our band has a mix of fiddle(x2)/guitar/bouzouki/whistle+flute (all the usual suspects) etc. At practice sessions we use a minidisc recorder with one mic. so getting the mix right (i.e. bouzouki loud enough ) is tough. We think that going and recording track by track (in a studio) will be too sterile and will not have that 'live' er... oomph (for want of a better word). Alternatively, take some mics. (that's mikes not micks to our next gig and record us along with the drunks at the bar. That would add some atmosphere!.
Does anyone have any recording experiences they could share?
If you can borrow/rent/2nd hand a small mixer with enough inputs, it would be useful to give each instrument a mic. The sounds would still bleed through but you still have a chance to adjust the levels that extra bit, even if that's done just before you start playing. With the right plugs, it might be able to go straight into your minidisc recorder.
the above point re: use of a small mixer is well taken though i'm assuming that you've perhaps already chosen to eschew this obvious solution, perhaps for the sake of keeping the sound a little more natural. you might try a single good condensor inverted on a boom with favourable proximity to the bouzouki. keep in mind that if used live, a condensor will pick up a TON of artifact sound both on and off stage. soooo, how about a condensor (try keeping your gain down possibly?) for general pick up and an SM57 or similar for your bouzouki.
just some thoughts. hope it helps.
fw
I suppose the first thing is to decide what you want the recording for. If it is just for our own interest then go with the simplest options mentioned above. If you need a demo then go to someone with a small backyard studio and do it with you all miked up at the same time (not multi-tracking). It's not too expensive that way.
If you are doing some gigs in places with a good PA system, just ask the soundman to hook up your minidisc to the line output and if he's doing a reasonable job with the mixing it might sound quite good.
Good luck
D
maybe you should decide to buy a small amp and mikes to get a proper sound at the session aswell because if one instrument on the recording is too loud then it is too loud at the gig aswell and the others too quiet. If you use a small amp (like the cheap squire system) you could solve two problems at the same time: you sound better and you can use the line out for your recording. when we bought ours the price was something like 280 Euro's and it comes with speakers but it is not loud enough to use it for stages or big gigs.
Buy or rent a cheap mixer or even a line-splitter and run two condensor mikes into your mini disk and record "live," either in the kitchen or in a bar. Or use a collection of individual mikes, as suggested in the SM57 comment above. If you do this at home it'll be easier to play back what you've recorded and see who is too soft/too loud and where and then either adjust the mike placement our have somebody back off a bit generally or in a given part. A lot of this is trial and error. You need to see what does and doesn't work.
And -- a word of advice -- be satisfied with "pretty good." Musicians know they can flub a tune totally in a bar and sometimes nobody even notices, but once the "record" button is pushed, they strive for nothing short of perfection and end up disappointed and frustrated.
There's some fairly affordable software/hardware available for Macs and PCs if you want to bump it up a notch. I recently installed PRO TOOLS on my iBook. It does a lot of stuff and doesn't require you to become an engineer first and musician second.
A really good resource, at least in the U.S., is www.sweetwater.com, a place that specializes in recording gear for musicians, and makes a policy of hooking up a specific rep with each customer, so you're always dealing with the same person. I've had good luck there. Also, check out the Musicians Friend website, www.musiciansfriend.com, where they have good prices on cheap condensor mikes and other gear. I've had luck with them, too.
Going into a recording studio is a whole different thing and even at cheap rates you can spend as much as you will buying enough gear to play around at home. Also, there's something about trying to play through even a simple tune while an engineer or two stares at you that makes it difficult not to clutch in the middle of the last few measures.
As for amps and sound gear ... that's a complex subject. I've played with huge PAs with amps and direct boxes and monitors and all of that, and just sitting on a bar stool with nothing but my instrument. In my opinion, if you're playing an accoustic instrument, every pickup, mike and amp you add takes you one step farther away from the best playing situation. It's necessary in some venues, but it changes the sound, and it changes the way the musicians work together, etc. I'm not against amplification. Instruments need to be heard, which in any public setting requires amplification; people are used to hearing music LOUD. Still, the less sound-reinforcement gear, the better, in my opinion.
I did a CD at our local session about 6 years ago. It was a wild mix of all sorts of instruments and the aim of the CD was to be able to produce something like an "ideal evening session" for people to listen to.
We tried multitracking in the empty pub (digital 16 track) with instruments mic'd up individually, which didn't have the atmosphere - basically we couldn't play the same way, it sounded sterile and just didn't work.
We tried multitracking in the pub during a session when the pub was busy - that sort of worked but it was a lot of mic stands and just got in the way of the music, in both senses.
