, bass amp turned down and run DI, vox overdubbed....seems to be gettin back to my original game plan only revised. ;)

I'll bring it up to the guys.
thanks guys :drunk:
 
Same sort of recommendation, I'd also put the guitars in another room. Probably going to have to do almost all close micing to avoid bleed, so if that's the case I'd also turn the amps away from each other as much as possible. And definitely do the vocals (and any lead guitar stuff) separately, unless you have a super good singer who can nail it and doesn't need much reworking. Good luck, post some of the results so we can hear what you're up to!
 
Do the best you can to separate and minimise the bleed through.I once used dixie cups to help isolate bleed through on drums.Stick the mic through the cup leaving the mic at the cup edge and stick some tissues in the cup to fill it.My old drummer read it somewhere and it helped keep some of the cymbal bleed out the snare and tom mics.

Of course when i did this we were running the drums into a mixer and having to send everything to one track.The old one track at a time Tascam cassette portastudio.

I suggest letting the other guys mix,track,and put multiple hours of getting the best possible recording they can get into it.That spontaneous feel and groove starts to fade after you've spent an entire day setting up,recording,testing levels,etc.Than you get to spend more of your time mixing it for them so it's "usable"

I've been down that road and it can be fun but it's exhausting when you're engineering the whole thing.In the end you'll have spent countless hours on the project.They get to go home and relax.You get to go home and mix and produce the project.
 
There's a video on Youtube about recording studios, been ages since I've seen it. But in it the presenter shows an easy technique for isolating a guitar cab. He put a mic in front of the amp, then threw a furniture blanket over the whole deal. Really cut down what the rest of the room got from the amp, essentially eliminated what that mic heard from the room, and the mic was directly on the amp.
 
I don't know about a YouTube video...but I've posted my guitar amp approach a few times before. Here it is from another thread.

miroslav said:
... I'll often build a tent over the amp/mic because I WANT to remove the room from the equation and add the ambience later....and, I don't like to close-mic all the time, so with the mic away from the cab, it WOULD pick up the room, especially when using something like a ribbon-mic with figure-8 pattern.

Actually...the tent approach also does a great job of cutting down some of the amp's volume so it's not bleeding out into the studio (or annoying people outside).

This is my typical tent setup:

AmpTent01.jpg

AmpTent02.jpg

AmpTent03.jpg
Click to expand...


I've used this setup many times...but not always. It's good if you really want to get ALL the room out of your guitar track.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I pesonally think the "energy and feel" argument is often rather overstated: First, the "energy and feel" of live performance seems to happen a lot easier in a bar at 1AM than in a studio at 3PM. Second, when you actually play back such live "energy and feel" moments caught on tape, that "energy and feel" often winds up being more a matter of experiencing the moment though Budweiser-colored cans than an actual lightning-in-the-bottle moment of performance excellence. Third, a good guitarist (just for an example) should be able to get just as much "energy and feel" listening to the drums whether those drums are being played now live or now through a playback. Fourth, if the guitarist (again, just for an example) makes a mistake in the fifth measure, it's a lot cleaner to punch in on a separate track than it is on a live mix track. And finally, the whole "energy and feel" starts to head out the door right about when the tracking engineer hits that talkback switch and announces, "Let's try that again" for the third or fourth fourth take.

I'm not dissing live-style recording, it has it's own advantages and charms. I'm just saying that the whole "getting that live energy and feel" thing ain't all its cracked up to be either.

IMHO, IME, YMMV, ADAT, MBC, ETC.

G.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. If yall are good you can multi-track it and it will be good. I don't buy the whole live band groove nonsense.
 
Yes...I agree that you should be able to play with the same energy and feel doing individual tracks as with a whole band, live...but I think a lot of band musicians who don't record much or never have, end up feeling a bit uncomfortable without seeing/hearing their band mates in the room like they do on stage....so they choke up and play too tight, focusing too much on the "take" instead of their playing.
That's something that works itself out over time...the more you become use to recording with cans and playing by yourself.

All that said...in *some* band situations...there is a certain amount of live interaction that occurs withing a band unit playing together...but, for most types of Rock/Pop/Country recording, you're trying to play/record as you rehearsed it...so there's not much improvisation going on between you and the rest of the band, and in those instances, playing solo or together shouldn't make much difference to more veteran studio musicians...but newbs can be put off by the whole recording process, so they convince themselves they need the security blanket of the entire band playing together.
 
miroslav said:
Yes...I agree that you should be able to play with the same energy and feel doing individual tracks as with a whole band, live...but I think a lot of band musicians who don't record much or never have, end up feeling a bit uncomfortable without seeing/hearing their band mates in the room like they do on stage....so they choke up and play too tight, focusing too much on the "take" instead of their playing.
That's something that works itself out over time...the more you become use to recording with cans and playing by yourself.

