Live Recording onto 8 track...

[Jules]

Me and my jump blues band have spent ages trying to sort out a recording session to knock together (hopefully) an album's worth of tracks. After a huge amount of logisitcal hassle on this front- odd we can organize gigs fine, but studio recording dates have eluded our organizational powers!
I've recently had another thought- basically all we're trying to get is a good representation of how we sound live- so.. why not record live.
I can get hold of a digital 8 track and would intend to get a couple of really good mikes to record onto the first 2 tracks as stereo left and right. This leaves 6 tracks for things i'd like ot have better control over.. one's going ot have to be the lead vox- but what else is going ot deserve special treatment (ie -tweaking in cubase later).
A bit of background- its uptempo jump blues, jive and R&B. Line up=
drums
Upright bass
piano
guitar
lead vox
2 x backing vox
tenor sax
bari sax
trombone
trumpet

My first thought was 5 tracks for the soloing instruments (gtr, pno, vari, tenor, trombone), but then thought a couple of drum overheads and oneo n the bass might be more use ot get a big, rhythm heavy sound......
any thoughts on this method of doing things....?

 

[Pete Thomas]

I would say either record the whole band live (on your 2 really good mics) or go much more professional - after the really good 2 mics your list includes lots of other stuff that would also benefit from really good mics if you are going to mic them up individually (and then, you won't get them all onto the remaining 6 tracks of your 8 track).

 

[Linky Lee]

If you really have to do it that way, I'd recommend:

-vocals with decent vocal mic.
-Brass/Woodwind, move forward for solos with a nice wide frequency response mic.
-A mic for the snare drum
-one for the bass drum
Then two as a stereo pair for the guitars and double bass which I assume are running through amplifiers, so stick them together and balance the volume with the amps.

This way you'll have control over the 'punchyness' of the drums, be able to sort out the brass/woodwind effectively later on. Lots of control over the vocals which are the most important part.
and the guitars and double bass will rock out nicely with the stereo pair and you'll capture spill on all of the mics anyway so it'll blend nicely.

As long as you mic them all roughly the same distance from the sound sources you shouldn't have problems with delay either.

 

[Bobby G]

I love the sound of that lineup! Only one thing missing, you don't have a alto player }ahem{.

Could you hire or borrow additional really good mikes to record everything live onto say 6 tracks, leaving yourself a couple of tracks for overdubbing vox or solos if necessary?

Cheers, Bob

 

[philthd]

an issue noones mentioned

most 8 tracks ive had dealing with only have 4 busses, so you cant record to 8 channels at once anyway. (the digital one i use most only has 2 inputs - but i only use it for sketches really)
so you may have to resort to proper multitracking - which would potentially spoil your live feel but could solve your microphone issues as you would only need a couple at a time - and your track issues since you can just bounce things around

 

[Linky Lee]

Or you could get hold of a larger mixer! and record say 12 tracks live, then do some editing on a computer and overdub some bits you want.

Lovely.

Whereabouts are you based? It sounds like Hiring a studio for a few days would be an 'easy' but quality option. between all of you it won't cost you that much either.

Just make sure the engineer knows exactly what you want, and that you want to record mostly live.

 

[Jules]

The physical size of most studios is going make live recording an interesting prospect with 11 people! Ok, if it were to be done in the studio the vox would probably be put on later, together with solos.
The live recording idea was to try and use the 2 channel stereo mix as much as possible, only bringing in the other channels for a bit of extra control on.. as I mentioned... either the main Vox, soloing or beefing up the rhythms (I've got this innate distrust of live sound engineers to get it right!).
The limited buses on an 8 track might well scupper this plan though....
Main problem with spending a few days in the studio- the fact we'd have to build a secure creche facility there. Hire a studio and fill in with an army of assorted toddlers belonging to various band members..... let the offspring carnage commence!
By the way- we're www.fat45.com if anyone's interested!

Linky_Lee wrote:
Just make sure the engineer knows exactly what you want, and that you want to record mostly live.