Planning a recording session of sorts.

[masonpitzel]

Alright, so my band is going to be doing some quite, quite ghetto recording sessions in a week or two here. We're planning on just setting up in the middle of our practice space (unfinished basement w/ concrete walls and all), positioning equipment, and hitting record. Obviously, the gear/room we've got won't let us get anything too professional sounding (let alone that '90s Fat Wreck triggered-kick-etc. sound that seems to have overtaken this genre), but we're aiming to get a 3-song CD-R release out of this, so hopefully we can get it sounding okay. We're going to try and embrace the bleed and the shittiness of the room itself; maybe that'll make things work out better.

Anyway, this is the way we think we'll position things in the room:



Here's what we've got, and how I'm planning on using it (gear is so shitty you're all probably unfamiliar with it, so the list is annotated):

Shure RS25 (dyn. card.) -- kick, resonant head
Shure RS25 -- snare
Apex 770 (dyn. hypercard.) -- mono OH, above the drummer's head and right up to the ceiling
(2) Apex 185 (matched cndnsrs in omni) -- spaced pair, picking up room sound (wondering if a Jecklin disk would sound cool in this situation)
Apex 870 (dyn. card.) -- bass
Some Realistic mic (dyn. card. from the '50s w/ accentuated high-end) -- guitar amp #1 (5150), right up against the grille
Shure RS25 -- guitar amp #2 (JCM900), slightly backed off from the cab
(vocals overdubbed later using some sort of microphone, I don't know)
(this is all going into a Presonus FP10, being mixed itb, then probably hitting 1/4" as an outboard sort of thing)

So, does this sound not-terrible so far? Anything I should to insofar as changing amp/drum/mic placement? Should I use different mics for different things? Also, I've got a sweet little cassette ghetto blaster (with one of those built-in mics the size of the head of a nail) that I'm dying to use for recording -- where should I put that, if anywhere?

NB: I'm going to cut off those "Man, before you do anything, go out and buy a couple decent mics, seriously" comments off at the pass: no. It's not an option here. "No, honestly, run out and at least buy a D112 or something, they're super cheap and you have no excuse for not having one." Not gonna happen this time around.

Thanks!

[firesine]

Put the ghetto blaster on the floor out in front of the drum kit.

I wouldn't face the kit directly at any of the walls, like in your picture. I don't have any acoustic facts to back this up, but I have had better luck pointing the kit toward a corner or at an angle to one of the walls.

You might try moving the cabs closer to the kit. Set it up like a show, with the guitars on either side of the kit and the bass amp in front, like you have it, but closer. This way, the bleed will be less time delayed in the drum mics and you can still pan the guitars L/R according to the room mics. .

[drumsound]

Put the ghetto blaster on the floor out in front of the drum kit.

I wouldn't face the kit directly at any of the walls, like in your picture. I don't have any acoustic facts to back this up, but I have had better luck pointing the kit toward a corner or at an angle to one of the walls.

You might try moving the cabs closer to the kit. Set it up like a show, with the guitars on either side of the kit and the bass amp in front, like you have it, but closer. This way, the bleed will be less time delayed in the drum mics and you can still pan the guitars L/R according to the room mics. .

Good advice on the set up.

I'll also add DON'T use a bright mic on a 5150. Use the darkest thing you have. Those things amps are a tool of the devil. Fizzy as hell, you do NOT want to excentuate that by using a bright microphone (or any microphone really). Does that guy have ANY other amps?

[firesine]

Those things amps are a tool of the devil. Fizzy as hell, you do NOT want to excentuate that by using a bright microphone (or any microphone really). Does that guy have ANY other amps?

HA, yeah DON'T let him crank the highs and scoop all the mids on the amp. With the right EQ settings it can sound decent.

I think getting the mic as close to the speaker as possible might help balance some of the fizz with additional low end. And try moving it off center of the cone or off the cone completely.

You could try putting ghetto blaster on top of the bass cab it its too muddy/ not enough room on the floor. Got an outboard compressor? use it here.

[masonpitzel]

HA, yeah DON'T let him crank the highs and scoop all the mids on the amp.

Not really an issue here. He may have a cheap amp, but he's not that retarded when it comes to tone.

You could try putting ghetto blaster on top of the bass cab it its too muddy/ not enough room on the floor. Got an outboard compressor? use it here.

Use the compressor on the tracks from the ghetto blaster?

[cgarges]

I'd be a little cautious about pointing all the amps right at the drumkit. Depending on volume, you might have trouble if you decide you want to EQ anything.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[firesine]

Right, didn't mean to imply he was retarded but, it wouldn't be the first time that happened.