All that said...in *some* band situations...there is a certain amount of live interaction that occurs withing a band unit playing together...but, for most types of Rock/Pop/Country recording, you're trying to play/record as you rehearsed it...so there's not much improvisation going on between you and the rest of the band, and in those instances, playing solo or together shouldn't make much difference to more veteran studio musicians...but newbs can be put off by the whole recording process, so they convince themselves they need the security blanket of the entire band playing together.
Click to expand...

Well then they're dumb and need to get over it. :D
 
miroslav said:
I don't know about a YouTube video...but I've posted my guitar amp approach a few times before. Here it is from another thread.




I've used this setup many times...but not always. It's good if you really want to get ALL the room out of your guitar track.
Click to expand...

I saw that back when you posted it. Cool. I've used something like that way back when I was first starting to track drums and used a similar setup on the kick. I remember it working pretty well.

I also posted this over at The Womb forums, and one of the responses posted was room mics.
Getting a balanced mix of the band (volume wise) first, put on some cans, and start walking around the room finding sweet spots in the room itself. To start from the outside and work my way in with the mics.
Basically using multiple mics to get the mix in one shot.

Since we've got time, I'm thinkin we can try out all these ideas and find what works best. Maybe a combo of em.

:drunk: gents.
 
Dogbreath said:
... and used a similar setup on the kick. I remember it working pretty well.
Click to expand...

An interesting kick drum recording setup I once saw in a commercial studio involved taking a second kick drum shell (no heads) and placing it in front of the actual kick drum...lined up...and then covering everything with a couple of heavy blankets (of course, there was a mic out in front of the second shell also under the blankets).

I can't recall if the actual kick had its front head on or off....?

Anyway, the kick had a nice fat THUD with that setup...but I don't think it was anything mind-blowing. :)
I think sometimes engineers just like to toss out some of their personal "mojo" into a session...and that's OK.
If it "juices" up the performance and nothing more...its done its job.

It's like that whole "lava lamp" thing....or burning incense...or burning a spleef...or whatever. ;)
 
miroslav said:
An interesting kick drum recording setup I once saw in a commercial studio involved taking a second kick drum shell (no heads) and placing it in front of the actual kick drum...lined up...and then covering everything with a couple of heavy blankets (of course, there was a mic out in front of the second shell also under the blankets).

I can't recall if the actual kick had its front head on or off....?

Anyway, the kick had a nice fat THUD with that setup...but I don't think it was anything mind-blowing. :)
I think sometimes engineers just like to toss out some of their personal "mojo" into a session...and that's OK.
If it "juices" up the performance and nothing more...its done its job.

It's like that whole "lava lamp" thing....or burning incense...or burning a spleef...or whatever. ;)
Click to expand...

:D

Yeah, I remember seein a pic of that double kick shell setup and was gonna try that as well. I didn't have another shell tho.
So then I just learned how to tune the damn things and worked on mic positioning and everything was swell. :p

Aside from that tho, I think experimenting with different stuff you read about or see gets you to thinkin outside the box in a larger way.
Some things work for YOUR particular setup, room etc...others don't. No big deal. Find what works for YOU and roll widdit.
:drunk:
 
I'll jump on the "energy and feel" belief being overblown- yes there's chemistry hat's gained from making eye contact and seeing body "english". but in a small room, besides the bleed, trying to get a good headphone mix (I'm assuming you're not planning on setting up a PA in here too?) with everything live, especially vocals as the vocal mics are gonna magnify eveything else.

My room is not big, but we routinely record our 4 piece "live". The drums are somewhat isolated behind gobo's and a plexi 'curtain', the guita bass and keys are without speakers (dummy loads on guitar, SansAmp pedal for the bass, and tube pre's and a line mixer for the keyboards. ) The 'secret' (if there is one) is to get a good sound for each person, so they're not distracted by a tone they don't like... this takes some time/practice and some discipline for everyone to find their tones, set the level for max (solo, whatever)... and then agree to leave it alone so you don't get into volume wars because ear fatigue is setting in and folks start to turn up.

Using this type of approach if you want to re-track vocals so their clean, you can, and likewise the instruments could be re-tracked with mic'd amps if someone felt it imperative to do so, or if the drummers got good meter (or you're playing to a click) the drums could also be re-tracked. All of which should allow you to maintain the "live/energy" feel
 
Two room mics and move everyone around and get a good balance kinda like what has been disgusted in the noob forum under the wall of sound thread. ;)
 
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