Macha on 24/5/2009 at 22:03
I noticed the thread lately about that guy's band releasing their demo and I was pleased to see that quite a few people here on TTLG have knowledge on the tricky business of sound recording. I myself am a musician (guitarist/singer) and I'm in a band. We're fairly serious and we wanna make it, hell, who doesn't? So we wanna get our tracks out there to let others listen to them. So we need to buy equipment like a proper multi track and decent mics. I have very limited knowledge on recording. I think our budget is going to be about a grand, is their anyway we could achieve quality (as near studio quality as possible) equipment for that price? I mean I'm sure it is after you read up on some of the methods used to record landmark records like the shity 4 track analogue multi track used on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.
OnionBob on 24/5/2009 at 22:19
What you need is to get a warezed copy of fruity loops; and some microphones from the mouthpieces of telephones. This way you can really sound like the real heroes of the 'rock and roll music' of today: mike patton of the happy black mondays and the edge from the famous Jonah's brothers.
Record the sounds of a bird or some trees with wind and dub that over and - ouch! that's the feeling of the cutting edge of recording history! in your finger!
Macha on 24/5/2009 at 22:30
Why would even waste the couple of minutes it took you to construct that bullshit? WHY?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!11111111111222222233333333
Macha on 24/5/2009 at 22:43
Would I necessarily need a multi channel mixer preamp? Can't you just run the mics straight into a multi track?
Angel Dust on 24/5/2009 at 23:12
Having your own recording setup is nice but believe me, it can be maddeningly frustrating if you are a novice. Even if you had studio quality mics/mixers etc it's not going to help if you have never recorded before. Mic placment/room ambiance/getting the tone right etc might drive you nuts when you're starting out and I would assume most people would start out doing solo recordings. To jump into a full band situation with no prior experience, also one of you will bear the brunt of the recording workload, is just going to come out with crummy recordings and some very stressed band members.
My recommendation is to go with a local studio, right now I'm doing my stuff with some guy who works out of his bedroom. He has a solid if not spectacular setup but most importantly he has a lot of recording know how. Just make sure rehearse heaps and you'll be able to get the songs down fine. You'll also be much more relaxed, leading to better performances, and you won't be getting disheartened when you hear the playback. It would be good, if you have cash left over, to invest in something to record your practices/demo songs on etc.
Fingernail on 24/5/2009 at 23:20
Here's what I do:
I have a capable PC (this shit gets hard-drive intensive) with an M-Audio Delta 10/10 soundcard (that's ten analogue inputs and ten outputs). I have a yamaha mixing console that takes all the mic inputs (I've used up to 8 at once), providing phantom power but not doing anything else, and routes each mic to an input on the soundcard.
That way, I can pick up each mic as a separate channel in my totally not-warezed DAW software of my choice, and do all the mixing and editing in that.
Basically, aside from drums, I only end up using one or two mics at once anyway. I've never recorded a band live.
This has given acceptable results for what it is, and what it cost (the PC I had anyway, the software a couple of hundred quid, the mixing console and mics a combination of new and second hand, another £200 or so): (
http://www.myspace.com/thedebtoffensive) (although the second track was done in a studio, and all of the mixes there are old and no longer what I would consider my best work /disclaimer)
The big advantage is time - there's no pressure to perform before the end of the day, and you can do what you want when you want to. And the equipment by and large won't break or become obsolete.
So yeah, downside is that you'll do some pretty silly things and ruin otherwise decent ideas due to your lack of expertise, but you will eventually learn something and that's been a journey worth taking for me. I haven't recorded the band (only been doing guitar and vocal demos) for about a year now and there's all sorts of stuff I want to put into practice. This is also always beneficial knowledge when going into a real studio, as you don't need to get bamboozled by what the engineer tells you.
However, that can have its downside as you gradually realise you'd be doing a better job than the actual engineer (in this case she was a student and no money was involved so it was forgiveable but included such wonders as accidentally not recording a whole vocal take! "shouldn't that switch be
down?")
ALLLSOOOOne of the main things I would advise (just in terms of general musicality if nothing else) taking up Angel Dust's point about rehearsing - if it sounds good to begin with, if you make the band in a room sound good, then even if you record it rather poorly, it will have an impact. A lot of low-end recording studios end up trying to squeeze the sound of out bands that don't have much of a sound - if the guitar sounds weak it might be an actual tone issue rather than just the mic placement, for instance. In my experience it's been the drums - yeah, those original mixes have some phase issues, but there'd be a hell of a lot more I could do with them if it was something more than a second hand £100 drum kit with knackered skins. These things matter.
PigLick on 25/5/2009 at 00:52
I think bob was onto something there, fresh new sounds.
If you want sound quality, then pretty much do as Fingernail suggested, use a computer, cos then you wont need a multitrack recorder, which is gonna set you back at least $2000 for a decent one. I would be spending that whole grand on microphones alone, cos thats one area you cant substitute good quality for. Then you will need to get a mixer, what kind really depends on what kind of recording you want to do, live or multitracking.
But yeh $1000 is nowhere near enough.
If you come to Australia, Perth I can get you 20% staff discount on all this gear:ebil:
also the whole Beatles 4 track thing is a bit of a fallacy, they had NUMEROUS 4-track reel2reel machines which they used, so they might record 8 tracks of strings, then mix that down to one track on the final 4-track machine.
Toxicfluff on 25/5/2009 at 01:43
While the actual physical recording stuff can't be avoided or skimped on - mics, and room acoustics particularly, you can do a hell of a lot in the box with some sequencing software and plugins these days.
It's not the "cool" thing to do and it obviously doesn't have the same aesthetic and feel as outboard gear, but you can get excellent quality bread and butter mixing tools like equalisers, limiters and compressors in the VST plugin format, all for the sweet, sweet price of free.
theBlackman on 25/5/2009 at 02:08
You obviously have a computer. Toxic has a good idea. You can download AUDACITY and add lots of different plugins to use with it. It is a little tricky to learn but does a good job.
But, you also need an Maudio box or some such to get the sound into your computer so you can work with it, and if you do vocals, you can't do them right at the computer, although you can do them through the computer.
Any ambient noise, including the computer HDD and fans will be picked up if your mike is too near the computer. The mikes used for computers suck for good sound and any mike, including the cheapie computer mikes will pick up a gnat fart at 50 yards, and it will show up on your vocal track.
As for "recorders", the Roland Boss has an 8 track, CD burner studio with individual inputs and effects (too numerous to mention), I sometimes use a BR900CD. It has 8 real tracks, and 64 "virtual" tracks. With master mix and a CD burner. I then load the signal into the computer to do additional work with.
Mine cost me about $600, but I think you could use something like this:
(
http://www.music123.com/Boss-BR-600-Digital-Recorder-241151-i1125995.Music123)
or this:
(
http://www.music123.com/Fostex-MR8HD-8-Track-Digital-Recorder-with-40GB-Hard-Drive-240341-i1125871.Music123)
Or the 900CD:
(
http://www.music123.com/Boss-BR-900CD-Digital-Recording-Studio-241150-i1125994.Music123)
In any case, I do think that your best route is to have a half-dozen or more well rehearsed and excellent tunes together and use a studio to record and mix your stuff. BUT BE SURE THAT YOU DON'T ACCEPT THE MASTER UNTIL IT IS EXACTLY, AND I MEAN EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT.
The engineers and so-called producers want to boost the Bass, accent the drums and generally screw up the mix. If you have a good song, then there needs to be balance with the entire band instrumentation and vocals, if any.
