Topic: recording my friend's band (with a sample now)

[gkatz]

SAMPLE RECORDING:  http://rapidshare.com/files/418112334/cowgirl.mp3



hello everyone,

so here's the deal. my college buddy formed a band a little while ago, and he is gonna have a show/party at his house pretty soon. keep in mind this is a pretty low key "band" at this point, they just learned a decent list of covers, some dylan, neil young, GD, to name a few, and they play punk too (my friend who plays guitar is really into that scene). He said they might want to use this recording as some kind of demo, so i'm looking to get a good representation.
The gear they have includes a fender deluxe reverb (40Watt) and a marshall half stack, and couple run of the mill vocal mics. Also a pretty big pearl drum set and possibly someone with a bass amp.  The room where the show will be in is a living room, probably 15' x 35' or so, with a two story high peaked ceiling. Now i figure there would be better sound in a smaller room (am i correct in thinking this? as far as height concerns) but this room is really the only place where the "party" will be. so expect significant "crowd noise." Now as far as my gear goes, I have a sony minidisc MZ-N707, and no mics, but soon I will be getting the funds to probably buy some church gear or maybe sound pros gear if I dont want to spend quite that much money.
So now for the real question: would cards or omnis suit me better for recording in a room like this? I will probably want to record "stage lip" with some small stands, because it would be easier to protect the mics from the roughtyness. I may want to use these mics in small clubs, when I get the chance to see shows. I would think cards are better for attenuating crowd noise, so I had in mind the CA-14s or 11s, or possibly the SP-CMC-19s.
I hope this is enough background info to get some advice.

Thanks, GKatz

[gkatz]

thankyou for the info mshilarious, some good tips there. Now as far as placement for the cards goes, is it better to have them split, or say in DIN or NOS? I see sometimes people will do "spaced omni's" near the stage lip, to enhance the stereo image. and as far as hanging the mics goes, I probably cant do that, because of the high ceiling. how high up should the mics be?

Thanks

[junkyardt]

but soon I will be getting the funds to probably buy some church gear or maybe sound pros gear if I dont want to spend quite that much money.

you say this as if Church gear costs MORE than Sound Pros gear, i thought it was the other way around.

[admkrk]

hang a rug on the back wall and run high in front of that. better yet hang rugs on all the walls.

also expect a muddy recording no matter what you do with the drums over powering everything else.

[gkatz]

thanks everyone, and in regard to church gear costing cheaper than SP gear, it is partially true, the CA-1 preorder is a pretty nice deal, but there are a few other SP mics that are cheaper than church.

[yltfan]

Any chance you can borrow some gear from other tapers, or convince the band to rent a multitracker (I think it's about $75 to rent an Alesis here)? If they are serious about using the tape for anything, they should help make it sound decent, and the chances of that seem fairly slim with what you're working with.

[rhinowing]

but soon I will be getting the funds to probably buy some church gear or maybe sound pros gear if I dont want to spend quite that much money.

you say this as if Church gear costs MORE than Sound Pros gear, i thought it was the other way around.

depends on what you buy from sound pros.

[dgale]

Until they're serious enough about making a demo recording to play in a more controlled environment and get/rent a PA, they should just have fun at the party and not have much in the way of expectations for recording quality, regardless of what gear you borrow or buy.  Not that you shouldn't go ahead and record them but under all the circumstances you listed, they are not going to produce any sort of reasonable recording for a demo.  If they really want to pull off a listenable recording they can use (for instance) for passing around to clubs etc. to try and get a booking, they really need to either go with a multitrack recording or at least PA and console with a well mixed recording feed.

[gkatz]

they are not going to produce any sort of reasonable recording for a demo.

yea I guess mine, and my friend's hopes were a little high. I just want something that is at least somewhat listenable. I do have a 4 track mixer that I could run the vocals through, so that part of the recording sounds decent at least. But I figure if I want to multi track, I should go all out, mic the drumset, the guitar amps, etc, rather than trying to post mix crisp, clean vocals with a muddy AUD recording

[fmaderjr]

thanks everyone, and in regard to church gear costing cheaper than SP gear, it is partially true, the CA-1 preorder is a pretty nice deal, but there are a few other SP mics that are cheaper than church.

