TopicPosted on 01/21/2004 at 13:06:28Can someone help me?
alright, hey, im a newbie here..My names Freeco, im in an indie rock and roll band..lots of acoustics, distortion, etc..and well..all i really want to start to do is have a studio, same as the hip hop dude, only in rock..i wanna start recording my work..cos cassettes aren't really helping.
I have a mic, electric guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, and a drumset, want to know how to record each one of them..the programs i need to use, if i have to buy any special products..and well..don't mind the drumset too much..but if anyone can help me..id be glad to recieve help.
sta-Jim
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2Posted on 01/23/2004 at 11:11:48
Man this could take all night,
Drums, ... this is the hardest thing to record. I have heard many people using several mic's and a mixer to create a one or two track drum sound on a PC. Once a basic backbeat is recorded, you can always add tracks to it later. Drums should be isolated from any echoing sounds so hang blankets around the set.
I use Cool Edit Pro multitrack software, and a Behringer mixer, but I use a drum machine to do the backbeat. My PC is a Pentium 4, 1.4 ghZ with a 60 GB HD and 128 MB of RAM. I am using a Sound Blaster Live soundcard. The soundcard limits me to recording a maximum of 2 tracks at a time. I can use my Tascam 4 track to do 4 simultaneous tracks, if need be and transfer the audio tracks from that to my PC.
I record my Mic’s, harmonica, Bass, Piano, electric guitar and acoustic guitar directly into my mixer and then into the soundcard. If I am looking for the distortion sound or Fuzz box, I play my guitar into my amp and then run a patch cord form the headphone jack into the mixer and then into the soundcard.
Not all conclusive but this should give you a start.
The first thing you have to decide is if you want to record the whole band together, or if you want to go a track or two at a time. And Jim is right, live drums thow a WHOLE bunch if different requirements into the equation.
Like Jim, I use canned drums. I go the midi route and build my own patterns. Sometimes I use a program called Jammer Pro for the basic patterns and add from there.
If you are satisfied with just doing a couple of tracks at a time, then you can get by with a wide variety of soundcards, a Sound Blaster or something nicer like and MAudio Audiophile 2496.
If you want to do the whole band, you will need a mixing board with direct outs and some sort of mulitple input sound card, like an MAudio Delta 1010.
Unless, of course, all you want is a rough recording of your band practicing or something, in which case you could just set the band and the PA up and throw a couple of mics out in front. That won't sound real good, though......
Take some time and think about exactly what you want to do, now that you have a little better idea of what's involved. You also need to think about how much money you have to spend, and what you want to do with the finished product (a rough demo for practice, or a full on demo to sell songs and get a record deal, or a good basic live demo to shop gigs.....)