Bedroom Hit Factory

[Sloan]

This is my thread about bedroom recording.

GAME PLAN:
1. Rehearse songs with band and get shitty one mic recording on something.
2. Create click tracks for the songs and record scratch vocals, bass, or guitar.
3. Using the click/scratch tracks, record the drums.
4. Don't skimp on the drum tracks, you will probably have to redo them a lot of times.
5. Record bass track(s). Always get a direct bass track, but mic a good sounding amp if you have one.
6. Record rhythm guitars. Usually 2-8 different performances blended for a blazin' sound.
7. Record leads, fills, pads, and other miscellaneous tracks.
8. Record a bunch of vocal tracks. Lead, backup, harmonies etc...
9. Mix all this together and have lots of regrets and FUUUUUUU moments.
10. Burn a bunch of CD's and listen to them everywhere you can - car, friend's car, cd player in wal-mart, etc....
11. Mix again to make sure it translates better.
12. Realize that the first mix was better, and start over.
13. Lose interest and forget about it for a while until the band starts complaining.
14. Finally get a 'good enough' final mix.
15. Party.

[Sloan]

Bed is up sideways against the wall on right, so sleep on the couch for a few days while getting drums all right.

1. KICK - Audix D6
2. SNARE TOP - Audix i5
3. SNARE BOTTOM - Studio Projects B1 (early model)
4. RACK TOM 1 - MXL 603s
5. RACK TOM 2 - MXL 603s
6. FLOOR TOM - Sennheiser e609
7. OVERHEAD R - MXL 603s
8. OVERHEAD L - MXL 603s

NOTES:
Kick - I don't have any other kick mic besides the Audix D6. I wish I had something that was less punchy, but I find this mic just works great live and recorded. I usually don't have to eq very much besides pulling some lower mids out to clean up the track.

Top Snare - At first the sm57 was on the top, but after listening back to some tracks it seemed to bring out too much of the crap pop sound out of this drum and it sound overall very small and pussified. I went back to my favorite snare mic that I have, the i5 and all is well, it's just a little more full sounding to me. The sm57 spent the rest of the time sitting on a table, where it sounds best.

Bottom Snare - I had originally not mic'd the bottom of the snare, but found exactly the snap and crackle I needed when it was added. I have previously used an sm57 for snare bottom, but it was pretty much always shitty, so I decided to try something else for a change. Since I had used all my small condensers for overheads and toms, I just put the B1 there and I really like how it turned out. This is one of the very early model b1's and I really don't like it all that much, it's kind of harsh. As far as I can tell the later model is a improved, but I haven't heard one for myself, so don't take my word for it!

Toms - Typically I'll throw some random dynamic mics on snares, like sm57's or stage vocal mics. I always hated mixing toms because they were always shit, until now. I thought I would try my other MXL 603s pair for the first two toms (they usually are harder to deal with than floor tom), and since they are a bit bright it really helped bring the stick attack out more than a dynamic mic. I always found my dynamic mic'd toms to be very dull and muddy, but these tracks sound big and still have nice cut. The floor tom has the e609 which is another bright sounding mic and helped add definition to the hit while still picking up the really low decay.

Overheads - The MXL 603s mics are very cheap and have always worked for me despite they're tendency to be bright especially up past 4kHz. I almost always hipass the overheads, especially if the toms are mic'd. There's no reason to have a bunch of extra crap in there crowding up the mix.


MP3 Clip:
http://bestnetworx.com/uploader/files/5 ... umroll.mp3
There is some compression, eq, gating, and master buss compression, but nothing too drastic yet.

[robroe]

bass drum sounds awesome. get rid of that double bass though. unless you started a dio cover band without me, that shit is gay

[Sloan]

bass drum sounds awesome. get rid of that double bass though. unless you started a dio cover band without me, that shit is gay

dude I KNOW!
that's my brother and he doesn't ever play without the double kick - i hate that shit. we're playing country/southern rock caahhhoommmaaaaaan brah.

[lank81]

bass drum sounds awesome. get rid of that double bass though. unless you started a dio cover band without me, that shit is gay

Really? I didn't like the sound of the bass very much. Way too much beater for my tastes and I thought some of the drum hits sounded like it was hitting a piece of paper when it struck the head. Still though, for what you were working with mic wise you had a nice clean mix. You were mentioning the MXL 603s. They are a cheap set and known for some harshness but I've heard a lot of good samples with those. Did you ever try XY configs? I do 4 mics total and that's it when I do drums - Sm57 on Snare, SM81s XY Pair OHs, and AKG D112 on Bass. I get a nice stereo field with just that. Also, if you ever wanna upgrade those MXLs check out oktavamod. Thanks for sharing that and nice mixing.

[Sloan]

i should have turned up the toms a bit in that example clip, they're kinda of coming through the overheads mostly which are hipassed to cut out some of the kick and snare action. i will poast moar later as i go about recording other stuff. these are demos for a country rock/southern rock project, so the kick might be too aggressive right now, but i can change it later.

I love the mxl603's because they are so cheap. I bought one set a long, long time ago and they worked great for a bunch of stuff, so i was able to pick up another set for $75.
For the past 2-3 years I've focused less on recording since it was getting in the way of my actual being a musician, and now I'm back trying to juggle both aspects and kind of know where I stand a bit more now.

[lank81]

i should have turned up the toms a bit in that example clip, they're kinda of coming through the overheads mostly which are hipassed to cut out some of the kick and snare action. i will poast moar later as i go about recording other stuff. these are demos for a country rock/southern rock project, so the kick might be too aggressive right now, but i can change it later.

