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Jul. 27th, 2005 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaRight. Home recording, only it won't be at home. I have three bands who are all waiting on sorting out some sort of usable demo, with varying levels of urgency. I'm fed up of having to try and do this through studios. Last time I recorded was with Amrit's uni, and we didn't have any sort of engineer around for most of it. I already *knew* most of the things I needed to to self-record and I've got a lot of the kit, but still somehow doing it in a more pro set-up but without the intermediary between me and the controls has broken down some barrier. There's no reason at all to not just get some mikes and stuff and have a bash at it. This is how best to learn this kind of thing, certainly for me.
I've been having a think about the level of kit required. I don't need to be able to set myself up as some sort of expert who can record anything; what I mainly need to record is drums, drums with me playing, drums for three bands all in the general spectrum of loud and rock. This is for demos, obviously as good as possible but getting the *feel* right will be more important than having uber-quality and I think we'll get a better feel from not having to explain what we want to do to an engineer, when we all know between ourselves. In the case of two bands these are likely to be demos for the sake of getting gigs and to try and get some interest, for release purposes we'd be maybe looking at something more professional. In the case of one band these are likely to be for our own self-release and it'll never get more professionally done, but that's the Bad Fucks and what we want is fucking trashy shouty aggressive in your face and loud with it, the difference between a noise floor of -80 or -70dB will be irrelevant.
So that's the quality. Resources available are my home PC with its Echo Mia soundcard, bought for the sake of doing quick idea recording at home - it's got two inputs. I'd like to have a go at three mic drum recording, or rather I don't want to do the full set of mics thing, but this still means either getting a different soundcard with more inputs or getting a mixer to put tracks together - I'm reluctant to permanently mix tracks on the spot, I'd rather do that afterwards, so I suppose something with more inputs is going to have to be the way. The microphones, once I'd thought about the quality thing, aren't going to be as much of a problem as I thought; I'll probably get the ubiquitous AKG D 112 for the front end one, and I'll need two or three others for overheads and arc-of-snare. An SM57 for other general purpose stuff whilst I'm getting them. This will all cost a bit but, the cost of paying studios for three separate demos would be more, and at the end I'd have three demos of uncertain quality and still no way of recording half-decently myself.
How to do this practically? I can't record full volume drums at home. Monster Studios in Portslade seems most likely, they're pretty cheap, the bloke who runs it will be helpful, they've got lots of mic stands and relevant bits. Their kits are good for practice room standards but would take some fettling for recording, so I'll have to bring my home one. I'd have to be looking at getting a lift for this anyway as I'd have to bring the home PC. The biggest arse for that will actually be the monitor, that'll have to be worked out in some way. But if we book a three hour session and spend maybe an hour setting up, that'd be twenty-odd quid in studio time for a full set of drum tracks for the BFs, probably including bass.
Hmm. More research needed but it all looks suspiciously possible.
I've been having a think about the level of kit required. I don't need to be able to set myself up as some sort of expert who can record anything; what I mainly need to record is drums, drums with me playing, drums for three bands all in the general spectrum of loud and rock. This is for demos, obviously as good as possible but getting the *feel* right will be more important than having uber-quality and I think we'll get a better feel from not having to explain what we want to do to an engineer, when we all know between ourselves. In the case of two bands these are likely to be demos for the sake of getting gigs and to try and get some interest, for release purposes we'd be maybe looking at something more professional. In the case of one band these are likely to be for our own self-release and it'll never get more professionally done, but that's the Bad Fucks and what we want is fucking trashy shouty aggressive in your face and loud with it, the difference between a noise floor of -80 or -70dB will be irrelevant.
So that's the quality. Resources available are my home PC with its Echo Mia soundcard, bought for the sake of doing quick idea recording at home - it's got two inputs. I'd like to have a go at three mic drum recording, or rather I don't want to do the full set of mics thing, but this still means either getting a different soundcard with more inputs or getting a mixer to put tracks together - I'm reluctant to permanently mix tracks on the spot, I'd rather do that afterwards, so I suppose something with more inputs is going to have to be the way. The microphones, once I'd thought about the quality thing, aren't going to be as much of a problem as I thought; I'll probably get the ubiquitous AKG D 112 for the front end one, and I'll need two or three others for overheads and arc-of-snare. An SM57 for other general purpose stuff whilst I'm getting them. This will all cost a bit but, the cost of paying studios for three separate demos would be more, and at the end I'd have three demos of uncertain quality and still no way of recording half-decently myself.
How to do this practically? I can't record full volume drums at home. Monster Studios in Portslade seems most likely, they're pretty cheap, the bloke who runs it will be helpful, they've got lots of mic stands and relevant bits. Their kits are good for practice room standards but would take some fettling for recording, so I'll have to bring my home one. I'd have to be looking at getting a lift for this anyway as I'd have to bring the home PC. The biggest arse for that will actually be the monitor, that'll have to be worked out in some way. But if we book a three hour session and spend maybe an hour setting up, that'd be twenty-odd quid in studio time for a full set of drum tracks for the BFs, probably including bass.
Hmm. More research needed but it all looks suspiciously possible.
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Date: 2005-07-27 04:03 pm (UTC)Speaking of doing things, if you need promo images at some point then do ask.
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Date: 2005-07-27 04:03 pm (UTC)The most expensive recording session I ever took part in ended up with about 5 separate compressors just on the drums (one on each mic and one on the whole kit, IIRC).
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Date: 2005-07-27 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-27 07:34 pm (UTC)