In the end I did a recording with a DAT machine and a pair of back-to-back cardioids (the AKG422, which is a stereo microphone which allows you to swivel the two capsules). Basically, this was done with the mic in the middle of the group and everyone standing / sitting round it in a circle. I did the recording at the other end of the bar on headphones, and my wife was amongst the group acting as floor manager, wearing a pair of cans connected to me via a radio link. I was able to use her to move people away from the mic if they were too loud, or towards it if they were too quiet in the mix. That simple!! It actually sounded fabulous. Obviously the people in the pub knew we were doing a recording, but I basically got quite a few good takes each evening(we did the odd retake) and did the whole recording over the course of four or five evenings, spread over several months.
With a LOT of editing, the finished product sounds like an ideal evening in a pub! - what we wanted in the first place.
Incidentally, back-to-back cardioids with people surrounding them in a circle, give you a wonderful stereo image. Nothing is out-of-phase, so it's a good mic technique which isn't often used - I learnt it from my work in BBC radio drama.
Hope that's useful - it's a technique well worth a try. I'd say, to sum up, keep it simple.
When I recorded a demo with the trio I used to work with, we were looking for a similar combination of live feel and good balance. We used a reasonably nice but not very expensive tube mic (Rode NTV, an Australian mic) to get the whole band, and then each instrument went direct to the four track. That gave us a pretty well-balanced core sound from the tube mic, and the direct tracks gave us the flexibility to balance and EQ the instruments, and to place them in a stereo spread to allow the fiddle and box to be heard more distinctly. It worked - we all liked the sound we got.
If you know a few musicians, you probably can find the loan of the gear you'd need to try this, and possibly even someone who would help you set it up and push the "record" button.
If you want to do this with your minidisc recorder, your best bet is, as suggested, run a room mic and a few direct for the more quiet instruments, and let someone who's not playing do a mix to headphones while you're playing. Trying to set levels and play while you're going live to two tracks can easily send you around the bend.
Recording Trad Bands
Recording Trad Bands
Hi,
) is tough. We think that going and recording track by track (in a studio) will be too sterile and will not have that 'live' er... oomph (for want of a better word). Alternatively, take some mics. (that's mikes not micks
to our next gig and record us along with the drunks at the bar. That would add some atmosphere!.
our band has a mix of fiddle(x2)/guitar/bouzouki/whistle+flute (all the usual suspects) etc. At practice sessions we use a minidisc recorder with one mic. so getting the mix right (i.e. bouzouki loud enough
Does anyone have any recording experiences they could share?
Cheers
Craig.
# Posted on July 5th 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: Recording Trad Bands
If you can borrow/rent/2nd hand a small mixer with enough inputs, it would be useful to give each instrument a mic. The sounds would still bleed through but you still have a chance to adjust the levels that extra bit, even if that's done just before you start playing. With the right plugs, it might be able to go straight into your minidisc recorder.
Hope that helps,
Lesl
# Posted on July 6th 2003 by LH
Re: Recording Trad Bands
the above point re: use of a small mixer is well taken though i'm assuming that you've perhaps already chosen to eschew this obvious solution, perhaps for the sake of keeping the sound a little more natural. you might try a single good condensor inverted on a boom with favourable proximity to the bouzouki. keep in mind that if used live, a condensor will pick up a TON of artifact sound both on and off stage. soooo, how about a condensor (try keeping your gain down possibly?) for general pick up and an SM57 or similar for your bouzouki.
just some thoughts. hope it helps.
fw
# Posted on July 6th 2003 by farquharson whistler
Re: Recording Trad Bands
I suppose the first thing is to decide what you want the recording for. If it is just for our own interest then go with the simplest options mentioned above. If you need a demo then go to someone with a small backyard studio and do it with you all miked up at the same time (not multi-tracking). It's not too expensive that way.
If you are doing some gigs in places with a good PA system, just ask the soundman to hook up your minidisc to the line output and if he's doing a reasonable job with the mixing it might sound quite good.
Good luck
D
# Posted on July 6th 2003 by Donough
Re: Recording Trad Bands
maybe you should decide to buy a small amp and mikes to get a proper sound at the session aswell because if one instrument on the recording is too loud then it is too loud at the gig aswell and the others too quiet. If you use a small amp (like the cheap squire system) you could solve two problems at the same time: you sound better and you can use the line out for your recording. when we bought ours the price was something like 280 Euro's and it comes with speakers but it is not loud enough to use it for stages or big gigs.
# Posted on July 8th 2003 by lazybone
Re: Recording Trad Bands
I'd suggest keeping it simple, recording-wise.
