Live Recording of Blues Band

Hi all!

I always enjoy reading how people approached recording situations, so I thought I would share my latest here. I don't post much, but I read every day and appreciate all the good ideas and advice I have seen here on the forum over the years.

I recently was hired to do a live recording of a local blues/rock band. The band consists of guitar, bass, and drums, with the bassist and guitarist on vocals. The venue was a typical bar/pub.

Here is the link to a track from the recording:

[MEDIA=soundcloud]rob-neidig/doublebookinblues-alt[/MEDIA]

For you gear hounds out there, here's a bit about how it was done.

The Setup:

Drums -
Kick - Audix D6
Rack Tom - Audix D2
Floor Tom - Audix D4
Hi-hat - AKG SE300 power module with CK93 hyper-cardioid capsule (the combo is sometimes referred to as the SE393)
Overheads - Oktava MC012 (x2). I have a pair of Audix scx-one mics that I use in more controlled situations, but these Oktavas do something better for me when I use them live. I'm not sure why, but I like them.
Snare - Sennheiser e604. I would normally use the typical SM57, but this is a left-handed drummer who sets up her kit right-handed. It would have been a little difficult to put the 57 into the right spot, especially to avoid it being in the way when she played cross-stick (since that would end up being right where a snare mic usually is placed). She uses the e604 when they are on a stage big enough to warrant being miced, so I went with it. Used the included mic clip that mounts directly to the rim. Placed it at about 2 o'clock on the snare. It actually worked out pretty well on her snare - a little more "beef" than a 57.

Bass - Electro-Voice RE20 on the cabinet

Guitar - Cascade Fat Head II with Lundahl transformer on the amp

Vocals - The band uses one of those boxy mixer/amp combo setups for a PA. I would normally take direct outs from the mixer, but this one does not have those, so I split the mic signals before they went into the PA.

Audience - I set up 2 AKG SE391 mics on either side of where I was recording, about 30 feet in front of the band.

Snake - I ran all mic cables from the stage to a snake, then back to my recording station.

Recorders - for live recordings, there is already so much equipment in use and so much going on that I like to streamline as much as possible. I have a Yamaha AW4416 16-track recorder that I have used for live recordings in the past. It is great in that you can record all 16-tracks at once and has a very flexible routing setup. It only has 8 mic preamps built in, though, and they are actually kind of weak, so in the past I have used outboard mic preamps. For this gig I did not want the extra gear. I used two Tascam DR-640 8-track recorders. They have mic preamps for the first 6 channels. Channels 7 and 8 can be recorded using AES or SPDIF, otherwise they end up just being a stereo mix of the other 6 channels. So on the first recorder, I put the drums on channels 1-6, as well as the hi-hat through an Apogee MiniMe mic preamp into Channel 7. Then I ran the output of recorder one into Channels 7 and 8 of recorder 2. This acts to clock the two recorders the same, as well as gives me a track to use to sync up the tracks from the two recorders once I get them into the DAW for mixing.
So really this ended up being a 13-track recording.

DAW - Reaper using a variety of plugins, though probably the ones I use most often are from the WAVES Chris Lord-Alge collection.

I know this is long, but I hope you've enjoyed the journey. I know I enjoyed taking it.

Rob