Anyone record their own Band?

[demeyes]

I was wondering if many here have tried recording their band themselves without heading to a studio to do it?
We've been laying some tracks down for a rough demo and its been going ok. Not great but after each track we're learning more useful stuff and the sound is improving. Its handy because all the gear we are using is ours so it costs us nothing to redo drum or guitar tracks. The downside so far is we are limited to how many simultaneous tracks we can take so its mostly set levels through our mixer and hit record.
Did any of you guys try it? What were the results like? Any sound samples or useful tips?

[RacerX]

Yeah. We suck. From now on I demand that my cab be miked.

[markD]

i have a project studio and have always recorded my own band. i find it to be WAY better than going to a larger studio because we KNOW what WE want to hear and how to achieve it.

what are you using?

[shadowcat]

I am currently recording a self-financed debut album with one of my bands.
For the drums we went into a studio, because of the many mics, preamps and inputs you need to record them properly.
We will record the rest ourselves, right now we're working on getting a decent guitar sound.

We also finished recording the debut album with our other band two months ago and are currently in the mixing phase. However for that one we worked together with the guys from another band here who have built a homestudio in their rehearsal room and have recorded several albums themselves.

Tips? Too many to count...
The most important: Be aware that, whatever you think how long it will take to record the whole thing, it WILL take longer. MUCH longer.

Second: All your equipment that held up well so far and that you thought is reliable, will break down once you bring it into a studio situation. (Ok maybe not all, but you'll be surprised...)

Third: Make sure you buy the best gear you can get for the price. Do your homework before buying.

Fourth: You can't polish a turd. If something doesn't sound good to begin with, don't expect to be able to correct it later. (Exception: using samples for drums, especially kick drum).

And finally, a link that will help you tremendously:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap-151/

The Andy Sneap forum. A forum where several experienced audio engineers happen to post (for example Andy Sneap himself and James Murphy), and lots of info is shared. I think this forum has already helped me to avoid a disaster with our recording, and I haven't even started...

[Strat God]

Yup.
www.thekeystoneband.com

Go to the audio page- the live cut is direct off the board at the gig. No overdubs, totally honest band sound. I think the fullness and power blows away the studio cuts.
Remember- we're just a bunch of old guys with a hobby...

[wilkinsi]

If I need to record more than 8 tracks at once or just don't want to track bounce, I just daisy-chain multi-trackers. I used to own two VS1680's and a VSR880.

[Child Of Norther]

Yep, though i run a production business, hahaha

[demeyes]

I looked at that forum and it looks like there is loads of good info in there.Cheers for that
The gear we are using is a 16 channel desk, cool edit and an assortment of different mics. We've been recording onto a laptop. So far we've mics the guitar amps but I'm getting a pod and will try that. We borrowed a boss multitrack but it had only 2 simultaneous tracks so we never even used it.
Method wise we made a guide track with the drummer playing to a click. Then we did the drums and laid some guitars over that. We've not done bass or vocals yet.
The results so far have been very raw sounding, not at all polished. I'm hoping the pod will do that for the guitar tracks, the drums aren't too bad. The whole thing is a bit of an experiment. The other 3 guys in the band are all doing sound based courses in college and they wanted to get some experience to try what they've been learning.

[markD]

sounds good. i have a lot of amps and some good mics and 90% of the time i use a POD. it really helps the overall "quality" of guitar tracks. if i am doing individual "one-off" recording sessions where i don't want or need a consistent guitar sound or level, i will mic an amp. but if i am doing a long project with a lot of songs, i go for the POD.

[Newc]

I can give you two incredibly useful tips:

#1: Studio work will destroy a band. No matter how well you get along now, the time it takes to get one track where you want it, as well as the varying opinions of how anything should sound, you all have to be dedicated to it, because the studio will weed out those who are not dedicated.

#2: If you can't get it right playing as a band recording straight to 2 tracks from the board, you need more practice as a band before you even think about multitracking.

Definitely get an Alesis 3630 or two for the drums. Use it for Peak Limiting rather than compression, especially on the kick, snare, and to balance the toms.

You really cannot go wrong with a live (i.e. full-band) recording, because you will have to be able to play the songs as a band live where there are no overdubs, and no do-overs. If you can record it live to 2 tracks with a great mix, you'll blow them away on stage, and no amount of studio experience or time can beat that. Yeah you can take 2 years to record a masterpiece in a 5 million track digital studio with million dollar amps and the best ribbon mics and all that, but if you can't play as a band, you've wasted your time.

