Recording a group on fly?

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Member Since: Jan 07, 2007

Hi all,

Yes, another newbie joins the party. My challenge is to not dive in with a boat load of gear and make all the mistakes first to learn. Any tips offered would be great.

My band buds will come over for jamming sessions. I hope to tap the fun on the fly, grab some useful noise and tweak and add tracks later.

My gear includes: (2) 8 channel mixers, outboard effects, EQ's, mics, a large power amp and speakers for room monitoring.

Recorded inputs will be (up to 4 max) via an M-Audio Delta 44 to the PC using Audition as the editor. Ah, here is the first conundrum: Should I think old school where I mic or DI box the amps or choose to go straight into the board where we monitor PC (VST) processed sound over the room monitor speakers not real guitar amps? Got to have a "wet" sound for the room. The drums are easy as he uses Roland V-drums. Drums will = one input and complete level control. This could be a dedicated track. The vocal may also route to a second dedicated track. I could divide up other live inputs across the last two available tracks. The four inputs can be sent from (4) board aux sends. I think this part is okay but the output side is where I need help.

I could route (4) pre-amped dry inputs from the first mixer to the soundcard inputs where with the soundcard's patching mixer, select hardware coupling its line-ins to its line-outs (loop-through) which would go into the second mixer/amp/speakers for room monitoring. Outboard effects would be applied here for the room only. The PC would capture only dry inputs for software processing later.

Maybe a better method would start with the source inputs effects and EQ processed in software. This PC processed output is sent to the second mixer inputs via soundcard output patching. The room would monitor a PC wet sound not needing outboard effects applied. The live captured tracks now would be wet as monitored but from what I've read, can be tweaked later in software for the final mix.

Hoped someone out there has a bit more experience with this scenario. I've got a lot of experimenting coming for sure.

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Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Jan 07, 2007 08:46 pm

Well first off welcome to HRC.

Now on to the dirty stuff. I am a huge fan of recording everything in mono, that is with the exception of drums. Drums are something that almost need the stereo picture to sound full. That said though I have done many mono drum recordings. With the 4 track limit though you may be best off going that route to get everything in on one shot. I like the second thought on routing everything to the second mixer and adding effects there for the room but getting the dry tracks into the PC. That is my normal configuration. Although there are times when the effected sound is just what you are looking for and may not be able to be done in the PC using DSP effects.

I'll ask if you are trying to get just a general picture or are you lookng to record track that will be used later in a mix for sure?

It is pretty tuff to get a good full recording using only 4 inputs, but it can be done if the mix is good to start with. One thing to remember is that mixing the track in that manner makes it tuff to EQ one certain aspect of the sound when there are multiple instruments in there that might not all need EQ or certain other effects.

Sounds like you have a good idea though on getting yourself started.

Noize

Member
Since: Jan 07, 2007

Jan 07, 2007 09:39 pm

Thanks Noise,

Trying to feel the waters. The 4-channel card is a start-up (but stackable) just ordered. I have read their manual.

I hope to capture 4 useful tracks for later tweaking, edits and adds. Not just a snapshot of the jam or I'd step it down to 2 track or basic stereo in/out.

I play guitar and sing so separating the primary vocal idea was clearly to allow replacing if I gaff it live. Harmonies, solos etc. may be built on future tracks with the core "jam".

You recommend snagging the dry mix? Thought so but processed signal monitoring is also popular. I'm not sure how spanked the PC would get handling multiple effects accross four channels?

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Jan 07, 2007 09:49 pm

Ya, that can be a problem sometimes overloading the CPU with too much DSP processing live. I have my studio rig tweaked for doing that and I can honestly choke it with too much going on in live mode.

As for the dry mix thing. I do have the option of adding later as I'm not trying to capture the full thing live. And as I stated that is were the thing gets a little hairy. Do you do it dry and hope that you can EQ and add other effects to the entire track or do you go ahead and record the mix with processing on it. In your situation it might seem that recording with the effects might be the better alternative other then adding miner EQ later if needed.

But ya, the vocal track is probably the most important to seperate and keep so it can be tweaked later if needed.

And the Delta 44 is a killer card to build with. I still have my Delta from the first year they released them. Although now I have more choices of higher end interface with more i/o to choose from the Delta is still on one of my old studio boxes that is now relegated to testing and running older software and surfing the net.

Keep us posted, I'd be curious to hear what you guys do and how your mix comes out.

Noize

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