please help ive had a band for about a year and we wanna start recording we have no idea what to look for we wanna probably just make a demo cd and stuff to post on our site. I went searching online and all the technical stuff on the product descriptions is just confuseing to me. please explain what i need and why i need it. how to use one efficiently would also help too....thanks in advance
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SO confuseing
- Thread starter bassnboards04
- Start date
Here's what our 3-piece band did:
We got a 16-track Roland recorder that records up to eight tracks at once ($800?), a Behringer 12-channel board ($300?), two Behringer quad-compressors ($99 each), a behringer headphone amp ($99 again, I think), three pairs of isolating headphones ($60 each), 4 SM58 mics and stands ($125 each? -three vocals + guitar amp), a pair of electret overhead mics and a big'ol boomstand for both of them ($300+130?), an AKG kick mic ($180?), good cables for the mics (man, can those get expensive!), eight insert cables ($don't rmember), and eight Y-cords (I'll explain).
Now we have seperate compression on the inserts of each of eight board channels - Kick, OH, OH, guit, bass (direct), voc, voc, voc. Yes, we're micing the drums with only three mics - and it doesn't sound bad at all!
The output of each compressor channel gets a Y-cord; one side goes back to the channel return, and one to the line inputs on the first eight recoder channels.
This works great, in that we can dink with the channel EQ's, fader levels, effects, etc. all we want for our own headphone mix, without affecting the recorded tracks! The compressors control the levels going to the record tracks - compress, brick-wall limit, and expander for each mic. Although we tweaked compressor settings a little, you perfectly-well could set-and-forget every channel the same, and get great results.
For our demo we just let the recorder run for several rehearsals, and picked the best performances. Then, being full-multitrack, we replaced tracks as needed, mixed it all down, and the recorder will spit-out a CD, ready to slap onto any boombox and GO!
There's obviously pretty much to get all together, but I'll give you all our settings if you want, and you can copy'em. It's not really that bad, and our demo sounds great.
Getting the sound to the tracks IS somewhat of a no-brainer once you get the compressors preset, honestly; you really could just copy our settings, and you'd have good, solid tracks. The mixdown is where it's good to at least have a sound-person involved. I engineered and produced the demo, and also designed the acoustics for the room that we recorded in - but you wouldn't have to have an acoustically-correct room for anything you're close-micing or running direct; good acoustics does help a lot with the drum sound.
Joe
We got a 16-track Roland recorder that records up to eight tracks at once ($800?), a Behringer 12-channel board ($300?), two Behringer quad-compressors ($99 each), a behringer headphone amp ($99 again, I think), three pairs of isolating headphones ($60 each), 4 SM58 mics and stands ($125 each? -three vocals + guitar amp), a pair of electret overhead mics and a big'ol boomstand for both of them ($300+130?), an AKG kick mic ($180?), good cables for the mics (man, can those get expensive!), eight insert cables ($don't rmember), and eight Y-cords (I'll explain).
Now we have seperate compression on the inserts of each of eight board channels - Kick, OH, OH, guit, bass (direct), voc, voc, voc. Yes, we're micing the drums with only three mics - and it doesn't sound bad at all!
The output of each compressor channel gets a Y-cord; one side goes back to the channel return, and one to the line inputs on the first eight recoder channels.
This works great, in that we can dink with the channel EQ's, fader levels, effects, etc. all we want for our own headphone mix, without affecting the recorded tracks! The compressors control the levels going to the record tracks - compress, brick-wall limit, and expander for each mic. Although we tweaked compressor settings a little, you perfectly-well could set-and-forget every channel the same, and get great results.
For our demo we just let the recorder run for several rehearsals, and picked the best performances. Then, being full-multitrack, we replaced tracks as needed, mixed it all down, and the recorder will spit-out a CD, ready to slap onto any boombox and GO!
There's obviously pretty much to get all together, but I'll give you all our settings if you want, and you can copy'em. It's not really that bad, and our demo sounds great.
Getting the sound to the tracks IS somewhat of a no-brainer once you get the compressors preset, honestly; you really could just copy our settings, and you'd have good, solid tracks. The mixdown is where it's good to at least have a sound-person involved. I engineered and produced the demo, and also designed the acoustics for the room that we recorded in - but you wouldn't have to have an acoustically-correct room for anything you're close-micing or running direct; good acoustics does help a lot with the drum sound.
Joe
WOW! that's a lot of $ 
I would suggest a small recording studio, maybe someone who's just starting out may give you a deal for a demo. That's what we did for a 4 track demo. He had just bought all his equipment and wanted to test it out.
We also recorded every practice with a 2-track Tascam and used a few of those tracks.
IMHO it's best to practice, practice, practice (record these practices with mics in different locations) and see which tracks sound the best. Also try to record your gigs if possible. If you gotta good sound guy/gal working the board, they can do miracles for a live demo.
I would suggest a small recording studio, maybe someone who's just starting out may give you a deal for a demo. That's what we did for a 4 track demo. He had just bought all his equipment and wanted to test it out.
We also recorded every practice with a 2-track Tascam and used a few of those tracks.
IMHO it's best to practice, practice, practice (record these practices with mics in different locations) and see which tracks sound the best. Also try to record your gigs if possible. If you gotta good sound guy/gal working the board, they can do miracles for a live demo.
We also made demos on GuitarTracksPro that I bought for $150
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Along with Fruity Loops (free from a friend)
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And then for live... a small mixer (on sale at GC for $30)
with one mic going into a minidisc recorder ($220)
I'd have to say that they sound pretty freakin' good.
Invalid Link Removed
Along with Fruity Loops (free from a friend)
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
And then for live... a small mixer (on sale at GC for $30)
with one mic going into a minidisc recorder ($220)
I'd have to say that they sound pretty freakin' good.
do you have a computer newer then pentium3?
if you do, then check out adobe audition (software) and the delta44 (hardware) we're talking about $300 for the actual recording stuff. then get some mic's (sm57's or sm58's are cheap and fantastic).
if you do, then check out adobe audition (software) and the delta44 (hardware) we're talking about $300 for the actual recording stuff. then get some mic's (sm57's or sm58's are cheap and fantastic).
