I apologize for any lack of equipment knowledge, half of it isn't mine.
Here is our setup.
Band = Voice through shimsham PA
Guitar through halfstack
bass through amp and cab
drums live
Mics = two cheap Nady overheads,
rest of Nady drumset mic set
good vocal mic for pa, not sure make
extra cheap dynamic mic
Interface = some type of Behringer 8 or 16 mixer
going into seasound soloist line input
Software = Sonar 7 XL Producer
Two mics recorded into one stereo track.
The question = What we did yesterday was use the two Nady condensers as room mics. The purpose is just to see what we sound like playing together.
Obviously upgrading quantity and quality of mics and hardware would be a good idea, but this isn't really an option at this point.
Is there any basic things I can do to within Sonar or the mixing board that could improve the quality of the sound such as basic eq, and compression, and any fx?
I am quite new to recording, and would appreciate any help. Thanks!
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The real question would be - what is your intent with this recor
The real question would be - what is your intent with this recording?
Is it just to see how you guys sound together, or is it to try to make legitimate recordings.
If it's just to see how you sound, the 2 room mics are a fine idea and you shouldn't need to add any more. You might want to work on placement a bit to make sure that the blend is right (but then again, this is a great way to work on balance as an ensemble.) Touching on that last point, most bands have a difficult time balancing as an ensemble when they're not blasting away through a giant PA. This 2 mic setup can really be of GREAT assistance for this. If you add more and more mics, you're only going to compensate for poor balancing with the mixer or the software...don't be tempted.
If your goal is for recording purposes...to make a demo, etc...yes, you'll need more mics and some better equipment.
If this is your goal, hang around here and read as much as you can. It ain't easy getting good results, but once you start to learn the basics, it becomes FAR more simple than a lot of people crack it up to be.
Cheers-
J.
What's the room like and how are you setting up the mics? You sh
What's the room like and how are you setting up the mics?
You should try pointing the mics at about a 30 degree angle towards the hard floor or hard back wall to take the sound as it reflects from one of these surfaces. Also, you should point the mics toward each other at about the same angle to get an "x, y" pattern. The distance between mics and floor/wall should be as close as you can get it without risking touching or banging into one another. You should also avoid corners, ceiling fans and too-close-proximity to any one instrument / sound source
The reason for this is to minimize the effect of the all of the different delay times (phase diffusion) from all of the different surfaces in the room. It'll go a long way towards eliminating the boomy-roomy sound from your recordings.
If you play around with the exact placement, following the basic concept, you should be able to find a nice sweet spot that will produce perfectly decent two track recordings.
Next, I would look into room treatments, and when you get more mics and input channels you can try close micing everything (and putting the singer in the other room), and many more fun and exciting things! :-)