Guitar Gear Forum

I'm a relative newbie to recording, and am recording my bands practice sessions. I don't have a lot of time to setup, record and mess with playback, etc. since we pay by the hour to rehearse.

Currently I'm setting up two SM57s about 6 feet high and about 6 feet away from drums pointing downward toward the drums/guitar on one side and another on the bass side. I then take the recording and in Presonus StudioOne, apply a compressor and limiter and mixdown the recordings.

Any tips on how to improve on what i'm doing? Recordings here:

https://soundcloud.com/darren-parsoneault/youmeanme

https://soundcloud.com/darren-parsoneau ... ions-42417

The secret to making quality recordings is.........





































TIME... and more gear!
The more time you have to set things up, test the sound, move a mic, tweak the amps, etc., and to do the mixdown, the better the recording.
When recording live, with two mics, finding the sweet spot in the room can take quite a while... you could get lucky and find it right away but, more than likely, it will take about an hour to find a good spot for the mics - trail and error.
To make a better recording, you need to close mic each instrument & each piece of the drum kit & isolating each instrument by putting up sound barriers (gobos) or using separate rooms. But, that get's a) expensive and b) you need to convert a basement into a studio.

Nevertheless, your recordings sound pretty damn good for two mics!!!

Thanks Ajax....I know, I know I sound like a pr!ck that doesn't want to put in the effort. I do want to take the time to do some quality recording in the future (or get a professional demo going) but right now I'm really just looking for any glaring omissions that might be obvious to more experienced folks.

Like Ajax said, these sound really good for 2 mic recordings! Band is really tight too, I'm digging it!

parsono10 wrote:Thanks Ajax....I know, I know I sound like a pr!ck that doesn't want to put in the effort. I do want to take the time to do some quality recording in the future (or get a professional demo going) but right now I'm really just looking for any glaring omissions that might be obvious to more experienced folks.

Nah, you're not coming across like a prick at all!

Nothing glaring either.
There aren't too many two-mic-recordings that sound any better.

Buy one of those Tascam/Zoom handheld recorders and set the mic level so it doesn't clip at your band's volume. That's the best way to record practices for reference. It's never a super high quality recording but it's clear enough that you can hear everything, work on new ideas and take notes etc, which is the purpose of recording practices.

GuitarBilly wrote:Buy one of those Tascam/Zoom handheld recorders and set the mic level so it doesn't clip at your band's volume. That's the best way to record practices for reference. It's never a super high quality recording but it's clear enough that you can hear everything, work on new ideas and take notes etc, which is the purpose of recording practices.

This. My zoom was a gamechanger.