Recording options?

[Oliver R]

Hello,
I am a member of a three piece acoustic group.
We play some original songs, some celtic and old time stuff.
collectively we play Fiddle, mandolin (of course), bouzouki, guitar and we all sing and harmonise.

My question is this:-
We are set to record using a zoom digital recording studio.
We have 2 AKG condenser mic's and 3 SM58's.
I was toying with just recording live....everything, including vocals.
That said it's also an option to put the vocals down separately.
it's all a bit much for a luddite like myself :confused:
What have your experiences been?

[JeffD]

I don't know what all goes into it technically, but I do know that recording live just the way it happened has a certain magic to it. Not as easy to play with the recording later in the studeo perhaps, but the spontaneity of the live or the first take is really special.

[Fred Keller]

We recorded our last album this way. The problems we encountered were three-fold:

1. Spacing/blending. When you record live, there's always sound bleeding over to the other mics unless you have a good way to separate them. This isn't necessarily bad in and of itself but you have to play with your spacing to find a mix that blends your instruments and voices well. If you try and turn up one mic later in mixdown, you're still turning up the other players.

2. Less flexibility in mixing and mastering. It's sort of a corollary to the above, but if all the channels have some amount of everyone else's playing, you can't sweeten up or boost or in any way alter a single track without altering the total mix. This makes it tougher to add, for example, a touch of reverb to the vocals. It's not impossible, it's just tougher.

3. One good mistake can spoil the take...sounds like Mother Goose :). You have to find a balance between a solid, energetic, emotional take with a mistake or two and a totally mistake-free but emotionally flat take. This can be time-consuming.

That said, the benefits for us outweighed the drawbacks. We got to record exactly the same way we practice and perform so stress levels were way down. We sounded a lot more cohesive, more like a band. The recordings had a good feel to them, good energy, and ultimately that's what we heard from people who bought it or reviewed it.

Good luck--it's tough but worth it.

[Oliver R]

I must agree I'm tending to lean towards that live feel....as you say if you get it right the energy can be great.
Time is no object when you have no studio costs as well!

[acousticnotes]

Fred hit a lot of good points. I would add that the room acoustics you record in will most likely be your biggest problem. If you have to record live try to use separate rooms or place dividers between players. This may cut down on bleed overs. (a mattress for a low tech solution should help. Do test runs to determine the best mic placement for each individual instrument. I would do the vocals separate. Good Luck

Joe

[Ben Milne]

there can definitely be an advantage in tracking live. the energy captured can certainly out-weigh other issues such as spill etc... because you aren't fighting drumkits and large amplifier stacks you should be able to get some pretty good results your mics should sound the goods and are on par with the quality of recorder.

keep the quality of your recording along the lines of 16 bit 44.1khz... this is the resolution that CDs are released (higher will be better quality, but eventually you'll be bouncing down to this quality) - for simplicities sake this should be fine to record to (don't bother dropping down to MP3 even at 320kps there are all sorts of funked up artifacts going on with this format.)

oh... and HAVE FUN!!!!

good luck. make sure you post results.

if you're interested in furthering your knowledge in this field, feel free to browse the "remote possibilities (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/)" section of the Gearslutz (http://www.gearslutz.com/) forum... there is certainly a wealth of information here... use the tags and search functions. Be careful you may get lost for weeks, or even get bitten by GAS...

[jim_n_virginia]

There are pros and cons for both. And I have done both. Laying down all separate tracks definitely gives the musician and engineer a LOT more control.

But doing it "live" captures the spontaneity and the energy of the band.

A trio that I played with for a few years we did a CD and the lead singer who was a fantastic vocalist just could not sing with out all around her singing. She needed us there to draw off us.

And some bands just don't have much experience in the studio and laying down separate tracks just sounds too mechanical.

It all depends on who I am recording with but in general I prefer doing it live or all at once.

If you put enough mics out the engineer does have some control somewhat and beside after you record a cut you can listen to it on a monitor and if you need to make mic adjustments or whatever you just do another take.

[Oliver R]

Some exellent advice here!

We have a big enough kitchen to sit a way apart and we can seperate to an extent or sort of partition the mic's.

Mr Vanner...that site is truly terrifying :disbelief:. It would pssibly destroy my brain(whats left of it) but I will give it some scrutiny!
I will certainly take your advice on the quality and resolution though, or rather my son will (he's the tecnician).
I'v recorded a few times in the past with the seperate tracks and I have never been impressed.
I will post results however it turns out and we will certainly have fun.

[Elliot Luber]

Classical purists will tell yo that every time you add a microphone you add 3db of noise or effectively double the "noise floor" or background noise.

Rock engineers at the other end of the spectrum believe in closely miking each instrument at the source to remove much of the room ambiance and blending.

The trade off between this and the "live" recording favored by classical engineers is the ability to deeply control, change or countour the individual instruments vs. room acoustics and blending.

It's essentially a creative decision on your part. There is no right an wrong unless you are speaking to a classical engineer. :-)

[Dan Johnson]

On an album I recorded recently with my band Three Quarter North, we did both. I have to say I wish we hadn't done the live tracks. I thought, like you do, that the live ones would have a nice loose feel. It didn't really work out that way. You need to be really careful about keeping mics close enough to the sound sources to avoid any phase issues, which really mess up the quality of the recording. If I ever do live recordings again I think I will try to do it with one really good condenser mic.

The single-tracked stuff just sounds way better and the performances are better, too. That's my experience. You can listen at myspace.com/threequarternorth. Old Cane Press is recorded live. Brown-Eyed Women is recorded a track or two at a time.

Good question.

