live studio recording

red_ice

The lads and i are looking into getting some live recordings done in our rehearsal room.

We have the amps sectioned off in a seperate room padded and so on. We are doing our best to try section off each amp and so on.. the only problem is hearing the amps.

I've seen a bunch of bands dvds where each member has a set of headphones and what looks like a mini mixer. I can only assume that the headphones are acting like a wedge on stage and they can control which they hear more or less of.

Is there some sort of rig that we can buy? Or is that all done on the mixer/pa side of things?

unclebill98

I know with Pro Tools you can send seperate mixes back out to various headphones via the PT software its self. What DAW you using?

If your sending all the instruments to a desk does it have enough aux's to send to a headphone unit to help you that way?

What setup you using? How many people need to hear themselves etc etc.....??

Trev M

You could buy one of these cheap as chips,


http://www.thomann.de/ie/behringer_ha4700_powerplay_proxl_kopfhoererverstaerker.htm

or

http://www.thomann.de/ie/behringer_ha8000_powerplay_pro8_headphoneamp.htm

Personally I wouldnt isolate the amps and Id use the natural tone of the room aswell. I did a band called Sedzor some time back (all done live except vox) using the natural tone in the room and a bit of strategic mic placement.

What mics you got?

frobisher

Each band member having their own mixer for creating their own monitor mix in their headphones is the top of the pile. Have you really got the budget for that and all the associated cabling?!

I use a Behringer powerplay headphone amp and it does the job very nicely without breaking the bank. You don't HAVE to put everything in seperate rooms. It's great to be able to but I've done it with bands all in the same room too and a few honemade gobos between sound sources and mics. What kind of music and vibe is it?

TelePaul

Trev M wrote: »

Personally I wouldnt isolate the amps and Id use the natural tone of the room aswell.

+1 on this.

Trev M wrote: »

I did a band called Sedzor some time back (all done live except vox) using the natural tone in the room and a bit of strategic mic placement.

What mics you got?

That'll be the key, especially drum-kit and drum-mic placement.

OP are you recording this 100% live through a mixers stereo outs? Or have you something like a firepod (or HD recorder) that you can re-visit the tracks on later?

TelePaul

frobisher wrote: »

Each band member having their own mixer for creating their own monitor mix in their headphones is the top of the pile. Have you really got the budget for that and all the associated cabling?!

Doesn't the pre-sonus firestudio allow that through a software mixer?

LaVidaLoca

Recording in Jazz style can work really well if your a really tight band and the music you play is fairly dynamic (i.e. not rock music)

But if you play with sticks and crash away on distorted guitars reoirding everything in the same room will sound like doggy-doo-doo.

Pretty much the entire repertoire of studio gear (EQ, compressors, reverbs, 48 channel mixers, etc.) developed in order to make rock music sound half-decent when recorded.

TelePaul

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Recording in Jazz style can work really well if your a really tight band and the music you play is fairly dynamic (i.e. not rock music)

But if you play with sticks and crash away on distorted guitars reoirding everything in the same room will sound like doggy-doo-doo.

Pretty much the entire repertoire of studio gear (EQ, compressors, reverbs, 48 channel mixers, etc.) developed in order to make rock music sound half-decent when recorded.

eh??????????

unclebill98

TelePaul wrote: »

eh??????????

+1

eh?

TelePaul

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Recording in Jazz style can work really well if your a really tight band and the music you play is fairly dynamic (i.e. not rock music)

But if you play with sticks and crash away on distorted guitars reoirding everything in the same room will sound like doggy-doo-doo.

Pretty much the entire repertoire of studio gear (EQ, compressors, reverbs, 48 channel mixers, etc.) developed in order to make rock music sound half-decent when recorded.

Theres so much about this I don't understand. Not to say that it's wrong, it might very well be right, I don't know the first thing about Jazz! And I know very little about rock.

I suppose I'd have to ask what you mean by the words 'dynamic' and the phrase 'play with sticks'. And also how EQ developed to make rock sound better. Same for 48 channel mixers, compression, reverb.

Are you saying you can go all London-Symphony on a jazz band and get a balanced performance with two well placed condensors?

red_ice

Trev M wrote: »

Personally I wouldnt isolate the amps and Id use the natural tone of the room aswell. I did a band called Sedzor some time back (all done live except vox) using the natural tone in the room and a bit of strategic mic placement.

What mics you got?

Ok, miced up the kit and all the amps in the room, gave em some levels with the PA and put that through an Mbox into protools. A couple of sm58's, some senheiser mics and a drum mic kit, one for every surface on the kit the symbols were done with a directional area mic. Gave a live recording a go and it came out ok.. but the guitars sound very.. washy... I dont really know much about mic placement other than finding the sweetspot on the amp. Someone said to me i should DI my bass for recordings.. i dont see that being a good thing for my tone..


Heres a snippet of what it came out like

We played a gig with sedzor a couple of months ago, i took 5 of their little red plectrums for home - perfect for what i play on guitar

sei046

TelePaul wrote: »

and the phrase 'play with sticks'.

aw man i can not wait for this reply

DublinWriter

sei046 wrote: »

aw man i can not wait for this reply

ANIMAL USE FISTS!

Seriously, top tip for recording a bass drum: get an old £1 coin, gaffa-tape it on the striking area on the bass drum head. Works really well if the drummer is using a wooden beater on the pedal.

unclebill98

DublinWriter wrote: »

ANIMAL USE FISTS!

Seriously, top tip for recording a bass drum: get an old £1 coin, gaffa-tape it on the striking area on the bass drum head. Works really well if the drummer is using a wooden beater on the pedal.

And....you wear out the bass drum head quicker!

DublinWriter

unclebill98 wrote: »

And....you wear out the bass drum head quicker!

Er...nooooooo! It will actually make the head last longer as the head doesn't come into direct contact with the beater and the vibration\impact is spread over a wider area than if you were using a conventional cylindrical beater.

I found in a lot of live recording situations where I was 'kindly' given one and a half microphones to mic up my entire kit that the bass, if not mic'ed directly, became totally lost in the mix because of the low frequencies it produces.

Using a coin the way I described will give the bass drum more 'top'. The best way to describe it is that the sound you will get is *very* like the noise Larry Mullen's bass drum makes on the intro to 'Bullet the Blue Sky'.

Niall - Dahlia

DublinWriter wrote: »

Seriously, top tip for recording a bass drum: get an old £1 coin, gaffa-tape it on the striking area on the bass drum head.

Increase your studio mystic by insisting it's an old pound coin! Demand it's of 1984 vintage! None of your new fangled Euros!

Seeing as we're on the subject of drum tricks...was recording an excellent session drummer about 2 weeks ago. He'd just about finished tuning the kit but wasn't 100% happy with the snare sound. He picks up a copy of Hello magazine, tears a few pages out, sticks it to the snare and ooila, great deep snare sound! Added bonus of having a picture of Posh Spice to strike. He beat the hell out of that snare!:D

No idea what a copy of Hello was doing lying around though, honest...

DublinWriter

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

Increase your studio mystic by insisting it's an old pound coin! Demand it's of 1984 vintage! None of your new fangled Euros!

You're showing your age, or lack of! We were still using pound notes until the late 80's.

However, an old pre-decimal (i.e. pre 1969) Irish or English penny coin will do the same job, as those of us who ripped off cigarette machines circa 1987 will testify to.

Niall - Dahlia

red_ice wrote: »

Gave a live recording a go and it came out ok.. but the guitars sound very.. washy... I dont really know much about mic placement other than finding the sweetspot on the amp. Someone said to me i should DI my bass for recordings.. i dont see that being a good thing for my tone..


Heres a snippet of what it came out like

Missed that link. Had a listen anyway. The "washy" guitars as you say...are you using any EQ on the desk for the guitar channels? Try some really aggressive EQ'ing on the electric guitar. I find you can get rid of alot of electric guitar frequencies and it will still sound great in the mix...anything above 10k is pretty much not happening anyway (amp speakers aren't creating it and your dynamic mic isn't picking it up, it's just air) and below 200Hz is bass territory. Cut it all out. You'd probably end up with a much more present guitar sound. Not to mention added room for the cymbals and bass to breath. Would cut out cymbal spill from the drumkit too.

The DI on the bass along with a mic on the amp is a pretty standard technique for bass recording. You say it's a bad thing for your tone...if you're only using DI then potentially yes...but the idea is to blend the DI and mic signal together. I generally use the DI signal for capturing the bottom end, and using the mic to pick up the mids and anything crazy that's happening with the amp. 90% of the time the mic signal on its own sounds complete ****, but once mixed in with the DI you've got a huge range of options without having to shape with EQ (which probably isn't too great on your desk).

And try that coin on the beater trick! Kick definitely needed some definition and cut. Try rolling off a tiny bit of the really low end on the bass too if the kick needs more room.

My €0.02 anyway.

Niall - Dahlia

DublinWriter wrote: »

You're showing your age, or lack of! We were still using pound notes until the late 80's.

However, an old pre-decimal (i.e. pre 1969) Irish or English penny coin will do the same job, as those of us who ripped off cigarette machines circa 1987 will testify to.

Well yeah, I just picked my year of birth and was hoping for the best, so you can figure out my age!

TelePaul

Hmmmm the old 'And Justice for All' coin-on-the-skin trick. Everyone knows it's a New Zealand 50 cent coin! And I would be of the opinion that it wears the skin out faster.