Buy or rent a cheap mixer or even a line-splitter and run two condensor mikes into your mini disk and record "live," either in the kitchen or in a bar. Or use a collection of individual mikes, as suggested in the SM57 comment above. If you do this at home it'll be easier to play back what you've recorded and see who is too soft/too loud and where and then either adjust the mike placement our have somebody back off a bit generally or in a given part. A lot of this is trial and error. You need to see what does and doesn't work.
And -- a word of advice -- be satisfied with "pretty good." Musicians know they can flub a tune totally in a bar and sometimes nobody even notices, but once the "record" button is pushed, they strive for nothing short of perfection and end up disappointed and frustrated.
There's some fairly affordable software/hardware available for Macs and PCs if you want to bump it up a notch. I recently installed PRO TOOLS on my iBook. It does a lot of stuff and doesn't require you to become an engineer first and musician second.
A really good resource, at least in the U.S., is www.sweetwater.com, a place that specializes in recording gear for musicians, and makes a policy of hooking up a specific rep with each customer, so you're always dealing with the same person. I've had good luck there. Also, check out the Musicians Friend website, www.musiciansfriend.com, where they have good prices on cheap condensor mikes and other gear. I've had luck with them, too.
Going into a recording studio is a whole different thing and even at cheap rates you can spend as much as you will buying enough gear to play around at home. Also, there's something about trying to play through even a simple tune while an engineer or two stares at you that makes it difficult not to clutch in the middle of the last few measures.
As for amps and sound gear ... that's a complex subject. I've played with huge PAs with amps and direct boxes and monitors and all of that, and just sitting on a bar stool with nothing but my instrument. In my opinion, if you're playing an accoustic instrument, every pickup, mike and amp you add takes you one step farther away from the best playing situation. It's necessary in some venues, but it changes the sound, and it changes the way the musicians work together, etc. I'm not against amplification. Instruments need to be heard, which in any public setting requires amplification; people are used to hearing music LOUD. Still, the less sound-reinforcement gear, the better, in my opinion.
# Posted on July 9th 2003 by Romkey
Re: Recording Trad Bands
I did a CD at our local session about 6 years ago. It was a wild mix of all sorts of instruments and the aim of the CD was to be able to produce something like an "ideal evening session" for people to listen to.
We tried multitracking in the empty pub (digital 16 track) with instruments mic'd up individually, which didn't have the atmosphere - basically we couldn't play the same way, it sounded sterile and just didn't work.
We tried multitracking in the pub during a session when the pub was busy - that sort of worked but it was a lot of mic stands and just got in the way of the music, in both senses.
In the end I did a recording with a DAT machine and a pair of back-to-back cardioids (the AKG422, which is a stereo microphone which allows you to swivel the two capsules). Basically, this was done with the mic in the middle of the group and everyone standing / sitting round it in a circle. I did the recording at the other end of the bar on headphones, and my wife was amongst the group acting as floor manager, wearing a pair of cans connected to me via a radio link. I was able to use her to move people away from the mic if they were too loud, or towards it if they were too quiet in the mix. That simple!! It actually sounded fabulous. Obviously the people in the pub knew we were doing a recording, but I basically got quite a few good takes each evening(we did the odd retake) and did the whole recording over the course of four or five evenings, spread over several months.
With a LOT of editing, the finished product sounds like an ideal evening in a pub! - what we wanted in the first place.
Incidentally, back-to-back cardioids with people surrounding them in a circle, give you a wonderful stereo image. Nothing is out-of-phase, so it's a good mic technique which isn't often used - I learnt it from my work in BBC radio drama.
Hope that's useful - it's a technique well worth a try. I'd say, to sum up, keep it simple.
# Posted on July 10th 2003 by Mark Harmer
Re: Recording Trad Bands
These are great tips. Thanks a lot Folks.
Craig.
# Posted on July 11th 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: Recording Trad Bands
When I recorded a demo with the trio I used to work with, we were looking for a similar combination of live feel and good balance. We used a reasonably nice but not very expensive tube mic (Rode NTV, an Australian mic) to get the whole band, and then each instrument went direct to the four track. That gave us a pretty well-balanced core sound from the tube mic, and the direct tracks gave us the flexibility to balance and EQ the instruments, and to place them in a stereo spread to allow the fiddle and box to be heard more distinctly. It worked - we all liked the sound we got.
If you know a few musicians, you probably can find the loan of the gear you'd need to try this, and possibly even someone who would help you set it up and push the "record" button.
If you want to do this with your minidisc recorder, your best bet is, as suggested, run a room mic and a few direct for the more quiet instruments, and let someone who's not playing do a mix to headphones while you're playing. Trying to set levels and play while you're going live to two tracks can easily send you around the bend.
# Posted on July 13th 2003 by Jon Kiparsky