My band has got a busy September coming up. We are playing on the 16th at The Muse opening for legendary punk band The Independents. The 24th, we are playing our first out of town gig, going to Atlanta to play w/ Psychocharger, Creeping Cruds and a local ATL band for the Horror Hootenanny South. The next night will be the original Horror Hootenanny here in Nashville with the same bands except swapping a local Nashvillle band for the ATL band.
Our goal right now is to get a full length recorded before then so we can sell some CDs. I'm going a simpler route than I did with our EP. I tried too much producing on it. I'm limiting our guitarist to 1 track, plus a track for any lead stuff (our EP had 2-3 rhythm tracks on each song). We are also using real drums instead of Addictive Drums like I did last time. I've never recorded drums before, so there will be a learning curve there, but I spent a lot of time on our EP getting realistic, good sounding MIDI drums. We've got 14 or 15 songs to get done, so it's a pretty big project.
I've never recorded drums before, so there will be a learning curve there, but I spent a lot of time on our EP getting realistic, good sounding MIDI drums. We've got 14 or 15 songs to get done, so it's a pretty big project.
Here's a couple of easy and basic techniques you can try:
Recorderman's Adaptation of the Glyn Johns method (recommended for beginners)
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
Great news! :D
I've never recorded drums before, so there will be a learning curve there, but I spent a lot of time on our EP getting realistic, good sounding MIDI drums. We've got 14 or 15 songs to get done, so it's a pretty big project.
Here's a couple of easy and basic techniques you can try:
Recorderman's Adaptation of the Glyn Johns method (recommended for beginners)
Thanks for the links. I have run across those before and was getting ready to start researching and find them again. I'm shopping for mics right now. I've got a Shure PG58 that works fine for vocals and our singer has a few Shure SM58 he can borrow from work. I'm thinking I'm going to pickup a couple of condenser mics for the drum kit and instrument micing. Definitely going to have to go the cheap route though.
45 days for an entire album? sounds like a huge task.
Congrats on your upcoming gigs though. All the best. 8)
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
45 days for an entire album? sounds like a huge task.
Congrats on your upcoming gigs though. All the best. 8)
Well, we're doing 13 songs and the longest one is a little over 3 minutes. The shortest is about 0:50. Most are somewhere between 1:30 and 2:30, so it's only about 30 minutes of music. All songs are already written and all but 1 has been played live at least a few times. We're going with a pretty low-fi approach: 4 mics on the drums, record all the drum tracks for the songs in 1 or 2 days; record guitar tracks another day; I can do my bass recording a song or 2 a night; vocals will have to spread over a weekend or two so singer doesn't damage his voice. It's a tight schedule, but I need a tight schedule, otherwise I get distracted and start recording other stuff.
Awsome news! Can I put in my pre-order for the CD?
Teamwork- A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
Awsome news! Can I put in my pre-order for the CD?
Of course! Send me your address and I'll mail you one.
Sweet! I will PM you my address. Also, I have "Virtual Band" project going on right now. Was wondering if you would be interested in joining. The idea is to collaborate with each other on some cover songs and some originals. Perform enough material to produce the world's first CD by a virtual band. (Yo, Roy...where are you???) Here's a link to the thread ...
Join the Virtual Band Recreational Chemistry
Teamwork- A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with the results of yesterday's recording session. Friday afternoon, I setup my son's kick and snare drum and miked them just to get an idea of levels. I had all my mics set up and everything hooked up and I told my son that I bet someone would call to look at our house (it's currently for sale) on Saturday, making me unhook everything and put it up. Sure enough, we had some people come look at 9:30 Saturday morning. After they left, I put everything back out and connected it all up again. Drummer and singer arrived at 1pm and we set up his kit. Initially, I had a Shure PG-58 on the kick, a Shure SM-58 on the snare and 2 Behringer C-4s overhead on a boom w/ a stereo bar. I tested with just the overheads and was getting a really good snare sound, but didn't have enough kick. So I put the SM-58 on the kick and just went without a snare mic.
I ran a guitar into my Floor Pod and then into a 2nd mixer. That mix went into my Samson 4 channel headphone amp (that I got on Craigslist for $20!). That let me adjust each person's headphone level individually. The guitar and vocals were not being recorded. We did one song with our singer playing the guitar part (it's one he wrote originally). Listened back to it and the drums sounded pretty good. We did a 2nd take and moved on. Our guitarist got there about that time, so he took over guitar duties. I didn't play because I wanted to monitor the recording and listen for timing issues, etc. We did 2 takes on most songs, a couple the first sounded good so we just moved on. We got the drums done for 13 songs. Our drummer was amazed because another band he is in has a perfectionist for a guitar/singer and he records stuff over and over. I think the most we did was 3 takes on 1 song.
Next up, I will do some bass tracks over the next couple of weeks and our guitarist will come back in 2 weeks to lay down his stuff.
Here are a few pics of the session.
Brian banging the skins
Steve on guitar, yours truly in the back listening
Me messin' w/ the technical stuff with my Yuengling close at hand.
Plugs, plugs and more plugs
Gear and beer
So... did you record the drum tracks (and I guess some guitar) for the 13 songs just in one day? :shock:
I need more time just for deciding which of my three drum patches I will use in test recording!
I'll be waiting for the next episode. :D
So... did you record the drum tracks (and I guess some guitar) for the 13 songs just in one day? :shock:
Yep! We didn't record any of the guitar though. Our drummer lives a little over an hour from me, so I didn't want him to have to make the drive several times. We spent about 6 hours tracking, w/ short breaks throughout, plus a 45 minute pizza break. Keep in mind, our songs range from 50 seconds to about 2 minutes. We have 2 that are a little over 3 minutes, everything is under 2 minutes.
