Topic: Recording a basement show

[jal7694]

Hello everyone,

I am very glad I found this forum... Very helpful and friendly, which is awesome. I am very new to audio... I have SONAR Home Studio 4, Line 6 TonePort UX2 (with Gearbox) and an instrument mic (http://www.guitarcenter.com/Audio-Technica-ATM650--DYNAMIC-INSTRUMENT-MICROPHONE-105299093-i1171540.gc). My friend is in a band that is playing on Saturday (in a basement), and maybe 20-50 people should be attending. I was wondering if it's even worth trying to record this show with the limited gear I have. I'm know I'm not going to get GREAT sounding quality, but I'm still interested in recording this show just so we can listen to it after. The mic is pretty good, and picks up a lot of sound, and if you think it is worth trying to record, do you have any tips for me? Distance from the band? Settings in SONAR?

Thanks, I appreciate any help!

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Need some details first:
Approximate size and shape of the basement? Exposed beam ceiling or finished (like with office tiles)?
They using a PA for vocals or no?

[jal7694]

^I'm not really sure about the size and shape, it's my first time going there. Ceiling is probably around 10' high. And they will have a PA and half-stack amps

[page]

^I'm not really sure about the size and shape, it's my first time going there. Ceiling is probably around 10' high. And they will have a PA and half-stack amps

hmm, ok. Not knowing anything, the first thing I'd do when I get in there is see if I could clamp my stuff up in the ceiling and run cables to the side (use a C-Clamp or something else, get all of this ready and practice on a 2X4 before hand so you are ready if you are up to it). Baring that, you might put your stuff off to the side near one of the vocal amps and just point it toward the center of the band. I guess if the room is really small, you could it put it all in the back.

Above all, promise nothing in advance and be pleasantly surprised afterward if it turns out to be not trash. Oh, and read lots of stuff here to be ready for future gigs. 

Best of luck.

[run_run_run]

4 channel, SBD vocal feed + 2 mics as close as you can to the "stage".

[acidjack]

Your biggest single limitation is likely to be that mic - if what you are saying is that you have a single hypercardiod dynamic microphone, that won't be good for recording a full band at all.  Not having a stereo pair also makes this pretty tough.  Most of the mics we use around here are condensers with high SPL tolerance and a dynamic range of 20-20,000, roughly. 

I'm not familiar with the "home studio" that you cited, but if these instruments are going to be running through some kind of soundboard, the best thing to do would be to take a multichannel feed out of that and mix it down.  Then you could use that dynamic mic to mic the room and just add a bit of ambiance (although it's a little hard to do that with that mic, too). 

What kinds of inputs does the home studio have?  Will there be a board?  If there is, it may just be to amplify vox and drums.  If that's the case, you could maybe get away with mic'ing the guitar amp and, if you have an extra mic, the bass (assuming this is a 4-piece rock band) and then you could run your own mix.

[SmokinJoe]

Suggestion... tell us the location (city/state).  Maybe there is another taper in the area with good gear and hundreds of shows under his belt who can walk in there and pull a good tape, and you can learn from the experience.

[firmdragon]

try and get near the stage.  make sure you can hear the PA.  hope for the best.

[rhinowing]

is it an acoustic or electric show?

[jal7694]

It's an electric show. They also have a 4 channel PA

[F.O.Bean]

Run XY or PAS(Pointed at stacks)

[rhinowing]

It's an electric show. They also have a 4 channel PA

pulling a board feed is going to be essential -- I tape a lot of house shows (mostly punk/metal) and the vocals are extremely low in the PA at 99% of them. I would run your mic for ambience and then pull a board feed to beef up the vocals.

[acidjack]

Run XY or PAS(Pointed at stacks)

I think the OP's post said he only has one mic...

[acidjack]

It's an electric show. They also have a 4 channel PA

Run as many of those channels into the mixer as you can (I don't know how many channels your mixer has, but hopefully at least 4).

With that single mic you have, you could either put it further back about 10' from the "stage" at about 7ft up if you can.  It'll mostly just be capturing room ambiance and anything not run through the PA, or put it "onstage" (about 1ft in front of the center) to capture whatever isn't running through the PA.  The problem is that mic has a narrow pattern, so it will be hard to capture everything on the stage. 

If you have 2 mics, then put them up close, spread them about 90 degrees (if they're hypers). If you come across a cardiod mic, then I would go wider than that.

It also wouldn't be a bad idea to experiment with some placements during sound check...

[jal7694]

Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it. I'm bringing my stuff over tomorrow, setting up, and doing a soundcheck so I'll see how it sounds and what changes I need to make.