I love the mxl603's because they are so cheap. I bought one set a long, long time ago and they worked great for a bunch of stuff, so i was able to pick up another set for $75.
For the past 2-3 years I've focused less on recording since it was getting in the way of my actual being a musician, and now I'm back trying to juggle both aspects and kind of know where I stand a bit more now.

Sloan,
I totally understand this. I'm kind of in the same boat. I struggle juggling them at times but have been more balanced as of late. I've been writing music and recording more people other than my band so it helps a bit that way to juggle. Also, its cool to help others out who can't pay big bucks in a super sweet recording studio. I get some decent quality stuff done for them and they save $$$. Anyways, good luck with everything and can't wait to hear more.

[More Cowbell]

SLOAN. DO MXL990's on the toms. THEY RULE and THEY ARE CHEAP.

I love the 603 on Acoustic, you don't even have to spend time finding the sweet spot, it finds it no matter where you put it.

[robroe]

COWBELL,

POST MOAR.

[Sloan]

SLOAN. DO MXL990's on the toms. THEY RULE and THEY ARE CHEAP.

I love the 603 on Acoustic, you don't even have to spend time finding the sweet spot, it finds it no matter where you put it.

I keep hearing people like the 990, but I got one for free, plugged it in and it sounded amazingly shit, so i sold it on ebay. Maybe just a bad one though. I do like the 603s on acoustic a lot. Some of these tracks will probably have acoustic in there, so I'll post that too. I might take a while before I get all this done, but whatever.

[Sloan]

So I did some clean guitar electric guitar tracks, just to have them. Don't bust out the Whiskey. It seems like a great idea, but then you forget that your working on an important project and puke corn out your nose.

[Sloan]

Crate Blue Voodoo cabinet with Celestion 75's and WGS V30's.
Sennheiser e609
Shure SM57
Audix i5
Studio Projects B1

I did not take time to figure out which mic would sound best where and on what speaker, I simply just threw them up.
Usually I just use two mics, but since I have UNLIMITED TRACKS, why not add more flavors to choose from?

I had gotten into using some room/ambient mic(s) for guitar, but they didn't prove all too useful in a full mix, so I opted for all close mics this time.

[DanHeron]

The drums sound good. When recording the drums did all the mics go into a mixer or something? Did you use a PC to record them?

I was thinking of buying some more mics and a mixer or something for recording drums. But my audio interface for my PC only has 2 inputs, so mixing the drums would have to be done on the mixer before recording which is a pain for 1 person to do: Record, listen back, change levels. Record, listen back... change some more levels. etc. And also means I could only make changes/EQ the whole drum track afterwards, not individual drums. hmmm not ideal.

[Sloan]

The drums sound good. When recording the drums did all the mics go into a mixer or something? Did you use a PC to record them?

I was thinking of buying some more mics and a mixer or something for recording drums. But my audio interface for my PC only has 2 inputs, so mixing the drums would have to be done on the mixer before recording which is a pain for 1 person to do: Record, listen back, change levels. Record, listen back... change some more levels. etc. And also means I could only make changes/EQ the whole drum track afterwards, not individual drums. hmmm not ideal.

There's a lot of details I left out since this thread was just kind of a 'hey, i should post this shit' moment.
I use a Presonus Firestudio Project. You can probably get one used for like $300, new for $500. I'm running the beta Windows 7 drivers and it's stable as a motherfucker.
8 simultaneous tracks. I want to get another so i can do 16 tracks, which would allow for some room/ambient mics - those really make a difference and help get HUGE drum sounds.

[DanHeron]

The drums sound good. When recording the drums did all the mics go into a mixer or something? Did you use a PC to record them?

I was thinking of buying some more mics and a mixer or something for recording drums. But my audio interface for my PC only has 2 inputs, so mixing the drums would have to be done on the mixer before recording which is a pain for 1 person to do: Record, listen back, change levels. Record, listen back... change some more levels. etc. And also means I could only make changes/EQ the whole drum track afterwards, not individual drums. hmmm not ideal.

There's a lot of details I left out since this thread was just kind of a 'hey, i should post this shit' moment.
I use a Presonus Firestudio Project. You can probably get one used for like $300, new for $500. I'm running the beta Windows 7 drivers and it's stable as a motherfucker.
8 simultaneous tracks. I want to get another so i can do 16 tracks, which would allow for some room/ambient mics - those really make a difference and help get HUGE drum sounds.

Ah cool. Thats not a bad price compared to a lot of the interfaces with just 2 inputs.

I was browsing and found this, a ZOOM R16. 8 track digital recorder, which records 8 tracks simultaneously onto some type of memory card. But it can also be used as an interface and record into 8 seperate tracks on Garagaband/cubase/etc... sells for 350GBP:

[Sloan]

Another thing I forgot to do is dampen the snare and toms, they're all really ringy, but since i'm done with drums i have to deal with it.

[Sloan]

Here is a short clip of some guitar for the country rock demo. This the Bugera 333XL on the crunch channel with the gain almost all the way down, i wanted to get almost like a clean channel breaking up type of sound and I'm pleased with the results, there was almost no tweaking around the eq at all. I put a scratch bass track in there just for reference.

http://kiwi6.com/file?id=l4acu9g06r

[Sloan]

Ok, I finished mixing these recordings, and will detail the rest whenever i get a solid internet connection again. fuck.
Check it out here: http://www.strayfireband.com

[STABxYOU]

What kinda Ampeg is that?

[Sloan]

What kinda Ampeg is that?

Ampeg VL-1002.

luv it