Summer Recording

[Berto]

This summer, my band wants to do some home recording. We just finished recording in a legitimate studio and had a lot of fun doing it, but we found every member had conflicting schedules at times, which in turn, created complications with the recording guy, who also had a schedule. We, the band, have made several recordings on my computer by putting mics into a mixing board and then out to the computer via a 1/8" jack, we have to rerecord if someone messes up. The problem that always arises is levels. Since it is all recorded on to one track, we have to redo the whole song and keep re-adjusting levels until they are somewhat usable even if everyone played through the song perfectly. That being said, not all the instruments sound their best, which is where having separate, EQ-able channels would be lovely. Any suggestions?
In addition, we have three sennhiser e835, one sm57, EV cardinal, and soon an MXL R40. We also have ten miscillanous, meh/shitty mics. There is a plan to replace them with sm57's, but what else would y'all suggest?
Any other recording/mixing tips would be appreciated, especially for drums and vocals.
***WE DON'T HAVE A LARGE BUDGET***

[Sloan]

That is indeed a ghetto way of recording to pc. There are cheap usb interfaces that have proper mic preamps etc.
My vote is to not get involved in recording unless you want to blow a bunch of money. Work on your arrangement, get the songs tight where everyone knows what is going on and use your gear at home for preproduction. Make mistakes at home and then take the perfected performances to the studio and knock it out with minimal time.

[johnniespring]

i'd say go for it yourself, but don't expect to get studio results just by having separate inputs and eqs. you'll need to make sure the sound is right in the room first then mess around with mic choice and placement. that's much more important than the number of inputs and eqs.

[DanHeron]

The price for USB interfaces starts to get really high when you go above 2 seperate tracks. Something like the M-Audio Fast Track 8R will do that:


A cheaper(ish) option is the ZOOM R16 (Doog bought one fairly recently):


Records up to 8 inputs to seperate tracks simultaneously and can have up to 16 altogether in the final mix. It's a stand alone unit, doesn't need a PC (but can be used as usb interface), records to SD Card i think. You can do the whole recording/mixing/etc on it and be done. And its really portable.