Recording Live bands all last year.

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:10 am

I recorded about 40 bands live last year at my studio, and all are archived here at Groupee.com. Check it out!

It was a real challenge to make everything sound great with drums in the same room as singers, but I think it all works out in the end.

Groupee Sessions

stereopathetic_banjo · Post by **stereopathetic_banjo** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:34 pm

Dang Raymond, that's awesome! If you don't mind my asking, how did this come about? Did you have a set plan to record X amount of bands in X amount of time for release online, or did things just start to snowball? Freakin' Jason Falkner in the studio...I'm very impressed and proud of what you've done. Keep it up!

darjama · Post by **darjama** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:41 pm

Cool! be interested to hear what you learned about tracking this way over the course of the year. How long did you have to set up generally?

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:24 pm

This is simply awesome.

There are a lot of Jason Falkner fans here in the Philadelphia area that will be hitting your site in the coming hours.

Thanks for this.

I'm also very interested in war stories regarding the challenges of putting this all together.

Also, I am a huge fan of The Broken West, as are most of my friends. Great work. I love the first record, haven't picked up the second one yet but will be seeing them with A.C. Newman in March. Did you do the new BW record, too?

Jeff

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:05 pm

Hey Travis,
The website just heard good things about the studio, and I gave them a nice price. Many of the bands that they wanted to record were clients of mine, so it all worked out really well.
The guys at the website are from Seattle, so they would pick 10 or 15 bands and come down to LA and we would record them over a long weekend. It was always fun and challenging try to get the general idea of how a band sounds and have them perform 4 live songs and do an interview in two hours.
Cheers,
Raymond

stereopathetic_banjo wrote:Dang Raymond, that's awesome! If you don't mind my asking, how did this come about? Did you have a set plan to record X amount of bands in X amount of time for release online, or did things just start to snowball? Freakin' Jason Falkner in the studio...I'm very impressed and proud of what you've done. Keep it up!

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:14 pm

darjama wrote:Cool! be interested to hear what you learned about tracking this way over the course of the year. How long did you have to set up generally?

We had two hours to set each band up, record four live songs, and do an interview.
So it was really fast. Luckily I have drums already set up in my studio and ready to go all the time, and some different amps and keyboards so that no one had to bring too much gear.

I learned that if you put a meaty blanket behind the lead singer, and have them face the drums, and use a Beta 58, you STILL get tons of drum bleed! HAHA!

One of the things I learned is that the more ambitious you try to be live, the less well it comes off in general.

No names, but one band actually brought their own mixing board into my studio, to somewhat haywire results.

The best sessions we did were the ones where folks just came in and played really simply, i.e. drums, bass, guitar and kept it simple and direct. My favorite session has to be the Yellow and Red Sparks, because they just sat down and played some great songs.

Also of note is the Happy Hollows session. That band is one of the more original things happening in LA at the moment.

Recording tricks that worked well included using my guitar isolation cabinet, D.I. bass, and very little compression.

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:21 pm

ipressrecord wrote:This is simply awesome.
There are a lot of Jason Falkner fans here in the Philadelphia area that will be hitting your site in the coming hours.
Thanks for this.
I'm also very interested in war stories regarding the challenges of putting this all together.
Also, I am a huge fan of The Broken West, as are most of my friends. Great work. I love the first record, haven't picked up the second one yet but will be seeing them with A.C. Newman in March. Did you do the new BW record, too?
Jeff

Hi Jeff!
I am glad that the Falkner fans will be hitting up the Groupee site. It's not my site though, I just recoded the bands.
Not too many war stories actually, everyone was really pretty cool and reasonable. We did have one bigger band come in and insist on using in-ear monitors that they use live. Their sound tech came along to the session, and wired the stereo headphone feed I gave him out of phase to the in-ears and we didn't figure that one out until the session was done and at least a hundred "I can't hear myself" complaints had been fired at me.
I love me some Broken West too! I didn't have anything to do with the new record, they did that up at the Hanger in Sacramento.
Cheers,
Raymond

ballpein · Post by **ballpein** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:07 pm

That's really really cool, sounds great. As a music fan, I really like this format.

flapmaggot · Post by **flapmaggot** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:02 pm

Raymond,

Congrats, and I must say.....what balls! I'm sure it was a blast but I'm sure there was some stress too

. I usually record bands with drums/bass on up, but will be doing a couple of bands live in the studio. I'm a worry wart and usually need therapy after each production.

Curious as to what platform and general set up you used - board? live to 2 track? Thanks again - you helped me with my TASCAM 38 and I'm on the otherside of the 605 fwy - maybe we'll hook up!

Take Care - Chuck

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:14 pm

Hey Chuck,
It was a lot of fun, not too stressful. I usually record bands as live as possible and try to keep as much as we can of what we record, so it wasn't too different from the usual.
I just made a template in ProTools with all the different inputs assigned and set up with mics already plugged into outbaord preamps.
Each time a new band would come in I would just delete the tracks that weren't being used and Save As the bands name.
The 605 isn't that far away, stay in touch.
Cheers,
Raymond

flapmaggot wrote:Raymond,

Congrats, and I must say.....what balls! I'm sure it was a blast but I'm sure there was some stress too . I usually record bands with drums/bass on up, but will be doing a couple of bands live in the studio. I'm a worry wart and usually need therapy after each production.

Curious as to what platform and general set up you used - board? live to 2 track? Thanks again - you helped me with my TASCAM 38 and I'm on the otherside of the 605 fwy - maybe we'll hook up!

Take Care - Chuck

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