My friend is recording my band's album. Need gear advice!

[24Farrington]

Hello everyone,

So a band that I'm finally happy with and keeps on gaining momentum is recording an album. One of our good friends (who is an excellent musician and we are so lucky to have him give us suggestions on our music) is recording us. So we're using my DAW setup:

Tracking to PTools via a Digi001
Mixing in Nuendo 2.0 (I have a powercore and UAD-1 for processing)

Our friend is buying a crapload of gear including Neve clones, an avalon, a distressor, RNP's, RNC's, some mics/cables/stands etc. (all of this will be used in his portable studio which he plans to open in the next year or so) FYI, we're both audio school grads.

Anyways, I was looking at his setup ideas and was wondering if you guys could help me find the weakest part of our signal chains.

I don't have a detailed list with me right now, but we're starting with drums and I thought the following could be improved without spending a lot of money...

1. Overheads - Oktava MC012's --> RNP --> Digi001
2. Toms - SM57's --> RNP --> Digi001

Any other suggestions for mics that I could purchase for not too much money? I was also hoping to get 2 channels of limiting for the toms (all the other comps/limiters we have will be used on other mics). Any suggestions for limiters (dbx166/RNC)?


Guitar center is having one of those same as cash for 1 year deals and I'd be willing to finance some gear. My budget is preferably less that 1,000. I know converters are probably the weakest link right now, but man are they expensive. I'd rather save the money for Mastering! Woo hoo. I'm getting so excited about having our songs mastered professionally! Something I'll be sure to do a search on and ask you guys later.

Well that's it for now I guess. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and responding with your suggestions. Feel free to ask some questions if that will help. (I can get a list of all the gear eventually, half of it has not been purchased yet!).

[Jaws of Hell]

I hope you're planning on miking the kick and snare. What mics do you have for that? How about an LDC or pair to use for vocals and a bit everything else?

[I'm Painting Again]

I'm really not sure how to answer your questions..there are an infinite numer of answers to them..

why dont you buy a wordclock with your 1k..thats supposed to make the 001 sound 100 times better..

[24Farrington]

I hope you're planning on miking the kick and snare.

Sorry, I guess I was a little unclear. Yeah, we have a crapload of gear (more than I'm used to anywho), I was just focusing on what I thought were the parts that in my opinion could be easily improved on.

Kick: Audix D6 --> Avalon
Snare: 57 --> Neve Clone --> RNC

why dont you buy a wordclock with your 1k..thats supposed to make the 001 sound 100 times better..

Yeah, that's a good idea. Although I have to admit, I don't really understand the whole clocking thing. Do you have to use the clock source while recording, or just on playback?

[Randy]

Any other suggestions for mics that I could purchase for not too much money? I was also hoping to get 2 channels of limiting for the toms (all the other comps/limiters we have will be used on other mics). Any suggestions for limiters (dbx166/RNC)?

If you want the toms to sound as big as Texas, you could get some CAD M177s for them. I use the RNC for limiting and even though I have some more expensive compressors, I often end up using Alesis Nanocompressors for close mic'd drums. Seldom while tracking though.

[cgarges]

I can't think of one single time in my life when I've compressed toms to tape.

My favorite tom mics are the MC012s and I've used A LOT of different mics on toms.

Have you allotted any of your budget to room treatment, design, or decent monitoring?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[24Farrington]

I can't think of one single time in my life when I've compressed toms to tape.

My favorite tom mics are the MC012s and I've used A LOT of different mics on toms.

Have you allotted any of your budget to room treatment, design, or decent monitoring?

I just wanted to limit them to make sure they didn't peak. We'll be recording at 24 bit, so maybe we can live without it. I've heard a lot about good results with the oktava's on toms and we definately plan to spend a good amount of time experimenting with sounds. (The goal is to get the sound as good as possible to "tape.")

As far as the room sound, we're recording in my singer's parent's BEAUTIFUL summer cape house. We'll be tracking drums in the basement. I know what you're thinking...the basement actually sounds great. Our entire band practiced there one weekend and it was easily the cleanest most distinguishable sound we've ever had. It's a typical cement basement, but it's the entire length of the house with an exposed ceiling filled with the pink insulation stuff. It sounds great! We'll be running a 150 ft snake into one of the bedrooms for a control room. Lots of room for experimenting with mic'ing air vents, yahoo!

As far as monitoring, I have some KRK V8's and my friend will most likely be purchasing some Genelecs so we'll be able to A/B everything which will help. Of course we'll be using car stereos/boomboxes for referencing. Room treatment is limited to moving couches/beds around to taste. Keep in mind this place is somone's amazingly nice summer home, so we're trying to keep messing with the rooms to a minimal. Any tricks that you know would be appreciated though.

[cgarges]

As far as making sure the toms don't peak, how about turning them down? That's worked for a lot of people for years. (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

As a far as room treatment, I mainly meant control room treatment. I do a lot of work in a lot of different studios and I'm amazed by the number of people who don't think twice about blowing a couple grand on a bunch of 1272s, but haven't done anything to properly treat their control room. I could care less about having a bunch of Neves if the control room doesn't translate well because that means I can't trust what the Neves are doing "to tape," how they're blending with other sounds, and how mixes translate once they're outside the control room. You can always upgrade your outboard collection later. No one ever seems to want to really dump some money into room treatment later on. I don't know anyone who's spent time and money on treatment up front and wished they'd done something else. I've seen it the other way around lots of times. I know that's not necessarily what you want to hear, but it's the truth. Horse before the cart.

Even if you can't rebuild or permanently install stuff, look into what's available that you can make portable or removeable. Learn a bit about acoustics and you won't be sorry that you did.

About the Genelecs, if you like Genelecs and are used to them, they can be great speakers. I don't think they're terribly accurate, except in the midrange and in their stereo imaging and I've mixed A BUNCH of records on them. I can also say without any uncertainty that you're wasting your money if you buy Genelecs smaller than the 1031s. The 1031s don't translate low end very well and the smaller speakers are just pathetic for that. You could get a system with a sub, but that's a whole different set of variables.

That's my couple of pennies.

Good luck!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC