First recording..So, how can we improve it?

[k5koy]

Ok, all mistakes aside, here is a live 1 take recording we tried at practice.
We are in a big hollow room, and everything is mic'ed. What should I do next?

"Dirtville Blues" <----Click to listen

both guitars are mic'ed with a shure SM57. Lead guitar amp is a Fender Deluxe Reverb 2X12, and the rhythm amp is a Vintage 1970 Peavey Artist 240 1X15 Black Widow. Its a pretty dirty amp which is what I wanted when I had it retubed, re biased, and the reverb tank replaced last year. The Bass is a Warwick Corvette 4 Hybrid (Custom Ash Neck) into a dirty Ampeg B2R with a 4X10 & a 1X18 Vintage Peavey stack , Mic'ed using a large diaphram shure dynamic drum mic. Drums are a '63 Ludwig Mic'ed with a Shure PG series drum mic kit and some PG81 condensers for the cymbals. We had all that going into a Yamaha MG16/FX Mixer and stereo'ed out to the Tascam DP-01 Digital recorder.
None of us really have a clue what we are doing as far as recording goes. We are going to try a multi track recording next, and it should sound alot better since I will be able to adjust all components individually.
Keep those suggestions coming, remember, Im a NOOB at all this

Thanks, Koy

[deeaa*]

Sounds pretty good for a live recording! You hear everything quite easily & clearly. The only thing I find needing improvement for this type of thang is the guitars sound they're pretty far off back of the room. If there is amp reverb happening, I'd try without any verb on the amps...you need to get the guitars more to the front. Not louder, just more on the front line, not this far in the back of the room.

[k5koy]

all the members of the band concur with you. Im just not sure how we are going to do that. Especially the lead guitar. Has a real tinny, hollow sound. We are currently working on a multi track version, so maybe with all the components being independantly processed, we can get the volumes more even..


Koy Carson
West Texas

Texas Bassist Club #66
Fender Jazz Bass Club #328

"DirtVille Blues" Live by DirtVille
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8429167


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/customguitarpick.htm

[wingsdad]

koy-
Before I go off suggesting anything else:
1. did you do anything to isolate the individual 'components', particularly the guitar amps and drums, from one another?
2. were the 2 bass cabs stacked or side-by-side on the floor?
3. how were the drum mics placed (position, distance from each unit they were aimed at, etc)?
4 can you get access to another small mixer, one that has enough inputs to take all the drum mics, so you can 'sub-mix' the drums from that into 2 channels of the MG16?

Let's go from there...

[k5koy]

koy-
Before I go off suggesting anything else:
1. did you do anything to isolate the individual 'components', particularly the guitar amps and drums, from one another?
2. were the 2 bass cabs stacked or side-by-side on the floor?
3. how were the drum mics placed (position, distance from each unit they were aimed at, etc)?
4 can you get access to another small mixer, one that has enough inputs to take all the drum mics, so you can 'sub-mix' the drums from that into 2 channels of the MG16?

Let's go from there...

Ok, I assume you are talking about the recording that was posted. No, there was no isolation in this recording, all right there in the same 16X14' room. Bass cabs are stacked. The big bass drum mike was placed inside the bass drum, pointed right at the strike point about 4-6" away. Toms & snare mics were clipped on the rims, pointing at the centers using the clips provided at about 1" off the suface. PG-81 Condenser mics were boom stand mounted over the cymbals, pointed downward on the cymbals at about 10" away.
Heres a photo of the setup:


As far as the mixer, the MG16, it has 12 channels. 6 drum mics feeding into it, and then a stereo feed from the MG16 to the 2 inputs on the recorder.
And a photo of this:


Hope I gave you what you were requesting...

Koy Carson
West Texas Desert

"DirtVille Blues" Live by DirtVille
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8429167


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/customguitarpick.htm

[Spudman***]

More volume for the kick drum also add a bit of high end to get the beater smack. More snare. Get all the drums over all up just a bit.
Clean up the rhythm guitar and remove some of the mids and put them into the lead guitar. Or you can try moving the mic around on the rhythm guitar. Find a spot that sounds smoother maybe half way between the cone center and the edge of the speaker or even just off axis. This is easily done with headphones on while listening to the guitar only.
Flatten the EQ on the vocal and roll off the low end.

[wingsdad]

Ok, I assume you are talking about the recording that was posted. ...

Hope I gave you what you were requesting...

Yep, I was, and those photos tell me what I thought.

Which is why I suggest getting a sub-mixer for your drums. You can control the individual components of the kit better and in turn, when you feed the stereo submix into the MG16, you can control that in relationship to the rest of the mix.

FWIW, I can see the 1x18 bass cab is there for 'feel' and gives ambient lows, not directly mic'd.

Bearing in mind that you're new to this kinda thing, IMO, there's no point in suggesting any technical mumbo jumbo about mixing eq or volume settings. I don't think they're the adequate answer/solution, because your setup permits way too much ambient noise & bleed of singals into each other; you dink with one, you end up doinking with another. You'd just get lost trying to fix things.

You can do that kind of fine tuning and get a really well-controlled multi-track recording in that big room if you can do some signal isolation to minimize bleed of one thing into another. You don't have to spedn outrageous sums of money to rig some home-made solutions: (I posted some advice & ideas in response to a post of yours....months ago? no time to search now, maybe you marked it. I'd used a room about the size you used, with 10' high ceilings):

1. surround (at least the front 3 sides of the bass rig with some kind of padded/isulated baffles.

2. do the same for your guitar amps.

3. surround the drum kit on all 4 sides, high enough to be taller than the cymbals, and if you can, better yet, suspend a blanket or such like a canopy tent above it.

Gotta go now, but that's a start. If you can address those things somehow, then I could try to explain some audio settings in layman's terms.

PS: koy: did you find or get that 'For Dummies' book I suggested in your other thread on this? I do think you'll find it to be huge help.

[k5koy]

PS: koy: did you find or get that 'For Dummies' book I suggested in your other thread on this? I do think you'll find it to be huge help.

Yes I did, thats where I got the nerve to make that recording...Thanks for the tip!
Koy

[wingsdad]

Yes I did, thats where I got the nerve to make that recording...Thanks for the tip!
Koy

You're most welcome.

Don't get bogged down or 'baffled' (pun) by the section on sound control & isolation (Chapt. 3, around pages 74-84...not a lot there directly about what I listed, above, other than the extreme idea of making a box to put your guitar amp in (not so extreme if you live & record in an apartment, though). It's pretty geeky stuff, actually, even for that book.

What I'm talkin' about is using stuff as simple, cheap and non-commital (read: no major investment, and to experiment and learn with) as crude panels of corrugated cardboard, or sticking an amp behind an easy chair or couch...just to get things from blowin' into each other.

BTW: I noticed your mixer's monitors (look like a set of about 10-yr-old M-Audio BX5-A's?) on that table...probably just temporarily placed that way, I bet...if not, though, that same section of the book (pgs. 74-75 in my 2002 or 3 1st ed. copy) gives you good advice on how to set them up to hear your mixes accurately.

Good luck, man, and most of all, don't make it be work or you'll get frustrated and start hatin' it...have fun and play!