SP's have $49 or $59 mics that you can sometimes get 2 for the price of 1. They sound surprisingly good when recording stuff that isn't too loud, but they won't stand nearly as high a sound pressure level as Church gear. SP's gear that will stand as high a sound pressure level as Church gear and which sound about as good cost a lot more. 

[gkatz]

thanks everyone, and in regard to church gear costing cheaper than SP gear, it is partially true, the CA-1 preorder is a pretty nice deal, but there are a few other SP mics that are cheaper than church.

SP's have $49 or $59 mics that you can sometimes get 2 for the price of 1. They sound surprisingly good when recording stuff that isn't too loud, but they won't stand nearly as high a sound pressure level as Church gear. SP's gear that will stand as high a sound pressure level as Church gear and which sound about as good cost a lot more.

yes thanks for clearing that up, I actually see the facebook deal now is for $49 you can get 2 sets of the BMC-1's. i'm guessing if I were to get a battery box too, that would increase the max SPL the mics could handle.

[runonce]

thanks everyone, and in regard to church gear costing cheaper than SP gear, it is partially true, the CA-1 preorder is a pretty nice deal, but there are a few other SP mics that are cheaper than church.

SP's have $49 or $59 mics that you can sometimes get 2 for the price of 1. They sound surprisingly good when recording stuff that isn't too loud, but they won't stand nearly as high a sound pressure level as Church gear. SP's gear that will stand as high a sound pressure level as Church gear and which sound about as good cost a lot more.

yes thanks for clearing that up, I actually see the facebook deal now is for $49 you can get 2 sets of the BMC-1's. i'm guessing if I were to get a battery box too, that would increase the max SPL the mics could handle.

I gotta ask...do you really need such tiny mics? Unless you see yourself becoming a stealther...not sure thats the way to go...

Does the band have any kind of PA system?

I'd take the board feed into your mixer and add two mics on stage...even run of the mill vocal mics will be fine at that distance...

Heres a show from NYE at my friends living room...stage mics + board...(room is about 15X20)

http://www.archive.org/details/mightychondria2009-12-31

There is nothing in the board but acoustic guitar, vocals, and keyboards....the rest is coming off the stage...

99 dollar Chinese mics...

[fmaderjr]

I actually see the facebook deal now is for $49 you can get 2 sets of the BMC-1's. i'm guessing if I were to get a battery box too, that would increase the max SPL the mics could handle.

Yes they will go to 120 DB with a battery box, but if the band is very loud, that might not be good enough. Without a box, they definitely won't cut it. CA-14's won't distort no matter how loud, but will always require a battery box for most recorders. The other problem with the BCM-1's is that they are omnis, which won't tend to sound good if the room has bad acoustics. You can get the CA-14's as cardioids if you want to. Very cheap cardioids are generally not going to sound good. It is easier to make a decent cheap omni that a cheap cardioid. 

[rhinowing]

I own BMC-2s. Great mics, but I'd question the actual DB levels. For example, this show I taped was nowhere near 120 db, but still sounds crunchy: http://www.archive.org/details/rgc2010-02-18.spbmc2

[jethro bo deen]

Don't overthink the thing.       Just utilize your portable MD machine,   a camcorder or even perhaps an ancient tape deck with mic inputs to try and capture your live gig.       I've been recording for 35+ years and way back when,  we just plugged condenser mics into the open reel Akai,  or later in early '80's using Technics dbx equipped tape decks.       You'd be surprised if mic placement was good and levels were set properly , we mostly got good recordings.
MD is certainly good enough to get something useful.    I know I've owned one since the '90's.   I have several   and I still use my Sharp MD-MT821 from time to time.    You can build a cheap mic from two WM-55 Panasonic elements from DigiKey  or   MICROSOUND.INC (ebaystore) sells a pretty good StereoY-MIC Recording Concerts, Pansonic Uni's   for about $23.
Then just Equalize your MD recordings as needed.      Don't Wait Until You Get Top Quality Stuff Or Otherwise You'll Miss Too Many Quality Recordings.     Despite the snobbish attitudes that you need Top Notch Stuff, ----You can get some really good stuff with primitive equipment ,  provided you use it to the best of its recording capabilities.     Its also a good way to start   and learn,....