recording our show...

[jpark369]

we're playing shows every thursday night in a medium sized bar in town. we want to record our show, just to listen to it, or maybe master it and cut an ep. were doing all our recording with ONE mic. we got a pretty good condenser mic that were gonna hang above us and give it a test. this method worked for us in the past in our basement. gives the recording that old punk sound.
is this practical? should we all be doing a line into the mixer? or is that only preferance or editing purposes? its just a drummer, bass, and one guitar. would you suggest any other method thats easy for 3 people to set up and inexpensive?

 

[bluestarbass]

if your actually gonna get it mastered one mic will not do it IMO. Id mic all the instruments then take a feed off the board. If there is no FOH then at least get a stereo pair of mics. Sounding ****** is not cool.

 

[jpark369]

well, we dont sound ******** so thanks. i just wanna get the sound of the live show, crowd, clapping, people singing with us, whatever. wed do the mastering ourselves, im not talking about getting someone to do it for us.

 

[tZer]

My little setup gets amazing live recordings.

Church Audio Pro Binaural Mics

Church Audio Pre-Amp

into my laptop (Sonar PE 6.2)

It is pretty amazing how great these recordings sound - and so effortless. Just put the mics in a good spot, hit record and there ya go!

 

[coolrunner989]

IME - using one mic can get you decent results in a basement setting where you can change the volumes of the respective intruments. If you try to do this live it probly wont work because the intruments will not be at the right levels for recording when they are right for live.

Just how my one-mic recordings have turned out.

 

[Cygnusx2112]

IME - using one mic can get you decent results in a basement setting where you can change the volumes of the respective intruments. If you try to do this live it probly wont work because the intruments will not be at the right levels for recording when they are right for live.

+1
Plus, mono sound is just boring.

You COULD piick up A Roland Edirol R-09, records in stere, uncompressed WAV. Excellent sound quality.

 

[slackdaddy]

I play in a "taper friendly" band and I am given recordings quite often. I think the best sounding are almost always those that have at least 2 mics in the crowd. CD's from the soundboard alone are almost always the worst. Don't forget that what you get directly from the board is the way it is mixed for the crowd i.e. you may have a lot of kick drum and vocals but everything else is just bleed from the mics. I have heard people combine the stereo mics with the board and that can sound great.

 

[Lefty Geek]

Make sure to get the mics up high to limit the direct audience chatter and clapping.

 

[Beachcoma]

Either get a matched pair of small diaphragm condensers, and record that into a portable 2 track or laptop. Or, even better, if you use front of house just record all the tracks seperately.

The reason the one mic did ok in the basement is ACOUSTICS. It WILL sound like turd used on a live situation. Look around for a couple of bootlegs and find the worst one. That is probably how yours will sound.

Peace, and upload the show when your done

 

[theshadow2001]

When my old band did this it was taking lines from everything that was in the desk (which was all drums guitars and vocals) plus two ambience mics for the crowd into a recording device.

If you get a good pair of mics set up you could probably get decent results. The good thing is that you play there regularly so you can do lots of experimentation with mic placement and the like.

 

[Johnny Crab]

I use this recording mp3's at 160kbps.

Having the BOSE PAS's for each person helps though as they "spread" the sound above 180Hz out a lot better than a "beamy box".....I prefer ACME B2's for bass but....

Sound fine to me.

 

[Aaron]

My little setup gets amazing live recordings.

Church Audio Pro Binaural Mics

Church Audio Pre-Amp

into my laptop (Sonar PE 6.2)

It is pretty amazing how great these recordings sound - and so effortless. Just put the mics in a good spot, hit record and there ya go!

Well, if you don't use a dummy head, they aren't really binaural.

 

[bluestarbass]

I didnt mean to say you guys sound ******, it just drives me nuts when bands purposely wanna sound bad becuase they think its more punk. The only band ive ever seen pull this off is the misfits, and even then i get tired of listening to them after a while cuz the recording is so bad.

You can get away with binaural without using a dummy head, you just need something inbetween them, and maybe thats what you meant. A jecklin disc does the same thing, or a gobo or anything, just so it acts as your head does kinda cancelling out the between sounds.

Depending on how much money you wanted to spend maybe a little 4 track that actually had 4 inputs would be cool. move the mics around till your happy. The more mics you have the better luck youll have later in mixing the music. You could just buy a single stereo mic, though being able to seperate them and move them around is nice. Just a stereo spread from the audience probably wouldnt sound bad at all. Itll totally depend on the room.

 

[tZer]

Well, if you don't use a dummy head, they aren't really binaural.

LOL - point - Aaron!