Home Recording Question

[Corbic]

Hey everyone, I had a question about a home recording setup my band and I are working on purchasing. We'd like to be able to mic the guitars, vocals, and drums, and directly record the bass and keys. So what I've come up so far is this:

Mics:
1 Shure SM58 (We already have this)
1 Blue Snowball USB Mic
1 CAD Pro 4-Drum Mic Pack
1 Other Condenser for drum overheads

Mixer:
Behringer Eurorack UBB1002 10-Input Mixer (Used to consolidate all the drum tracks)

Cables:
Lightsnake Instrument to USB Cable
Lightsnake Microphone to USB Cable
Various other mic cables

Now, I have an idea of how this would work, but I'm not sure if it would work like this at all. So if it doesn't work like how I'm about to dictate, please tell me what I would need to change to get it to work.

To record electric guitar, we simply use the SM58 mic'd on my amp, into the Lightsnake cable into the computer. For acoustic guitar and vocals, we use the Blue Snowball mic right into the computer. To record bass, we use the Lightsnake cable straight into the computer, again.

Now, to record drums, we'd setup the drum mics where they'd need to be on the drums, with the overheads and everything, and route all the mic cables from those mics into the Behringer mixer, which using the Lightsnake cable we send to the computer to record those. This is where I'm most unsure on how that would work, and wonder if instead of doing that, just using the Blue Snowball mic to record it and get the depth of the room and everything, a la Jimmy Page. It would certainly be much easier, and could probably sound pretty good.

Software at this point is Audacity, but will eventually be upgraded to something else. How should I go about doing all this recording stuff? Any ideas and things would be really appreciated, thanks!

-Corbic

[Fender_Punk]

Re: Home Recording Question

For drums, I would say 2 overhead mics (on either side of the kit) about 4-6 feet above the drums and one by the bass is a good want to go. If you mic up with the 4 mic drum pack you're going to need to turn the volume down on the drums a lot, which may compress the sound, leading to undesirable cymbal sounds.

Another set up which I've tried with success is one over the tom and ride cymbal, one between the hi hat and left tom and one in the bass. The snare gets picked up by the hi-hat and overhead mic, and the hi-hats will be clear sounding, as will any cymbals near the rack tom and the tom itself. Plus the overhead mic over the floor tom and ride will take care of those as well as possibly catching some of the sound of the room dependng how far the overhead mic is from the floor tom and ride.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Home Recording Question

That seems to be an overly complex set of gear for what you're trying to do. Here's what I would get instead:

- The drum mic pack
- The Audio Technica AT-2020 and AT-2021 mic pack
- A used Mackie 1402 VLZ or Yamaha MG-12/4 mixer, or anything decent with enough XLR inputs.
- A good USB sound unit, like a Tascam US-122 or US-144

Use the mixer as the hub of the rig. Connect all your mics and directs to it, and connect a bus to the USB sound unit (and dedicate a channel or aux return for monitoring the unit's output). All your recording will be done with the USB device, and you'll use the mixer to assign the correct inputs to it. If the mixer has a good EQ (which the ones I recommended do), it will also help you fine tune the inputs of your mics.

This will probably cost you less than all the stuff you intend to buy, and it will be definitely more versatile and simple to use.

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home Recording Question

What do you mean by lightsnake?

A lightpipe is an optical cable used to carry up to 8ch of digital audio... but I've never heard of a lightsnake.

[Smilemon]

Re: Home Recording Question

Sounds good, but i would nix the blues snowball, it sounds good for vocals, but it has very bad bass response and cant handle any distortion.

[Corbic]

Re: Home Recording Question

What do you mean by lightsnake?

A lightpipe is an optical cable used to carry up to 8ch of digital audio... but I've never heard of a lightsnake.

The lightsnake cable is a cable that basicly has a soundcard mic pre-amp in it before the USB part of the cable, and allows you to directly connect a mic or instrument to the computer's USB port without using a preamp of sorts.

Thanks for the help guys, ratherdashing your advice looks quite good from over here. I'm looking into the stuff you recommended right now. Seems like a MUCH better idea than what I had. As you guys can tell, I really haven't a clue with this stuff, so I really appreciate the help!

Also, could any of you guys recommend a good, easy-to-use recording software? Audacity is good for now, but if I'm going to be getting new recording equipment, I might as well compliment it with good recording software too, right?

[xerxes]

Re: Home Recording Question

audio galaxy makes a great cheap condesor...the 2020..i used it for drum recordings....2 overheads and one on the snare is good (i got a great sound), and one on the bass would be great, but if not not (i can head the kick in my recordings)

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home Recording Question

audio galaxy makes a great cheap condesor...the 2020..i used it for drum recordings....2 overheads and one on the snare is good (i got a great sound), and one on the bass would be great, but if not not (i can head the kick in my recordings)

That'd be Audio Technica...

The AT2020 will be cool for overheads, but I wouldn't stick a condenser as the only mic on a snare drum.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Home Recording Question

Correction made to original post: I got the model number of the Yamaha wrong.

[Corbic]

Re: Home Recording Question

So now, with all of this in place, all the mics hooked up to the mixer, mixer into the USB interface into the computer, into Audacity for example, if I just click to record on there it will record with ALL the mics? Or am I misunderstanding how this all works? I'm sorry for all my stupid questions, if I'm going to get this right, I really want to get it right the first time so I don't have to get a bunch of other things after I buy all this equipment.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Home Recording Question

So now, with all of this in place, all the mics hooked up to the mixer, mixer into the USB interface into the computer, into Audacity for example, if I just click to record on there it will record with ALL the mics? Or am I misunderstanding how this all works? I'm sorry for all my stupid questions, if I'm going to get this right, I really want to get it right the first time so I don't have to get a bunch of other things after I buy all this equipment.

Not really. Here's how it works:

1. Set up the mics you need to record whatever you're recording.
2. Ensure those mics are plugged into the mixer (one per channel)
3. The mixer has one or more busses. A bus is a set of outputs that represent a "special" mix of the channels. Plug one of the bus outputs into the USB interface inputs.
4. Use the mixer to "assign" channels to the bus. How this is done depends on the mixer - check the manual. Assign only the channels you want to record.


That's the gist of it. You basically use the mixer to decide which channels get recorded and which ones don't. Most people will leave everything hooked up to their mixer and bus in/out specific channels for recording.

Your mixer will also have a main out and possibly a control room out. Use these for playback and/or monitoring the channels. Most people plug monitors (powered studio speakers) and headphones into the mixer.

Another good idea is if your mixer has two busses, use one for the USB device and the other for headphones. That way, the level in the headphones doesn't necessarily have to be the level that is being recorded.