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Hi! I have no idea if this is the right place for this, but my friends and I are in a band, and we want to start recording.

Now I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing this, and I would really appreciate if someone could help us out.
We have two guitars, a bass guitar, drums, and two vocals.

What would we need and what would we need to do to record all of us at once?

Thank you guys so much!

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audiokid Wed, 11/26/2014 - 18:20

What is your $ budget, available computer? Do you have mics? Need more info? Why do you want to record? For demo's to get gigs? Sometimes its better to hire a studio. Learning costs money better spent hiring a pro. Just saying....

Without knowing the above but assuming you are serious and have some money, you need a PA and console anyway so look at PreSonus StudioLive consoles 16.4.2 or 16.0.2 . This is a excellent way to get going. You can record 16 channels at a time on a laptop.
They are super easy to learn and sound excellent. Starting around $1000 used. Maybe even less. Maybe rent this!

You'll need a handful of mics. Look at Shure SM57 /or SM58's or RODE Dynamics (M1), or Audix Dynamic's, the drum mic kits are super cool. These are all great choices.
If you can afford the PreSonus PA to go with the StudioLive, all you need is the place to play.

pcrecord Wed, 11/26/2014 - 18:31

Honestly, if you have no clue where to start, You will save a lot of MONEY (Yes save!) and TIME if you go to a well established studio. And the quality of your product will be a lot better.

To have a great recording, you need :

  1. A good sounding room
  2. A good performance (if you are worried about sound and recording, it's hard to perform well)
  3. Good mics and knowledge how to place them
  4. Good preamps and knowledge about gain staging
  5. A good audio interface with enough inputs for the band
  6. Mixing knowledge including, EQ, Comp, Reverbs etc
  7. A good monitoring system (including studio speaker in a threated room)
  8. A pair of well trained ears to recognise what sound good or not.
    To go to a good studio, you need :
    1. To be well rehearse
    2. Having fun to play music !!
      I would encourage any person who wants to learn about recording and take time to do so and make gradual gear purchase.
      But starting up with a full band without experience is hard. It takes a while to be ready for a band and band relationship is so fragile, you may create frictions if it takes too long to produce a fairly good recording.

      Just my 2 cents ;)

anonymous Fri, 11/28/2014 - 15:54

I might recommend something like the Presonus Fire Studio or other similar computer audio interface devices, that allows for 8 simultaneous microphone inputs. It is then printed to 8 separate tracks within software. The cost for those units hover around $500 and includes an awesome multitrack software package. So your computer will need to have a FireWire port. Older laptops and desktop machines from a few years ago, have those ports. New computers today, both laptop and desktop models, have illuminated those FireWire ports since they are considered old technology now. However with certain laptops and desktop machines that do not have FireWire ports. Ancillary cards can be plugged into desktop computers to provide those ports.

The audio quality is quite good and 100% professional. And the software package is insane! So for around $500, you get all the recording studio you need.

When it comes to the microphones. Your regular PA microphones such as SM-57's and SM-58's are de facto rock 'n roll recording microphones. You don't need condenser microphones. Many hit making recordings have used the SM-7 series microphones for the lead vocal recording. And where a 57 or 58 can also deliver nearly the same quality of sound for vocal recording. Which you already likely have? Or something similar to those? All are fine when used and equalized, properly. No those won't sound like the SM-7 but they'll be damn close and save you hundreds of dollars. The differences are quite minimal. It's a nuance difference.

So you could record your guitar and bass to 2 separate channels. Then your 2 vocals to 2 separate channels. Then bass drum to its own channel followed by your snare drum to its own channel. Then two overhead microphones on the drums to 2 additional channels.

After that, you can then start overdubbing. Where you could then, say, set up 4 vocal microphones for a single vocalist. Recording those 4 microphones simultaneously to 4 separate tracks. Then you can always Listen to those 4, one at a time and select the one that sounds best.