I think in this case though, it's your room. Here's what makes up your drum sound:

Drummers ability
How your kit is tuned
Mic choice and mic placement
Room treatment

Try make a 'tunnel' for your kick drum or use a smaller bass drum, those jazz kits give a great tone. I'll try find a link to this technique somewhere.

Edit: http://www.infoweb.co.nz/how-to-record-a-kick-drum Give that a read

red_ice

lol, i completely forgot to mention that the drum kit is a pile of $x@x! Theres no skin on it, its stuffed with a couple of pillows too! The kit itself is worth about 200 quid(not the symbols/HH), the fact that its audable is amazing imo! Hes going to be getting a new kit in the next couple of months.

As far as aggressive EQing goes, we are trying to develop a sound at the moment. Its been an on going process for the last while. So we are really aiming to use as little as possible on the desk and try make all of our sound from the stuff we have in the studio, then when we have it right please god we can replicate it at venues better. Nothing worse imo than not hearing a bands sound come through live.

I play bass in the band, and all the low end is taken out of the amp as i think it kind of makes the notes come out too smooth.. Im trying to get a sharp sound that fills out after i hit the note with a touch of grunt to it. Im trying to get a sound that will be still fat on the high notes, but sharp at the same time, so im taking it out of the low notes so the high ones dont really have much contract to the low ones.. Im not there yet as you can hear from the track. You rekon i should DI into the amp, then mic it up and use the DI to fill it but the amp to get the meat and two veg of it? I realise i should be doing it the other way around, but the sound is just to reggae if i do it that way, and its not what im after.

TelePaul

red_ice wrote: »

lol, i completely forgot to mention that the drum kit is a pile of $x@x! Theres no skin on it, its stuffed with a couple of pillows too! The kit itself is worth about 200 quid(not the symbols/HH), the fact that its audable is amazing imo! Hes going to be getting a new kit in the next couple of months.

As far as aggressive EQing goes, we are trying to develop a sound at the moment. Its been an on going process for the last while. So we are really aiming to use as little as possible on the desk and try make all of our sound from the stuff we have in the studio, then when we have it right please god we can replicate it at venues better. Nothing worse imo than not hearing a bands sound come through live.

I play bass in the band, and all the low end is taken out of the amp as i think it kind of makes the notes come out too smooth.. Im trying to get a sharp sound that fills out after i hit the note with a touch of grunt to it. Im trying to get a sound that will be still fat on the high notes, but sharp at the same time, so im taking it out of the low notes so the high ones dont really have much contract to the low ones.. Im not there yet as you can hear from the track. You rekon i should DI into the amp, then mic it up and use the DI to fill it but the amp to get the meat and two veg of it? I realise i should be doing it the other way around, but the sound is just to reggae if i do it that way, and its not what im after.

A new kit - certainly new skins, bottom and top - will help. Stuffing with pillows isn't necessarily bad, you'll just have to experiment. Don't be too downhearted, drums are the thing that always suffer when you record at home. the guitars however, you can fix:

If you're playing live - depending on the venue - you'll hopefully have a soundman to get your sound as good as possible. He will most likely use parametric EQ, possibly fx sends too.

It's worth remembering the above, though I can appreciate the fact that you're trying to sound as good as you can 'au natural'. That'll depend on your equipment too though - even if it's your more immediate gear - your guitars and amps and effects, as well as how good you are at your respective instruments.

As for the bass issue, I'm assuming you're talking about tone, not pitch, when you refer to things sounding 'sharp' or 'flat'? If so, I think you should consider a compressor. The 'problem' with a bass as an instrument is string-mass. The low E is soooo much fatter than the G, it'll always sound louder/thicker/more powerful.

I'd consider dynamics; these naturally occur in your playing but are hard to regulate - with a bass if you play with fingers you'll most likely strike the strings with different forces at different times. IMO, controlling these 'dynamics' is easier when using a pick, but you can lose some of the 'roundness'. A compressor will help by taming the peaks and boosting the troughs of the wave form - it'll (hopefully) give you a more even, punchier sound.

I guess I'm trying to make two points here. Firstly, know your instrument, know your amps settings, know your playing style inside out. My second point is somewhat related, in that while 'tone' is pretty subjective when you're jamming in your mates attic, when it comes to recording things are more black and white.

red_ice

yea, im talking about tone - sorry if i was vague about that! What i mean is, the higher up on the fretboard you play, the less bottom there is on the notes, i want to try get the same thump on the higher notes as i do on the lower ones. I play with a pick, and i have a very good with both hands when i play.

Listen to the bass on this and it will explain what im talking about. Its very full, and the high notes dont make you cringe!