velvet_man
Senior Stratmaster
I'm seeking the advice of those with more experience with recording than me (which is probably most of you). Sorry in advance for the long post!
My band has a great rehearsal space with a 16-channel PA in a nice big room (pic attached), and we've been toying with the idea of doing recordings in there for a while now. Some of you may remember me asking about using something like a Focusrite Scarlet to send the PA channels to a computer for recording. Well, it tuned out that would have cost as much as a mixer with built-in USB multitrack recording. So I kept an eye on Craigslist and pounced on a Soundcraft Signature MTK 22.
Last week we did a test run, just recording our rehearsal. We only hooked up 4 of the drum mics (he has 7 mics that all came in a kit specifically for drums) and one SM57 for each guitar (we've got another 57 and a Sennheiser e609 that we didn't hook up last time) and a single bass mic on the bass amp (no DI last time, but he said he has an old Zoom stomp box that has a direct out, so we'll try that next time). We also have 4 SM58s for the vocals as all four of us do vocals at various times and 2 large diaphragm condenser mics. I thought we could set the condensers up as room mics.
The first problem we had is that the vocal mics are all plugged into the PA mixer so we can hear them in the monitors. We didn't have the cables to send out from the PA mixer channels to the recording mixer channels, so our drummer rigged something that sent all four mic channels to one channel in our mixer. It sounded OK when one person was singing, but terrible when others joined in because we couldn't mix or separate them at all. Our drummer says he has some cables he can bring next time to send the vocal channels individually, so that should sort out that problem. The only other option I can think of is to plug the mics into the recording mixer directly and try to rig up something with headphones for the four of us, but I think we'd all prefer playing without headphones if that's feasible.
The other problem was mic bleed and even PA hum getting picked up by the mics. Not shown in the picture of the space are three floor monitors across the front of the stage and a huge PA speaker on either side of the stage, pointed out away from the stage (there's actually enough room in there to do a small show for 100 people or so).
For the mic bleed, I was thinking of building some dividers to put up around the amps and the drums. Sort of like what they have in this pic I found online.
We have a pile of extra 12"x12" foam panels, like the ones you stick to the walls (some are on the wall behind the drums in the first pic). Could we just cover some pallets with a bunch of those to get the job done, or does it need more?
Finally, are we on the right track? Is there anything we're overlooking or just going about the wrong way? Thanks!
My band has a great rehearsal space with a 16-channel PA in a nice big room (pic attached), and we've been toying with the idea of doing recordings in there for a while now. Some of you may remember me asking about using something like a Focusrite Scarlet to send the PA channels to a computer for recording. Well, it tuned out that would have cost as much as a mixer with built-in USB multitrack recording. So I kept an eye on Craigslist and pounced on a Soundcraft Signature MTK 22.
Last week we did a test run, just recording our rehearsal. We only hooked up 4 of the drum mics (he has 7 mics that all came in a kit specifically for drums) and one SM57 for each guitar (we've got another 57 and a Sennheiser e609 that we didn't hook up last time) and a single bass mic on the bass amp (no DI last time, but he said he has an old Zoom stomp box that has a direct out, so we'll try that next time). We also have 4 SM58s for the vocals as all four of us do vocals at various times and 2 large diaphragm condenser mics. I thought we could set the condensers up as room mics.
The first problem we had is that the vocal mics are all plugged into the PA mixer so we can hear them in the monitors. We didn't have the cables to send out from the PA mixer channels to the recording mixer channels, so our drummer rigged something that sent all four mic channels to one channel in our mixer. It sounded OK when one person was singing, but terrible when others joined in because we couldn't mix or separate them at all. Our drummer says he has some cables he can bring next time to send the vocal channels individually, so that should sort out that problem. The only other option I can think of is to plug the mics into the recording mixer directly and try to rig up something with headphones for the four of us, but I think we'd all prefer playing without headphones if that's feasible.
The other problem was mic bleed and even PA hum getting picked up by the mics. Not shown in the picture of the space are three floor monitors across the front of the stage and a huge PA speaker on either side of the stage, pointed out away from the stage (there's actually enough room in there to do a small show for 100 people or so).
For the mic bleed, I was thinking of building some dividers to put up around the amps and the drums. Sort of like what they have in this pic I found online.
We have a pile of extra 12"x12" foam panels, like the ones you stick to the walls (some are on the wall behind the drums in the first pic). Could we just cover some pallets with a bunch of those to get the job done, or does it need more?
Finally, are we on the right track? Is there anything we're overlooking or just going about the wrong way? Thanks!
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