Looking to build home studio, need advice

[Devotee]

Well yeah if you're going to do overdubs and whatnot then you probably don't need more than 8 channels. I was thinking complete live recording like if you play in an old-school Thrash band or something and mistakes are forgivable. For drums, 8 channels is just about enough if you're talking a small kit but for Metal, think about it: snare top and bottom, two kicks, three toms, overheads, hi-hat, ride, etc... For our debut album, i recorded rough pilot guitars at home along with a click in Cubase, set markers and coloured each section (verse, chorus, bridge etc.) and sent them to my drummer who recorded them using 8 channels through a Tascam interface in the comfort of his own home. Then we re-recorded the guitars, bass and vocals over that. I'm of the opinion that the more mics you have on a drumkit the better, especially room mics which pick up the dynamics of the playing and add a lot of depth, the rest are just for definition, that's why i said you'd need more than 8 channels to do it properly.

It a matter of giving your ears a break and having a third party view(youll ALWAYS be biased towards whatever instrument is yours or prefer). If you are going to do it yourself, dont do it the same day you tracked, and when you do get to editing and mixing, do it only for a couple hours at a time. Headphones are to somewhat eliminate distraction and to really look for garbage you may have missed through the monitors. Ive been doing band recordings in some capacity since 06, and while Im far from expert, Ive learned a few things over the years.

Totally agree with you there, it's great to have a third opinion, but if you can do it yourself and want to, why not? You're definitely right about using headphones to find little details like click tracks bleeding into other tracks for instance that need to be removed, but headphones should never be used for monitoring unless there's no other choice hehe.

I concur with Twitch's recommendations on the SM57, it's the industry standard and a workhorse that will get you through many situations. However, there's nothing wrong with Windows 7 as an operating system for DAWs, in fact i find it much better than XP due to the fact that it's faster and it works wonderfully even on older systems. But i think if you want to do recording, get a Mac. They're stable and have (almost) zero latency and they're very quick as well. However if you're not that way inclined (like me), just get a really powerful PC. 2GB of RAM and 100GB of HD space as Twitch suggested is pretty much standard on all half-decent laptops these days so you can even get more juice at quite a fair price.

[Twitch]

Heres the skinny on our studio. We primarily track here, minimal editing and no mixing, thats our guy Garys thing.

Audio interface: See above

Computer: 05ish home built, 1.6Ghz single core AMD processor, 2Gb RAM, 20Gb HD containing XP partition, 100Gb slave HD for media. We use KAE for recording software, but are getting ready to go Cubase SE.

External board: Beringer Eurodesk, 22 channel, 16 mono with sends on each channel pre slider, post gain.

Snake: 50' (I want to say Hosa, but not sure) 8 in, 4 return(we dont use the returns)

Drum mics: See above

Guitar mics: We experiment a lot with this, we use whatever sounds good at that time, whether its drum mic, vocal mic, or an actual instrument mic.

Monitoring: Kustom 8 channel powered mixer, 2 Kustom 10in floor wedges. We run outs one and two from the card to the aux in on the mixer.

Headphone monitoring(for tracking musician): We split outs one and two before entering Kustom powered mixer and send the other pair to a Pioneer home theater reciever with headphones.

Drums are micd accordingly: Two over heads, kick drum, snare drum, toms 1 and 2, floor tom, high hats.

Guitar isolation: One giant fucking cardboard box with acoustic foam glued to the inside.

Or mics go to the snake. Snake goes to the Behringer, channels 1-8, channels 1-7 have sends going to the card. Since these sends are pre slider, only gain can be set from Behringer, levels are set with gain(I dont like this, but its what we have right now, it works ok, when looking for a board, try to find one with sends POST sliders). Channel 8 on Behringer is assigned to aux send 1 on Behringer so as to have slider control on the board for channel 8. Aux send 1 goes to IN 8 on card. Channel 8 is used for everything but drums.

[Musician78]

Think about this statement for a minute, is everyone just gonna get their track perfect the first time and not have to go back and re do it?? Ok, this method works for a mediocre recording, to do it right, there will be mistakes, and you will want to correct them. Since youre going to go back over them for a quality recording, you really only need 8 inputs. We use 7 for our drums, and in my opinion, its almost excessive. We mic the drums with 7 mics and reserve 8 for a scratch track. Once you get the drums down with as few mistakes as humanly possible, to a click track, then you move on to recording everyone else. Unless everyone one is a god on their instrument, you just dont record in a live setting in one take and leave it. Since youre going to redo tracks, it makes no sense to have everyone do their parts more than needed. Have the drummer get his tracks right, then everyone else layers over that. Believe me when I tell you its much more efficient this way and less tiring for those that had to play the 5 extra times waiting on the drummer to get the foundation right. Not to mention this way requires practically no isolation to prevent bleed over. To record in a live situation, you have to have the drums and each instrument isolated from the others. You dont want drums bleeding through into the guitars, and guitars into the drums, and the other guitarist into your amps mic, etc.. Its just a mess and unnecessary.

1. You track the drums
2. You track the bass

Once you have the foundation laid, you move on to the frame. Just like building a house.

3. guitars, at least 2 tracks from each guitarist
4. solos, layered as well, but to taste
5. vocals
6. any extra stuff, like synth filler stuff

To do a recording this way, you dont need anymore than 8 inputs at a time.

This is pretty much exactly what I do and the way I do it. Even mixing/mastering at different times than when tracked.

[Twitch]

The equipment is only half the battle. Theres mic placement, having the gain set just right, trial and error getting levels just right, and not to mention keeping track of where the cables go, settings on the software, jumper settings on the card, trouble shooting in the spaghetti bowl behind the desk when something doesnt work right, isolating bad cables, it goes on and on. Recording in a professional manner is a whole other ball game. Youll need someone technical to set it up and someone good at finding new and unique ways to make due with what you have in a pinch. I dont know about you guys, but we cant hit the store every time something breaks or we find we need something else. Its a real test in ingenuity, patience, practice, deep thought and critical thinking sometimes.

[Shawn Lutz]

There is an 8x8 m audio interface.

Unless your recording a live preformance you want to record each instrument separately....