Looking for a little bit of quick advice before I hit the studio this weekend

[ishouldbeking]

Hello all!

I'm curious if anyone can offer a tip or two before I head to the studio saturday morning. My band has made several recordings in the past, and I've gone DI a number of times, and mic'd a small combo a couple times as well. This time around, we're planning to record live, or as live as possible, with the intent on capturing a bit more energetic performance than our last EP, which was mainly tracked individually (the two tracks we re-recorded live came out MUCH better than the others).

Anyway, this is the first time we won't be recording ourselves. We have two competent engineers in the band, but we're going to someone a bit more experienced and paying for studio time. Mainly I'm wondering about what I should aim for regarding DI vs mic'ing... a little background, we play classic rock and pop influenced indie rock. Think stuff like Belle and Sebastian and The Decemberists, with influences like The Zombies, the Kinks, Scott Walker, and a lot of other stuff like that. Basically indie rock with an old-fashioned vibe.

Now i'm sure lots of you will just say "DI and be done with it" or "mic it and forget it" or "do both", but the reason i'm wondering is because I'm a pick player, and i'll be recording with my new Rickenbacker 4003 for the first time. I've heard plenty of talk about Ricks not exactly lending themselves to DI recording. As a pick player, and having tried it once for our demo tracks, I get the sense that there's some truth to this. Basically I want a nice, warm and slightly overdriven classic rock type of bass tone... no super deep lows, no ultra high scratchiness, just a lot of low mids and some treble to give me some nice attack. I'll be playing through my ashdown head and sealed 610... would you recommend just mic'ing it alone or... what? Any input is helpful thanks.

[RickenBoogie]

If it's a pro studio with real engineers, they'll probably have things sorted out for you, so you can concentrate on playing. You're paying them, so let them do all the technical stuff, and you and your Ric will just rock.

[testing1two]

If track count is not an issue, then by all means use both. If the studio is fully equipped, then ask for a tube DI and a serious mic for the cab (EV RE-20, Neumann U-47 / U-67, etc). And just in case, be prepared with a backup bass if you can't get the sound you're after. Studio time and engineering costs are often wasted trying to make one thing sound like something else (i.e. making a Ricky sit in the mix like a P-Bass).

Bottom line is that you have great gear so hopefully your engineers will be able to capture your live tone quickly. But as the saying goes, "hope for the best and plan for the worst."

[CharlieDog]

DI and be done with it





...sorry. I had to.

[ishouldbeking]

we're tracking to tape (and ultimately dumping to protools) so we will be limited to 16 tracks for the basic live tracks. we're tracking 2 guitars, a piano, me, and drums... should be interesting. Luckily we can overdub and record vocals to our hearts content off the clock at either of the studios my bandmates work at, and vocals. The studio has a precision and a jazz and a couple weird 60's japanese things i think, but i'll probably bring my own P anyway, just to have it. Might take a T-40 for that neck humbucker sound if i feel so inspired.

[sonic assassin]

you can always go DI to tape then reamp later to pro tools.

[Rick Auricchio]

1. Check and adjust your intonation. Recordings will brutally expose any out-of-tune notes.

2. Don't put brand-new strings on within about 48 hours of recording; new strings need some time to settle in. Otherwise they'll drift out of tune.

3. Trust the engineer's judgement regarding DI vs. amplifier. He'll often record both.

[EBodious]

you mentioned "old school" multiple times. doesn't that suggest you want the sound of the speaker? a 6x10 should sound pretty old school.

but, it does seem like you have enough tracks to give (a mere) two to the bass! and yes, the engineer probly already knows what he/she is gonna do anyway.

+1 to bringing the p (just in case!!).

[Nick Kay]

I'd suggest leaving the technical side of things to your engineer and producer. You focus on playing tight and having your instruments in good repair.

For the record, though, I'd DI for now with a bass you're extremely familiar with, and reamp later if you think you want a different flavour. You don't have the track count to putz around with a live mic track that might not work out the way you want it to.

[dnarock]

I have tried DI , MIC and Both and I would go both for me the tone is kinda like a bi amped rig . my basses are active so I get the pickup tone and the warm speaker tone .
+1 bring some backup the barts in my washburn act like a strat in some enviroments (feed back , hum , pickup buzz )

[cripula]

Take both DI and mic. Options are good.

[sonic assassin]

does your engineer have access to any good amp sims? once its in the mix, and mixed down as much as it normally is in modern rock ::, it'll be hard to tell its not an amp.

ideally, when im recording bass, its not tracking live, so i can mic to my heart's content. im very anti DI, but i always take one in case a mic track gets ruined or i want to do something really funky with the mix.

on my last bands recording, i high passed the DI track and put an overdriven amp sim on it. really gave it balls.

are you doing vocal overdubs to pro tools or to tape? because if you're taking them to tape first, thats a lot of tracks getting eaten up. i can see 8-10 on a drum kit easily

[seamonkey]

I in the DI crowd then process at mix down, there's so much more control and separation of the tracks with DI

[ishouldbeking]

We'll be recording the vocals and overdubs straight to protools. The idea of tracking live to tape is mainly to get as much of our live sound to tape as possible, with the key instrument being the drums. Anything else can be overdubbed as necessary, but the ideal would be to get all the core tracks on tape live. For the record, our in-band engineers will be doing all the mixing, and we have access to a lot of re-amp type software as well as most other plug-ins. Fortunately, if there's something one of our engineers doesn't have, we can usually get it from either of their employers. Truthfully, if we really wanted to, we could record the whole record for free by ourselves if we wanted, and the results would still be good. This time around, since we have the money from a large television placement, we thought it'd be nice to incorporate a more experienced tracking engineer and get to go to a bigger room with more options (such as analog tape recording, better preamps, larger/better assortment of mics, etc), and this should allow the whole band to focus more on playing together rather than having two guys nit-picking mic placement and one of them running the boards while the rest of us try and play live. We're just kind of experimenting with taking it to a slightly bigger level than before... I'm actually really excited.

[Rick Auricchio]

What you do best is playing, right?

So bring a couple of basses, a DI and an amp and let the engineers do their jobs.

Oh...make sure the drums are properly tuned. A crappy drum sound in the room becomes a crappy drum sound in the recording.