So...... This past Thursday I recorded my first real show in a small club in Chicago. This was my third attempt at recording live music. The first show did not have a proper PA. The second show was outdoors and was really rather quiet. I learned quite a bit from both experiences. This show was indoors, smaller room but the sound in this place is very good.
I went to record a local Chicago band by the name of 'Bullet Called Life'. I recommend checking them out on the interweb. They are really great. As an added bonus, a band that I recently found out about by the name of the 'Crash Kings' were playing as well. They are touring nationally right now. They are pretty awesome. Kind of remind me of The Racontuers or The Cold War Kids. Anyway, I asked and received permission to record both bands.
I am running BSC-1's-->edirol UA5 (busmann Mod)-->tascam dr-2d. I had my mics set with no bass roll off, the db switch was set to 0. The edirol gain was at about 2 o'clock. The dr-2d was at 60 on the input. Running into the mic in. I was about 60 feet away from the stacks, dead center, with my mics split, pointing one at each stack. Probably about 12 inches between mics, roughly at a 60 degree angle.
My levels looked great on the dr-2d. No clipping at all on the ua5. Listening to them at home I have some noticeable bass distortion, especially when the drummer is doing a lot of Tom work. Some parts of the show sound very good, others not so much.
The other concerning thing is that when I loaded the wav into audacity, the wav form looked flat at the top and the bottom. I ran it through a high pass filter, after that it looks better, but the sound didn't get much better in the rough patches.
I am not sure what I did wrong. My plan is that next time I will use the -15db switch on the mics, turn them down to maybe 1 o'clock on the ua5 and use the dual record option on the dr-2d to grab another file with a pad on it.
Any advice that you guys could give would be helpful too.
I am planning on recording the crowes and ttb on Wednesday. I hope to get better results for that show.