Hey all, many-time lurker. I thought I’d post a little on my recent experience recording some live music with a friend. Mostly to reflect, but also looking for suggestions.

First, I learned that having a low ceiling in my basement home studio did not produce a bad sound. A friend’s terrific (and loud) Ludwig drum kit sounded great through a single SM57, placed ten feet away in front of the kit and pointed roughly at the drummer’s stomach. I recorded it straight into my Delta 1010LT. Not too noisy, although I could have managed the gain better.

The low ceiling (just slightly over six feet) produced some odd resonances, but enjoyable ones, really, and they definitely didn’t overwhelm the overall sound. Taking fifteen minutes to test the mic placement (and deferring a little bit to the drummer’s taste, where I might have favored directing the mic closer to the kick) really paid off.

Second, I wonder if the clutter in my basement ended keeping the room from sounding too “live” - again, a good thing. A lot of CDs, vinyl, and heavy furniture. Or am I making excuses not to clean?

Third, I got a great experience with my homemade microphone, made from the handheld receiver from an ordinary telephone. I used that to mic up a tube bass amp, and got fairly little bleedthru from the drum kit, but a good sound from the amp. The mic provides a lot of isolation, and sounded decent when I used it later for vocals (though those were deliberately overdriven to obscure my terrible voice). (the design is simple, BTW ... you open the handset and remove the jack, drill out the hole and put in a quarter-inch TS jack, which you hook up to the earpiece (not the mouthpiece, which you have to remove). (I stole the design idea from Japanther when they played in Baltimore.) I ran that mic through a Barcus-Berry preamp from early 1980s that has a lo-z output, and from there into the 1010 card.

Anyway, I was surprised and happy with the results, which I would say were of the medium-quality demo variety.

I'd post the results, but I don't have an MP3 encoder.