Recording Practice Sessions

[thinkintriplets]

Hey Guys,

I'm really interested in recording my bands jam sessions.

Hearing everything is not as important as the sound quality. For me, it's easier to listen to a song without fuzz unable to hear all the instruments than it is to hear everything, but everything is uber fuzzy.

So basically I'm looking for a decent microphone that will pick up all the stuff in the room, but NOT overdrive.

The room is 300 squarefeet, with 15-20 foot ceilings. The walls are drywall except for the floor and ceiling which are concrete. However, we've covered the floor with carpet, so the place sounds decent.

However, we're ridiculously loud. I need to wear earplugs inside these.

In terms of budget... I'm thinking $200.

If there isn't enough info here, just tell me and I'll post more!

[shylessness4924]

hey!


Aight so heres the thing. There's plenty of ways you can try, but will you get a sound without a loud fuzz to hear everything? I doubt it but it is possible.

Many persons may tell you the get a cassette (or digital) recorder. Although, those things aren't the cheapest. You might find one that gives a good sound for the money you want to spend (a good quality/price thing). But the chances that it will sound bad because of the cheap built-in mic are high!
You could always use a microphone to plug it in.

You gave us the size of the room where you jam, but it doesn't matter THAT much. What really matters is how your stuff is set up and where the mike is. The volume and the emplacement of your stuff will be very important. If you want a good sound, you might want buy a multi-directionnal mic.

Now, i know this might not help that much since you don't have that much money to spend. And I have to say honestly that you can try cheap ways. I've heard once a band that recorded their songs with a broken 30$ mic hanging from the ceilling connected to a computer using a cheap recording program. And you know what? you could clearly ear every instrument and it sounded actually good for the cheapest live recording in the world.

So my advice would be that even though ppl will tell you to buy this and that, try with all the stuff you got. Try and try and try and try again and then some again. If you don't get anything good (with the installement you moved many times and etc) then maybe it's time to spend money on a cassette recorder.


anyways, good luck with that!



alex

[dannyman]

Haha; yeah I remember the garage days when we'd use a tape recorder (one of those REALLY old, cheap cassette only players with a crappy built in mic.) to record our sessions. And you know what? The sound quality was listenable. It's all about placement, regardless of the room size. I honestly can't recommend getting an expensive mic. if you're just recording practice sessions. I don't think a $2,000 mic. will do much better than a Behringer considering you're using one mic. for everything and the space you're recording in. I think a multi-directional mic. is a pretty good idea. I know CAD makes inexpensive mics. that are of decent quality.

[Baron]

My experience in these situations has normally found that the recording device used, has had some sort of AGC or auto levelling control. What happens is distorted yuck!

As long as you can somehow attenuate the level getting to your recording device you should be able to get what you want.

I have done it with a cheap mic and a laptop but I had to run the mic through a cheap little desk to get the level below clipping.

What are you recording to?

Baron

[thinkintriplets]

Thanks for the help guys!

And I was interested in recording to my desktop so the guys could put whatever we recorded on thier usb and bring it home with them.

I also have an old school computer mic.

I guess I'll just place it in the room and see what happens...

thinkintriplets.

[brandondrury]

Hearing everything is not as important as the sound quality.

What?

You gave us the size of the room where you jam, but it doesn't matter THAT much.

Maybe not for jambox type recordings. For real deal studo recordings it is extremely important.

I don't like the idea of paying $200 for gadget that you probably won't use that much or you will outgrow quickly. If it were me, I'd just use a single mic and run that into a computer. Ideally you'd have a mic that costs more than $0.50. There is a $30 Behringer that would probably do fine with this if you could run it into a mixer and run that into the computer's stock soundcard.

Another option that many people don't consider if using a video camera.

It really depends your sound quality needs vs the budget vs the amount of time you are going to spend setting up.

Brandon

[thinkintriplets]

So I did what I had intended tonite at jam.

I brought my computer into the room, used a labtec microphone from I don't know when, and wrapped that micphone in a sweater, pushed the record button, and the band played. The attachment is the result of one of those songs (no vocals however).

Some good news is that the band we share the room with has a few mic's (SM 58 is one, and the others I'm not sure about), and we should be hooking them up to our mixer on Sunday and recording to the computer... although I believe I'll need a new soundcard.

My goal is to be able to record in this room, studio quality. The first real step was to get my computer out of my room .

thinkintriplets.