Recording a practice session
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Posted on Apr 30, 2005 03:43 am
Kaos62
Kaos is only a form of insanity
Member Since: Feb 03, 2005
My band has a couple of new tracks e want to record, Only for our info not tracking for a disc. SO i as wondering if I could get away with just a couple of ambiante mic's to get the general sound.. Recording on minidisc doesn't work that well as it picks up tooo much bass. I am thinking Roland VS1680 with two condenser mics.
ANY IDEAS ANYONE
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Apr 30, 2005 06:07 am I reckon that'd work just fine for a "rough" sound of the songs.
There would be no real mix - but if you positioned the mics properly, sorted the PA and I mean sorted it so its all nice and level in the room, the mics could do a nice job.
As I say, as long as the room sound was fairly "even" it would be quite good. I'll be doing this soon in the studio with my own band (when we get a drummer/bassist) so I'll be trying it maslef.
In the meantime, good luck
Coco.
RigsbyUltra MagnusMember
Since: Nov 13, 2004
Apr 30, 2005 06:32 am I'm surprised the MD picks up too much bass, i've always had a lot of joy with the sony 907 mic, though the bass isn't as it is in the room, lacks some of the low end, those mics just don't have the response.
Set up like a gig, get a great sound in the room, think about panning and levels, where you want the instruments to be in the room and set the mic(s) up as the audience. It's actually not that disimilar to mixing, you're just doing it before you press record, not after.
Good luck fella.
jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Apr 30, 2005 06:33 am Two-track used to be all we had. Whah, bak en thuh winner of ought 6, snow got so deep, we hadda call in for peet-zah d'livry, just soze wee kud git sum grub!
Put your mics where the audience would be and hammer away. Now, if you're all crammed in a smallish room, it gets a bit tough to decide where the "audience" would be... My old band had the luxury of a practice hall way back when (winter of Oh-6!), stage and all. But if you're in an open basement, or a bigger garage, etc., everybody (in the band) on one wall, PA "Veed" in and the mics like 6 foot apart, 18 foot out (there's a formula to calculate distance and spread somewhere, to avoid the dreaded "out of phase").
Our band had visions of glory from our tapes. In reality, they were great to listen to and "critique". Can't be mean about it, tho. Be constructive, and be prepared for a dose of reality. We learned to hear the "balance" of instruments in the band and to go over our harmony/backup vocals over and over and over again. We sounded like puke one year, and almost angels the next... lol... had to pick myself up off the floor on that one |;^)
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Apr 30, 2005 10:06 am I did this last week with my band. I have a laptop and a US-122 from tascam. I just plugged in the mics, about 10 or 15 feet from the band and 15 feet apart. I used two cheapo samson mics. It worked pretty well, everyone was pretty clean and seperate. It was a little drum heavy, and a little bass light, but nothing you couldn't eq in or out.
I wouldn't use condensor mics, they would be pretty thick and muddy I would think, seeing as how you're recording everything at once. That's where dynamics come in handy, they can take a bunch of db and get the normal sounding music out of it.
May 01, 2005 12:26 am stereo mic in XY config, will be perfect, make sure you place them carefully though
Kaos62Kaos is only a form of insanityMember
Since: Feb 03, 2005
May 01, 2005 02:19 am thanx to all for the replies I'll give it a whirl today you never know i may post the results to see if e did a good job cheers for now
TheJazzyOneYour favorite rockstarMember
Since: Feb 03, 2003
May 04, 2005 05:36 pm I don't know how many inputs you have on that thing, or how many mics you have available, but I record every practice session my band has.
Basically I have a digital recorder that lets me record 16 tracks at once. I mic'ed us up using 15 tracks, recorded a short segnment of a song, then mixed that segment. Then I made note of all the settings on the recorder, then pumped the mix in to my computer thru the stereo outs of the recorder. I record the whole practice session as one big stereo stream, then I split up the songs after practice. Sunday we played 20 songs, and it took me roughly 20 minutes to divide the recorded wav file up and save it as 20 MP3s. It was more setup work up front, but I think it turned out pretty well for what it is... just a recording for us to listen to to evaluate ourselves later.
If you want to hear what it comes out like, you can listen at
www.mintpink.net/practice/
Just don't judge my band on the quality of the playing.... keep in mind these tracks weren't intended to be heard by the public!!! :-)
It might be more than you wanted to do, but if you're interested I'd be glad to give more detail.