I like compressing a room mic and I would call the boom box my mono room. Since the sound you get from the ghetto blaster isn't gonna be hi-fi, you might be able to get a cool, dirty, pumpy whatever sound from this guy, without sacrificing the good room mics. If it sounds good on its own, leave the comp for the bass.

[manganeech]

A few things you might try:

Rather than using the Apex 185s as room mics, try one on the kick and one on the bass amp. They have the best low ferq. response (down to 30hz) of the mics you listed. The Omnis will also have a smoother response than the cheap dyn. Cardiods (shure rs25, apex 870), so you might avoid some low-mid mud build up.

You could then use the Apex 870 as an ambient effect mic with a high pass filter to eliminate the typical practice room low end mud. You could point this mic away from the direct sound of the instruments, off in the distance, so you isolate more reflected room sound on this track. That might give you a more distinctive texture to work with during mixdown, rather than another phase canceling mud maker.

Try to place your drum overhead the same distance from the snare mic as the kick drum mic is from the snare mic. Place the kick mic first to get a sound you like, then measure the distance from its diaphragm to the diaphragm of the snare mic as best you can. You want the distance a laser beam would travel (through the drum shells etc.) so it may be awkward to figure this accurately. Then hang the overhead the same distance from the snare mic, above the kit at a spot that will pick up a balanced picture of the cymbals. This approach will hopefully keep the sound of the snare in-phase and powerful.

You might consider using an rs25 instead of the apex 770 for the drum OH. The regular Cardiod pattern may pick up a more balanced mix of the whole kit. The hyper-card 770 may "hot-spot" whatever it's pointed at and leave out some of the cymbals at the periphery.

You might get a more usable Kick track if you put some kind of seriously thick isolation baffle directly behind the kick mic. It looks like all three amps are pointed directly at the kick. If you don't do something about that you will be turning up all of the guitars in the mix when you go to add kick. Even placing a big hassock or over-stuffed chair (something you can see each other over) right behind the kick mic could work. This will be even more necessary if you do use use the Omni Apex 185.

Good luck.

[masonpitzel]

I guess I should have mentioned before that my Apex 185s have switchable patterns -- I've got both cardioid and omni capsules for it. If I'm using them to record the kick drum and bass rather than the room, I should have them in cardioid rather than omni, amirite?

Also, thanks to everybody who's offered suggestions so far. All of the advice here has been really useful. You're good peoples.

[Corey Y]

I would aim the amps away from the drums for sure. I would try to set up as much makeshift separation as possible. Sawhorses and packing blankets, guitar cases opened up and stood on end, whatever you can get. Drape a blanket over the kick for sure.

[drumsound]

HA, yeah DON'T let him crank the highs and scoop all the mids on the amp.

Not really an issue here. He may have a cheap amp, but he's not that retarded when it comes to tone.

You guy is not retarded, the designer of the 5150 is!

[manganeech]

... my Apex 185s ... If I'm using them to record the kick drum and bass rather than the room, I should have them in cardioid rather than omni, amirite?

It will make isolation much easier. However, try them with the omnis also if you can. You never know, you might get lucky with placement and like the bleed you get with the omni on one or the other. The down side is the extra bleed will probably make it harder during mixdown.

If you have the patience to spend a practice just working on set-up and getting sounds with mic placement without trying for takes, you will probably be able to use fewer mics to better effect. Listen to each mic on headphones (in isolation if you can) with the whole band playing. Does each mic fulfill a specific roll? Will the sounds complement each other in a mix? If any two mic feeds sound too similar, could one of them be placed differently to buy you more options at mixdown?

If you need to slap mics up quickly, I would shoot for more close micing, isolation and less bleed. That will make it easier to fix in the mix.

I just got asked to mix a few songs that were tracked live off the floor with a bunch of somewhat too distant and poorly placed mics. The band was shooting for a looser, roomy aesthetic. I ended up not using 4 of the 14 tracks they recorded (including the snare mic!). There was so much cross-over information on every track that I really had to struggle to seat the voices of certain instruments (bass, vox, kick) without making it sound like total mush. For instance, because there was so much bass in the overheads and guitar tracks, I had a hard time putting much of the actual bass track in the mix without making it too loud. The bass didn't sound very good in any of these other tracks and high passing them thinned out the guitars, toms and vox too much. It wasn't much fun and I'm not proud of the results. Mixing that kind of session is all about problem solving and not about art. Those types of mixes end up sounding generic and uninspired to me. I find it very hard to get a distinctive sound that really catches the ear if there is too much bleed in all the mics. On the other hand, cool bleed in a couple/few of the mics can be the basis of a very interesting mix.