Recording practices ... suggestions?

lopxtc · #1 02-24-2011, 07:33 AM

Hey all ...

So looking for some suggestions, and my apologies ahead of time if someone has already provided a great solution to this, to recording practice sessions. We just recently started up a band for fun and to play out locally and have gotten together several great foundations for songs but it always seems we end up wasting time at each practice remembering what we did the last time. I want to start recording our practices for each song so that we can have these on hand during non-practices days for each person to listen to and remember and build off of. What would be the best way to go about this.

Some information ...

- Our practice space is small so I would think just setting up a digital recorder would sound muddy with all the sound bouncing around the room.
- We are made up of; vocals, drums, guitar, bass, and keyboard.
- Bass amp, keyboard amp, and guitar amp all have line outs on them.
- Drummer currently doesnt have a drum mic set.
- We have a mixing board with eight channels on it.
- We have an audio to computer interface.
- More worried about getting the instruments recorded right now versus the vocals.

Is it possible to run the amps to our cabs, and at the same time run the lineouts to the mixing board and then run the mixing board to the interface and record all the instruments as one track via interface to the computer?

How would be go about getting the drums recorded? Drummer is getting a set of mic's but not sure if an eight channel board will be able to support the bass, keys, guitar, and full set of drum mic's.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Aaron

Winemule · #2 02-25-2011, 12:07 PM

We stick a little Sony digital recorder in the middle of the room, get a balance, and go. We moved some things around to get stereo separation for the two guitarists, but that's about it. Not looking for studio quality here, just listening for arrangement changes and clams...

Electricblue · #3 02-25-2011, 12:20 PM

Get a Tascam 4-track and couple it with an 8 channel mixer.

The drummer can have 8 mics > the 8 channel mixer > one track of the recorder.

The other amps can use the other inputs of the 4-track.

There is far better technology out there, but i do love a 4-track tape recorder.

groooooove · #4 02-25-2011, 01:18 PM

what i always do is

zoom H4n in the middle of the room. doesent matter how small the room is.

take a line out from the PA (especially if only the vocals are going through there, like they usually are in a small room) and record to 4 track mode. you can use the 2nd input for something else, but i rarely do.

upload the two files into garage band, bounce down the vocal (or line out) track to mono, then reload it. then feel free to add a little overdrive or reverb or whatever to make the vocals sound nice (if you want too)

this sounds a little involved but its not bad, and produces great results. the only problem with a digital recorder in the middle of any room is it doesent get the vocals. this takes care of that.

lopxtc · #5 02-25-2011, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by groooooove

the only problem with a digital recorder in the middle of any room is it doesent get the vocals. this takes care of that.

Right now vocals are at the bottom of the list. Right now we are still in the forming phase I guess you could say. Getting beats and rhythms down and fleshing out songs. Our vocalist does a good job of just coming up with stuff as we jam through progressions but our main concern is more getting a good recording down of what we did so that we can all have something to listen to during non-practice days and continue to work on and improve for the next time we get together.

Thanks all for the tips so far .. gives me some ideas of what to try.

Aaron

strummer21 · #6 02-25-2011, 01:46 PM

i just got a Zoom H1 and recorded our practice last night and put the files up on drop box today. Very happy with the sound quality! We put it in the middle of the room and it picked up everything really well. At $99 this thing is awesome, very straight forward, just adjust the input level and you're ready with limited set up time etc.

Big Cadillac · #7 02-26-2011, 08:29 AM

I use a Edirol R-09 recorder with Audio-Technica Pro 24 condenser mic with good results at band practice. Recordings are made in mp3 format. Find a sweet spot in the room (a place where the sound balance is good to your ear) and place the mic there. We usually practice and record a set of songs at a time. I then take that file, load it on the computer and use free software called Audacity to cut the file up into individual mp3's. Takes a little time but works well. I've found adding the little condenser mic improves sound quality quite a bit over the internal mics built into the recorder. This rig costs about $500. I'm sure the newer Zoom stuff works well at a fraction of the cost. I would definitely buy something that gives you the option of adding an external mic.

Zappstorius · #8 02-27-2011, 01:59 AM

Yes, you absolutley can do exactly what you propose: running line outs to the mixer, mic'ing the drums and sending it to the interface as a single track.

Obviously, there is nothing that you can do until you have some drum mics, however.

It will take some tweaking to level everything out but if the goal is only to have the concepts of the songs down, this should do the job.

IMO I don't think you need a full drum mic kit for this. If you have an 8 channel mixer and devote 1 channel for each instrument: bass, guitar, keys...that leaves 5 channels open for drums.

You could have mic placement for: kick, snare, rack toms, floor toms and 1 overhead for cymbals. If your vocalist needed a channel, then you could take away the rack tom mic and use that for both cymbals and rack toms.

It could be better if you didn't have a vocal track, so that it gives your singer a clean track to listen to in order to write lyrics to.

Renaissance · #9 02-27-2011, 09:44 AM

I just use Audacity and record with a mike into the computer. My needs were much the same as yours, all I wanted were recordings for song structure and such. Find a good location for the mike for the best recording and let 'er rip. After rehearsal I would clean the recordings up a little, save them as MP3s and email them out. Audacity is a free download and I already had a mike and laptop so this was a $0 solution that works perfectly for what I needed.

thunderstation · #10 04-13-2011, 03:45 PM

We run a line out of the back of our Mixing board to a high end cassette recorder (lol)
We mix the sound till we like it in the room, then we use the "gain" controls of the mixer to mix the levels going into the recorder. As for micing drums. Many recordings have been done with just 2 mics - one between the tom and kick drum and the other near the hi-hat.
the cassete recorder we use has two cassette holders so we can copy the tape as we play back. This is not studio quality but with a little patience & a listening ear, you can get it to sound so evereyone can be heard and get a fairly good idea of what you sound like live.