[Don Grieser]

If you do instruments first and vocals later, make sure you spend time rehearsing that way. Make charts with chords, lyrics, dynamics, stops, etc., so everyone's at the same place in the song all the way through. Someone could mouth the beginning of verses and choruses too, and sing along in your head.

Everybody should tune to the same tuner before each take.

Don't try to record too much on any one day--take breaks and keep fresh. Do some instrumental tracks and some vocal tracks each day so your voices/fingers don't get too tired. If a song's not working, move on to another one before you get burned out on it.

If you set up baffles, make sure you can still see each other.

If you use a click track, make sure it's not leaking through the headphones into the mics. If you use headphones, take the time to get a really good headphone mix--it'll make a huge difference as you spend more and more time recording.

A few things to consider.

[Oliver R]

Ok.
dan,
we have some decent mic's but do you mean all the band round one microphone?
I could see that working iE: how to grow a woman (2 telefunken mics' with fantastic results) I could lay my hands on some high quality vintage gear.

Don,
I can see your point entirely. We dont have 'propper' studio gear so it would be difficult to pre record a rough vocal and play along to it through the cans and lots of practice miming the lyrics is a fantastic idea.
As for seeing the rest of the band im' not so sure! HeHe

[Andy Miller]

Lots of good advice above.

Not being quite as sharp as, say, Thile's band.. . . we've used a hybrid approach at times to get both a "live feel" and some of the benefits of overdubbing. For example, if I'm singing harmony behind the lead singer, I'll usually leave it out when we track live to eliminate a source of "one mistake ruins the take," then go back and overdub that harmony vocal once we've decided we have a take. Also known as "cheating."

Have fun, and share!

[Oliver R]

Cheating eh....
Sounds good to me with our 'raga' harmonies:grin:

[Matt DeBlass]

I've done it both ways with folk bands, and had much better results with the live recording. It really depends on the group, but a lot of musicians feed off their cohorts as far as timing and the flow of the song, so when you record their parts separately, they don't quite click and the song doesn't "breathe". Good studio musicians can easily overcome this, but for a lot of us it can be tricky.

My suggestion: do like alltunator suggests and record a "stripped down" version of each song live, that is, leads, accompaniment and all the key elements, then add extra harmonies and stuff in overdubs. Also a good idea if there are tricky solos. That way, you can tweak stuff later.

[drewgrass]

honestly with the gear you got and the room your probably in you will get the best sound with the sm58's doing overdubs. it takes a long time for people to figure this out ( it took me a long) time, dynamic cardioid mic's will give you the best sound in average acoustic situations. my go to mics these days are a at4033 (condenser but every good blue grasser should own one) shure sm7 (not to be confused with the sm57) i would have no problem recording a whole disc with one of these) and a (beyerdynamic m160 ribbon) i use api pacifica and a modded peavey vmp2 tube preamps. ive owned some high end condenser's and ribbions aea and nuemann's etc etc. and with out the room they are not worth a dime. start by laying a guitar track to a click, then take the click out and let everybody else play to that track you will get a looser feel while staying in time. break out your ldc for vocals. not traditional but it will sound better this way.

[Atlanta Mando Mike]

Another opinion- Have the band play live but have nobody take breaks or sing. You record all the rhythm tracks and get the live band feeling of playing together. Then go and overdub vocals and solos. Helps to write out arrangements, have them in front of everyone. Make sure all intros are done live or that there is a good count/click in the beginning as it may be very difficult to time kickoffs without a really good reference. I personally like to find where we like the tune tempo wise, start with a click track (and record it) and then have someone turn the click off once we get going. After rhythm tracks are laid-go back and make sure you didn't speed up/or slow down too much. Get a metronome and test the front and back. My rule of thumb is don't keep a track that slows down at all or speeds up more than 5-7 beats per minute. This will keep the tracks feeling live and will have drive. As long as the move in tempo is gradual, it won’t sound bad (unless the 5-7 beat jump happens at one time which may require starting over).

I've done it all ways and feel this is the best compromise out there.

Michael Smith
the Dappled Grays

[stratton7584]

live is good but you have to realize if you record your instruments and your voice together you cant turn one down if needed during mixing, for example: if some point during your song your instruments over take your voices you cant turn them down were as if your record your instruments and your voices seperate you can adjust the volume to what level you need.

[foldedpath]

live is good but you have to realize if you record your instruments and your voice together you cant turn one down if needed during mixing, for example: if some point during your song your instruments over take your voices you cant turn them down were as if your record your instruments and your voices seperate you can adjust the volume to what level you need.

There are some tricks for dealing with that situation:

1) It's not ideal for a recording, but just close-mic the instrument and vocals. Get the instrument mic close in on the sweet spot, and have the singer "eat the mic" the way it's done for a live performance (to improve gain before feedback). A hot enough signal overrides the bleed.

2) Place the vocal mic at a fairly high angle, and have the singer tilt their head up to project up into the mic. This keeps excess bleed out of the instrument mic, and gets the vocal mic further away from the instrument.

3) Ribbon mics have a very deep null at the sides of the ribbon element (you can't vibrate a strip of aluminum by blowing against the edge). Place two ribbon mics horizontally instead of the normal orientation, with one pointing up at the singer with the null aimed at the guitar, and the other aimed at the guitar with the null pointing up at the singer's mouth. You can get a lot of separation this way, and still have the mics at a reasonable distance from the sources.

You can try this with condenser mics that have variable patterns -- use the figure-8 pattern and put the unwanted source in the side null. The null won't be as deep as a ribbon mic, but it works reasonably well. Two-element stereo mics (either condenser or ribbon) are a convenient way to do this without extra mic stands and booms.

This is getting beyond what the OP was asking for in this thread, but while we're talking about recording techniques I thought I'd throw it in there. :)