Let me see if I can help you with this one.

any and all suggestions on setup - mic ing ; anything; volumes

The first thing I would try and do is get a computer with a recording software. Even if you get something cheap like Audio Cleaning Lab ($30) it would sound better than a tape deck and you would also be able to add additional tracks after every recording. Either way the most channels you can record with this set up is 2 at one time (left and right with a tape deck or mic in and line in with pc).

If you record on a tape deck you will have to do a live recording (all mics trying to pick up everything) as oposed to if you do a pc recording you can put all the mics on the drums then add a track of guitar and then another track of guitar and then another track and another until your pc just cant take it anymore.

concrete floors, 4 foot concrete surrounding walls and 4 foot wood
separated by

Which ever way you do this you are going to have to kill the basement acoustics so it will not sound so muddy. My only low budget idea is to droop some blankets on the ceiling and all the walls. If you run out of blankets hang some carpet in a wave like form.

i am recording low fi to a tape deck but id like the instruments to sound as clean and crisp / loud as possible ; as little room / background hiss as possible and try for highest volume on the finished product when i play i back so i dont have to crank my pa master volume.

If you are trying to do a recording to better your sound or remember riffs for your next practice just use the tape deck. If you are trying to get a recording to hand out to your friends I wouldnt record on a tape deck. There is nothing crisp and clean with a tape deck recording.

8) Hope this helps.....Steven

hey.

hey dood. it's brian. found ya.

Re: advice please on basic three piece basment recodring.tha

vishnu wrote: ; willing to modify playing style to accomodate and enhance recording ;

-Kwin Cymons

NO!!! Never compromise playing style. Maybe the setup, but not the style.
I can't get any more in depth right now cuz i'm at work... maybe if things slow down some more...

you are cool

thanks man, your talking to a 24 year old newbie, so i REALLY appriciate the help. i actually have a decent pc with nuendo. my friend bruned me a copy, i will look into your software suggestion and yeah, right now just trying to remember riffs and document some VICIOUS jams (for future bootlegs HA HA) but i understand the layering tracks thing which makes soooo much sense if were going to put time into making stuff we want to hand out we might as well go the extra mile and do separate tracks which will utilize our mics better i suppose. anyways man thanks again and more help is wanted. i posted another thread with my gear list if you already read it or it was in my last post nevermind, but if not let me know which mics you would use where and when and how. thanks
KwInCyMoNs

BRIAN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

awesome man, and i hear you on playing style i wanna hammer 32 notes and higher all the time. talk to you soon man peace

brian

brian, see what i mean about the threads that go un-answered, not that the good folks who are here dont do what they can, but its good to have you here man, at least for me personally as well hopefully you can lend support to those like me who are clueless on a more freequent rate that what i generally observe,
peace man, fantomas on the way ya heard

a new poem

i stood amongst
the soldiers gaurd
those wandering fools
who always tried too hard
our youth searing stunts
utterly hardening us to lard
from our crippling shards
our wills once to sparr

still my statue stood
for months on shouldiers
knicked and narrled
re-acquainting ancient duels
stale this air from disregard
aloof peering towards blunt
a slight bleak and charred
squeaks the porcelin shift
from glass tween clenched jaws

later bro

guitar sound

Now that you're using headphones you can fully utilize the fact that you have two rooms. With the PA monitors you were probably getting alot of bleed from the other room that you were trying to prevent in the first place.

About mic'ing the guitar... if you're in a room with other instruments you can't be as particular because if you get the mic too far away from the amp you'll get bleed from other instruments. However, if your amp is isolated you can experiement a little more. This is why overdubbing is advantageous; you can record your guitar with no other sounds to compete with.
So if you have your amp isolated try this:
Put one mic right in front of the amp. Experiment with angle and distance (between 2 and 12 inches and 0 to 45 degrees, generally.) Once you have a sweet sound you can then add a 2nd mic to the mix. Put this one in various parts of the room and see what happens when you move it around and adjust the volume balance between the two mics.
I know this sounds like it's going to introduce comb-filtering (I said before that you should never use more than one mic if you don't have to) but in some cases the comb-filtering can introduce nice sounds. Because afterall, if you were witnessing a live band you wouldn't be listening to the guitar from 12" away, you'd be hearing the combination of direct sounds with the accumulated room sounds.
Did you mention in your email that you had the bass amp in a separate room? I wouldn't bother. If the bass amp has a jack for "direct out" or something similar (but NOT power amp out- this will blow up whatever you put it into- this is only for connecting extra speakers) like line out will do as well, then use that output directly into the tape/computer. Bass doesn't always record well with mics, plus it's a waste of a good iso-booth. This is known as "recording direct" and is a much easier way to get a good bass sound. Purists will always mic the bass, but you really can't tell the difference in your style of music where the guitar is more prominent.

