Topic: Helping a band record a demo, need advice...

[palmettobum]

Taking this offer with my limited arsenal of gear and experience.  But I am excited about the opportunity.  Will be recording my friend who sings jazz standards (female vocalist) with a drummer and keyboardist (playing through amp) in a medium sized church. 

My gear: 
peluso cemc6 cards
studio projects c4s (omni/cards) (possibly two pairs available)
wmod UA5
AUDIO TECHNICA - MB-1K - Uni-Directional Vocal Mic
mackie dfx 6 passive mixer
mackie srm 450 active monitor (12")
jukebox 3

I know there is potential to make a sweet recording for these guys.  I was thinking about using the pelusos XY through the ua5 in front of the band (5-10ft) spot miking with the c4 omnis through the board and using the vocal mic through the board and running rca out into the back of the ua5 and using the master controllers on the soundboard and gain on the ua5 to get a good balance, not using the monitor at all.  TSKB, please advise if there is a better option with the equipment I have.  Any advice or tidbits would be most welcome.  Thanks in advance.  andy

[anodyne33]

Beg, borrow or steal a a laptop with a 8 channel interface and some multitracking software.

Search for a post here about a doodis recording session by heath.

[F.O.Bean]

id get the vocals thru the board and run thru teh rca's of teh ua5, and come up with the best method to mic them onstage/stagelip and run that thru the xlr's of teh ua5

good luck

i did my friends band a live demo last month and just ran DFC, 8ft back with my 483's pointed at the stacks>722 and just went with it. sounded ALOT better than I thought with all of the chatter in the bar, and most importantly, they were happy. now they want to hire me to do a more controlled demo in their house so they can do re-takes if necessary, and most importantly, pay me nicely to do that I just plan on using one of my two mic pairs of mics(prolly MBHO's/cards) and run them into my 722 since they dont have a nice mixer that I can run out of! I had to do a little post-show editing(added some lowend) but that was about it!

[boojum]

I do some jazz recording.  Mostly a two guitar, bass, drums and sax setup.  Not always the sax.  I just run up the cards in an ORTF array at the spot I know by now is good, and at ~7'.  The group with the drum is not so good as the drummer does not understand jazz drumming.  He thnks it is all rock and roll.  Way too loud.  I caught the guitar player and sax guy with another bass player and a synthetic drum machine, used very quietly, same mic setup in a different venue and it was very sweet.  Yup: ditch the drummer.

My point is that a two mic setup can work, especially in a live setup.  In a studio I would do it differently, but you can still two-mic in the studio.  There I would use omnis as the room would be better and no audience making noise.

That's my 2¢.   

[goodcooker]

I would use the omnis as drum overheads thru the mixer,be sure to pan L-R (C4s like to be close to the source <5ft), run the keys direct and amped with the amp pointed away from the room mics, set up your Pelusos XY close to the singer.
That way you can run the mix though your rca ins and dial in the room sound with your front panel inputs.

Good luck.

[TNJazz]

Beg, borrow or steal a a laptop with a 8 channel interface and some multitracking software.

Search for a post here about a doodis recording session by heath.

Agreed.  The alternative of course is to hire someone with the gear and the knowledge, but that may not be possible with a limited (or zero) budget.

A 2 mic recording can be successful (or even a 4 mic/sbd mix to 2 channels) but it's a whole lot easier and cleaner to track everything separately and deal with the mix in post.  Especially if this is truly going to be used as a demo.

[stantheman1976]

Do they have their own soundboard?  Does it have aux outputs you can control?  My experience is in church music but it's still live sound.  Our board has 8 aux outputs.  I run out from one and can set the levels for each channel to get the recording I want.  If you can do something like that and make a SBD+AUD mix it might work favorably.

[heath]

Beg, borrow or steal a a laptop with a 8 channel interface and some multitracking software.

Search for a post here about a doodis recording session by heath.

that ep rocks

[palmettobum]

Holy smokes, I thought this thread wasn't getting any action and then I get back from thanksgiving and damn!  Thanks so much for all the imput yall.  +T to everyone who responded.  Great ideas all around.  To answer a few questions:

yes I do have 4 mic pres on the board (my board), but thats it, except for the ua5's, which I guess makes 6 total.
we are recording in an empty church with no audience, so no PA.
demo is for sharing with clubs/getting gigs
Id love to multitrack, but don't have the laptop, software, interface,  or patience to learn something new at the moment.  poor grad student here.

this have given me a lot to think about... right now i like the thought of using the board to mix c4 omnis as drum overheads, vocals, and keyboard amp, and mixing that to the rca input on the back of the ua5. 

 then running the pelusos 5-8ft into the ua5 and mixing the board and room to my taste.  but will using the mackie/keyboard amp as monitors create any delay/echo issues?  thats my only concern really. 

thanks again, +t to everyone.