what should my band do?

[SomeGuy118]

Ok here’s the deal… for the past few months we have been recording on an old tape deck of mine, just to hear ourselves. However, this is rather poor quality and it is hard to hear things clearly. We are looking into 2 options. 1. Get a digital or cassette recorder(we looked at the Fostex MR-8 and the Boss BR-532 we are willing to spend no more then $500), but right now alls we want to do is hear ourselves we are not looking to do tracks quite yet. 2. Is my guitarist has a nice mini disc player and we were thinking of getting a good mic for that and recording off of it. What is the better option? As I said right now we just want to set up a mic and record at practice we want something good quality but it doesn’t have to be great. We don’t plan on doing a demo for at least a year, so could we even use a digital recorder for this use? And also what equipment would you recommend for either option?

[stinky634]

hey man i was in your stuation once before in my high school band. we just wanted to make some scratch demos to hear our sound and what it really sounded like. this is what i did and i didnt spent too much. Radio shack, or any electronics store, sells four track mixers, just for volume not for EQ or anytrhing fancy at all. it was 50 bucks. i also bought maybe 4 10 to 20 dollar mics from there as well as 2 y splitters fot the mics. note, the mics were quarter inch not XLR. and from home i had tape deck player/recorder. first mic the bass drum and the overhead, just hang it above the drum set right in front of the drummers head. mics the guitar cab (or use line out, same with the bass.) then let the singer sing in the oither mic. the drums should both go to 1 track, use the splitter. guitar gets a track, bas and singer all get one track each. if you have more intruments/vocals use the other splitter. Then use RCA cables out from the mixer to the tape deck. then record and play, then just play back and adjust th volume to your needs or adjust the mics, its really easy and you dont have to spend over 100 bucks. but just so you know, for some reason some tape decks wont record, but 2 out of 3 worked for me. good luck!