VS 1680 live or not?

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kilvert1

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I've just purchased a VS 1680 and am trying to figure out the best way to attack recording.
The Band consists of drums, bass, elec. guitar, 2 acc. guitars keyboards vocals and the ocassional horn or harp.
They've recorded 4 CDs (1 was vinyl) in the past 17 years before I joined. I would like to record as much live as possible as this band has such a great feel & dynamic live which I don't hear in the previous recordings. I would Like some tips on mics and how to layout the recording. Since the machine will only record 8 tracks symiltaneously I would like to keep the drum mics to a minimum so we can record as many more instruments at the same time to capture the live feel.
I'm looking at a senheiser 602 for the kick drum Senheiser 604 for the snare & 2 Apex 420 condensor mics for overheads, should that do the trick for the drums? Is the bass better of direct? Will the Apex 420 condensor do a better job than a SM57 for a guitar amp?
I was hoping to record drums on 4 tracks leaving room for bass(direct),acc. Guitar(direct) and elec. guitar (direct>>re-recording later with mic to avoid leakage in the drum mics). Or is it better to just run it live and live with the leakage?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks Hugh
 
We just recorded with our band, and the way we did drums was not individual tracks. We ran the drums through two mixers and I think we ran about 4 tracks. We did guitar and bass into the two XLRs and we had a piano running stereo. We did all that live, and if you spread things out, the guitar and bass don't bleed into the drum mics that badly (and vice versa). We overdubbed acoustic guitar, vocals, horns, and other stuff like that. We got a really live sound considering what we did also. That's how we did it, hope it helped.

Mike
 
Thanks Mike.
Can I get a little more detail on the mics.ie what on the drums? To how many tracks on the 1680?
 
We used two mixers (stereo) on the drums. One mixer was a Peavey 2002 Unity 16 channel (which we only ran three mics through...snare, floor tom 1, and floor tom 2). The other mixer was a Mackie 1402VLZ (which we ran highhat, bass drum, overhead 1, overhead 2, rack tom 1, and rack tom 2). Mics were 5 AKG d770s, an AKG C1000s, and 3 SM58s. a d770 on snare, 2 on toms, one was another overhead, one on the bass drum. The C1000s was used as an overhead/ride. We ran out of resorts with the 58s....we used them as two tom mics, and one highhat. The last d770 was used on the guitar amp. A Shure Beta 57 was used on the bass amp. And the piano (keyboard...alesis QS8) went stereo direct. The guitar and Bass used the XLR ins on the 1680, and the two mixers were used stereo style (probably 4 tracks). The piano was I think routed to one track stereo. I wasn't running the 1680 however, but that's how we miked and ran into it. As for tracking and routing these inputs, I'm not positive.
 
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