Recording whole band at once!

[dudeonthebass]

Me and my band are thinking of recording us all at one, a live recording technically, instead of doing everything seperately.

We are a piece 5 bands (Drums, 2 Guitars, Bass and Vocals)

We will be recording in a very small and nicely dampened room, but i know from past experience, the drums will pick up a lot of unwanted noise, such as the guitars, How can we reduce this?

Any other tips welcome

Dave

[namuxtree]

well im no expert but...dont amplify the bass and guitars. by that i mean don't hook them up to speakers. Instead, have them go line-out into a mixer and send the signal into IEM's. That way, everyone can hear and it won't be picked up by the drum mics. hope this helps...and again...no expert here.

[dudeonthebass]

i was thinknig along the same lines, but would the vocalist do ?

[meRTKendrew]

you can put each of the amps in a different room, and each of you listen to them through headphones.



-RTK

[dudeonthebass]

only problem is, the studio is in a garden, so there is nowhere else to really put the amps :/

[gumtownbassman]

depends on how you want to go about doing it, but something which could record 16 simultanious tracks would be ideal, with a noisegate/compressor on each input, or if you can only record a stereo one take track, as above just with a 16 channel desk.
Around 8 tracks/channels for all the drums, 2 tracks/channels for each of the other instruments.
With the 16 track recording option, you would then do your post production on any track, any time after the initial recording.

[Paulie_m]

Correct mic choice/placement and amp placement to reduce bleed.

[evergroove]

Okay... so the studio is in a garden. Is it a public garden or private garden? Are there roofs to protect the gear? There are zero other rooms at your disposal like a closet or bathroom?

Tell us more about the space.

[woodsideh]

We were discussing the same thing last night. We have studio recordings and we have been recording our live shows for about 8 months now. We seem to loose some of the feel of the band when we record strictly in the studio since we are definitely a live band. We have done scratch tracks in our practice space to use as reference in the studio for the next cd. There is bleed from the drums and guitar. (We have drums, bass, 1 guitar, keys and vocals). We have now decided that in order to really capture the live vibe we are going to try to record live instead of going back into the studio. To eliminate as much of the bleed as possible we will have to isolate the drums, guitar and leslie as much as possible. I don't see it getting done any other way. We simply have to be able to edit. We will put the guitar in a different room and isolate the drums as much as possible. The bass will be run direct (using a tube pre and compressor). The leslie will have to be isolated also. I know that I am rambling but the bottom line is record live is good but you have got to figure out a way to isolate each instrument or run them direct or you will not have appropriate editing ability.

[Bassmickeyd]

Best to take the time and experiment. Get a patient friend with good ears to help with mic and baffle placement suggestions. Many great recording came from studios that didn't sound great when they were laying it down. Too much isolation will cause the performance to suffer and too little bleeding. Muscle Shores recorded right beside each other with old office room baffles. ..... I've recorded in quite a few studios where the studio sounded better than the finished product, so go figure!

[MrTAteMyBalls]

if everyone controls their volume to some extent, the bleed should not be too bad. honestly, a lot of great sounding records were made with everything in one room. face the amps away from the drum kit and drape some blankets or anything that you can use for isolation. i've seen people put all the amps/drums in a semicircle like they were on stage....the recording sounded fine. in a small room you may not have another option. also....if they are using any kind of distortion, the guitars will need mics. direct will sound crappy.

[Jim Roseberry]

Originally Posted by dudeonthebass

Me and my band are thinking of recording us all at one, a live recording technically, instead of doing everything seperately.

We are a piece 5 bands (Drums, 2 Guitars, Bass and Vocals)

We will be recording in a very small and nicely dampened room, but i know from past experience, the drums will pick up a lot of unwanted noise, such as the guitars, How can we reduce this?

Any other tips welcome

Dave

Hi Dave,

If you have a full DAW setup (with some good AmpSim plugins) and an audio interface that provides low round-trip latency, you can do the following:

Record the drums using at least four mics:
Kick, Snare, and Overheads L/R (stereo)
If your audio interface has enough inputs, consider recording a stereo pair of Room mics... and add a spot mic for each tom.
If the room ambience is decent, this can add a lot of size/dimension to the drumkit as a whole.