I've recorded the bands I've been in at first to show the other guys that I wasn't crazy when I said they weren't in key or on time

Then we'd fart around with all the multitrack stuff and pile on the gloss - overdubs and everything the singer wanted and all that - then we'd look at it realistically and take out the stuff we couldn't pull off live.
Of course, this was after all the arguing about "the CD should be where we can pile on the gloss" vs "the CD should be as close to what we sound like live now instead of what we will sound like live after we've got a contract and a huge budget and can afford the extra gear to do all this stuff live".

[krimson]

I used Adobe audition to record our band. I was limited to two tracks at a time so we just set the levels on the drum tracks and recorded them in stereo with only the Bass Drum and Snare centered. We then layed down the rest of the tracks individually. I was fairly satisfied with the recording and I could change anything it would be if I could track the drums into more than 2 tracks.

You can listen to a sample on www.myspace.com/keifmiester look for the song Breaking for Daylight. For the other songs listed on there we used keyboard for the drum tracks.

[Inazone]

We recorded our demo and first album in home studios, albeit not OUR home studios. It always felt rushed because we were concerned with money, and most of the focus was on playing our parts properly. Not much attention was given to getting good tones up front, which led to extensive mixing sessions and generally disappointment. This time, we wanted full control over the situation, which works out nicely because our vocalist went to Music Tech for his ProTools certification, and he lives a mile away from me, which will be convenient. We are actually resuming recording tonight in our vocalist's home studio after six months off due to "logistics issues" and general laziness. He was working at a studio out of town, where we recorded half an album worth of drums using the studio's enormous mixing board, mics and preamps. Once he got moved back to Minneapolis, we would record the guitars, bass and vocals, before repeating the process. He has a ProTools Digi001 or 002 (I don't know the difference) as an interface, and I provided a rack full of guitar gear, along with monitors and mics.

We set everything up last night, and tonight I am going to start "tone testing" with a couple of different guitars for my rhythm tracks. Time allowing, we might do a couple of real takes. The drums were recorded with a click, so that's what I'll I have to work with, along with scratch guitar tracks if I want them.

I pieced together quite the budget recording rig, so other than his PC and ProTools thing, it's all my gear for guitar tracking:

- Sabine RT7100 tuner - has A/B routing for switching preamps
- ART DST-4 preamp/processor - lead tracks
- ART Tube Channel - EQ for DST-4 only
- Peavey Rockmaster preamp - rhythm tracks
- Rocktron Multi-Valve - EQ and effects for Rockmaster only
- Rocktron Hush IICX - noise reduction for both preamps
- BBE Sonic Maximizer 362NR - "fine tuning" for both preamps, mainly getting rid of fizz and mud
- Carvin Tube 100 stereo power amp
- Peavey 212MC vertical cab w\ Sheffield speakers
- Audix i5 mic per Andy Sneap's forum suggestions
- AKG C1000S per our vocalist's studio experience
- M-Audio BX5a active monitors

The tones we were getting last night with my DK2M were fantastic. Tonight we tweak it a bit more and hopefully get some work done.

[Newc]

The best thing any musician can buy after a guitar and amp is a recording setup, even if it's a simple 4-track cassette unit or inexpensive computer program. They don't alter your tone significantly (though with a computer program you might want to look into some good monitors or headphones), and nothing shows you the ugly reality of how good you really aren't than a recording.

It also gives you some insight on what it takes to get a good sound to tape, which is related to getting a good sound live through a mixer, especially if you're miking cabinets through a p.a.

[demeyes]

[QUOTE=Newc;909386]I can give you two incredibly useful tips:

#2: If you can't get it right playing as a band recording straight to 2 tracks from the board, you need more practice as a band before you even think about multitracking.

You really cannot go wrong with a live (i.e. full-band) recording, because you will have to be able to play the songs as a band live where there are no overdubs, and no do-overs. If you can record it live to 2 tracks with a great mix, you'll blow them away on stage, and no amount of studio experience or time can beat that. Yeah you can take 2 years to record a masterpiece in a 5 million track digital studio with million dollar amps and the best ribbon mics and all that, but if you can't play as a band, you've wasted your time.

QUOTE]

We have recorded the songs we are doing loads of times before as live takes using different methods, most have also been giged a good bit. We've done it micing everything up and also with only 1 or 2 mics in a room. These are listenable to now for us but we're going to try a more mixable approach to refine the sound and get a better sounding representation than what we have already so we can let people hear it.