copy that red leader

bass is in same room as the git amp and the bass ammp vol is almost all the way down cause its direct to pa. hey, ill have three more mics or at least enough money to buy three more mics on feb 12th, tell me which ones to buy. as well ill have enough cash to maybe get you out here to record if and when your work schedule has time to permit. its funny how your fucked like me answering BS calls in your day life and jamming in your nightlife. write back, seriously want you out here to help as it would be A MILLION times easier to get what im looking for if you were here man. peace

brian - do you know any cheap good headphones?

or a headphone splitter powerer thingy to split the montior out to three headphones? let me know what you would buy for the splitter/powerer with 250 bucks and how much youd spend on three headphones
later

Re: brian

vishnu wrote: brian, see what i mean about the threads that go un-answered, not that the good folks who are here dont do what they can, but its good to have you here man, at least for me personally as well hopefully you can lend support to those like me who are clueless on a more freequent rate that what i generally observe,
peace man, fantomas on the way ya heard

a new poem

i stood amongst
the soldiers gaurd
those wandering fools
who always tried too hard
our youth searing stunts
utterly hardening us to lard
from our crippling shards
our wills once to sparr

still my statue stood
for months on shouldiers
knicked and narrled
re-acquainting ancient duels
stale this air from disregard
aloof peering towards blunt
a slight bleak and charred
squeaks the porcelin shift
from glass tween clenched jaws

later bro

Your poetry always reminds me of a fantasy world, although I can barely understand the imagery. I'll have to read it a dozen or so times before I can make sense of it.

You really should check out electrical.com if you haven't already. They are a group of engineers that are probably a little more understanding of our type of music. They won't tell you things like "turn it down" or "you can't record with one mic". But on the flipside, they are still very professional and know what they're doing. Plus, even the great Steve Albini himself might reply, but usually you have to come up with a pretty intriguing topic for him to pipe in, since he knows that a dozen other people will respond anyway. Remember, DO NOT mention In Utero. You won't get banned or anything, but everyone gets really pissed off when you do.

thats funny man, thanks for the comment on poetry, coll eh

awfasdfasd

Re: copy that red leader

vishnu wrote: bass is in same room as the git amp and the bass ammp vol is almost all the way down cause its direct to pa. hey, ill have three more mics or at least enough money to buy three more mics on feb 12th, tell me which ones to buy. as well ill have enough cash to maybe get you out here to record if and when your work schedule has time to permit. its funny how your fucked like me answering BS calls in your day life and jamming in your nightlife. write back, seriously want you out here to help as it would be A MILLION times easier to get what im looking for if you were here man. peace

I would look into getting a couple of condenser mics now. A matching pair is good because then you can mic things in stereo without worrying that the difference in mics will sound funny.
You really need condensers at some point because they are so much better at capturing more realistic sounds for most applications. They are far better as room mics, vocal mics, cymbal/overhead mics, and other acoustic instruments where accuracy is important. Even on electric guitar I've had good results from condensers. Dynamics color the sound very much, but since there's no template for "electric guitar" you get away with it. But you mic up an acoustic with a cheap dynamic you can hear the difference.

doing work for primus, whos your chick, i meant

ill pay for your ticket and food and weed and beer (like i mentioned a long drunken time ago) just for a week or whatever to get the job done ya heard

old school

peace

brian ill get the cash and you can be the guest @ electrical

engineer, itll be 7000 for 10 days, can we get like 12 songs done if my bands practiced in that time with a studio assistant for help?
later

Re: brian ill get the cash and you can be the guest @ electr

vishnu wrote: engineer, itll be 7000 for 10 days, can we get like 12 songs done if my bands practiced in that time with a studio assistant for help?
later

Is that comment for me?
What studio are we going into?
What kind of console/recording medium?

i actually have a decent pc with nuendo. my friend bruned me a copy, i will look into your software suggestion

If you have Nuendo I wouldnt get Audio Cleaning Lab. Nuendo is nicer by far.

let me know which mics you would use where and when and how

mics:

shure sm 57 X 1
shure sm 58 x 2
lower end shure X 2
(which have given me a suprisingly decent drum sound)
no-name low end X 1

Since your just recording live to keep riffs and to better your sound I would Keep the bass direct, point the sm57 straight on the cone of the guitar cab, the 2 lower end mics that sound decent on drums on the drums of course (one inside the kick and the other overhead pointing straight down to the snare), a sm58 for vocals. You will know have another sm58 and low end mic extra. If you cant hear something in your mix that you want hotter such a snare then put it there.

8) Hope this helps.....Steven