Once you've dealt with the drums, Bass and Guitar are easy.
Assuming you've got adequate monitoring (headphones) for everyone, you can take a line out (post preamp) from the bass and guitar amps. Record those signals... and run them in realtime thru your favorite cab sim plugin. (I like Guitar Rig 4 for this purpose)
This allows everyone to hear the Guitar and Bass (in realtime) as if they're playing thru the mic'd amps.
You could just DI the guitar/bass and use AmpSims for the whole Amp sound... but by using the line-out from the real bass/guitar amps, you're capturing a more accurate representation of each player's sound. The only simulation involved is the actual mic'd speaker cab.

Have the vocalist stand as far from the drumkit as possible... and mic/record the vocal (considering it a scratch track).

In this proposed scenario, the focus is on capturing the drum tracks. If you like the Guitar and Bass tracks with simulated cabs, then those tracks are done too. Otherwise, once the drum tracks are captured, everyone else can go back and overdub.
You'll wind up with a little bit of bleed on the drum tracks... but nothing like it would be with the amps cranking in the background.

If you have a large enough room, ignore all this and use gobos (panels with acoustic treatment) to section off the amps from the drum kit.
This won't completely eliminate the bleed... but it'll allow you to control/diminish it.

[Greevus]

Have been doing the same thing for the last few weeks. We are a trio in a standard rehearsal space, like 18 X 12 or so. I turned two bass cabs towards each other and we put blankets and guitar cases, etc, up as sound barriers. We have an overhead on the drums and two floor mics that pick up some bleed, but if it's a good take it works. Gonna overdub guitars and vocals, but doing 5 drum trax, 1 guitar and 2 bass trax live. It ain't perfect, but it sounds raw and real and that's what I wanted. I love a pro studio, but I am very DIY and it's a bunch of fun. You will be surprised how good of sound you can get with room mics placed in the right spots. Just make sure you get as close of mic placement as the mic can handle on the instrument mics. We're using mostly Shure 57's, so sound pressure levels are no problem. My bass is so loud you will go sterile.

[Stumpy]

If you have a DAW then you could do this...

Lay a click track in at the right tempo
Record everyone at the same time. (guitar mics will be saturated) Turn the guitar cabs away from the open mics of the kit / vox.
Comeback and multitrack yourself back in. Kit first. All the other parts will be there (if you are metronome straight) and you can simply replace each and everyone of them at your leisure ... time line.



JMT

[Ric5]

Play live and use electric drums. Do a line out on all instruments, and have the singer sing with you. Record all tracks. Then re-record the vocals over the band tracks.

[Greevus]

Do it live brother. Break the rules. The feel and energy of live raw tracks is unequalled.
Let It Bleed. Play it Loud. Piss off the neighbors!

[kalle74]

Originally Posted by dudeonthebass

Me and my band are thinking of recording us all at one, a live recording technically, instead of doing everything seperately.

We are a piece 5 bands (Drums, 2 Guitars, Bass and Vocals)

We will be recording in a very small and nicely dampened room, but i know from past experience, the drums will pick up a lot of unwanted noise, such as the guitars, How can we reduce this?

Any other tips welcome

Dave

-Control your volumes. Things will get bad when egos set in... If the drum mics are picking up too much of something else, that "something else" is too loud, or the drummer is too quiet.

-Baffles between sound sources. The heavier, the more efficient.

-Consider mic choice, their patterns and mic placement thoroughly. Experiment (place by ear, not by sight). Make everything sound as good as possible when going in. Your chances of fixing it later are much reduced if there´s serious bleed-through.

-Don´t gate anything going in! You´ll miss something (like a drum hit in the "big break")...

When recording live, some bleed is inevitable and you´ll just have to live with it. Some bleeding is good and can make a recording sound better. Sometimes it´s your worst enemy. It´s up to your recording skills, and somewhat, up to the quality of your gear.

[Paulie_m]

Hire someone skilled in live recordings.