home studio setup help please

[stratotone]

What I like doing is recording everything live, make sure the drum track was good and then replace everything else if necessary. I could cut it down to this and then overdub the rest:

Do you have complete separation of the instruments? If you don't the bleed into the drum and vocal mics and to a lesser extent the bass/guitar mics is going to probably preclude you from replacing much without messing up your mix.

I do bass, guitar (God bless the axe fx!) and keys direct for the first 'live' pass. Right now since I'm using the V-Drums those are direct too, only thing 'live' right now are vocal mics and usually those get replaced too. I just get lost without vocals... it's mainly to get a good drum performance, then I'll redo the other parts as necessary one at a time. I haven't recorded acoustic drums much, when I did it had a little vocal leakage but nothing that bugged me too much. I am setting up two rooms - a control room and then the 'main' room. drums and everyone would be in the main room, would put lead vocals in the control room so they could sing without the leaking stuff.

My hope is to get this where I can do decent sounding fun recordings for me and friends... and that friends who play drums can be cadged into doing the V-drum set as it makes my life about 50x easier. I can get a decent (to me) acoustic drum sound, but I really like how squealie does it with the midi recording and then slate drums. It would be like reamping guitars.

Man, I thought learning to play guitar in the 80s was hard! This recording stuff is insane

Pete

 

[Bob Savage]

Sounds like a good plan, Pete.

 

[squealie]

My hope is to get this where I can do decent sounding fun recordings for me and friends... and that friends who play drums can be cadged into doing the V-drum set as it makes my life about 50x easier. I can get a decent (to me) acoustic drum sound, but I really like how squealie does it with the midi recording and then slate drums. It would be like reamping guitars.

Man, I thought learning to play guitar in the 80s was hard! This recording stuff is insane

Pete

Acoustic Drums, really is the 'boundary'. It makes everything about the studio twice as big, 4 times as difficult, and 10 times more expensive than the V-Drums route. Then, as mentioned above, you'll get to waste a year learning, and 2 years doing, drum replacement.

There is a middle ground.

Before the really good late model drum samplers, like Slate/ocean way/etc .... sampled cymbals were pretty bad. And most 'acoustic' drummers still complain about the feel/response of the hat and other cymbals in a v-kit. Snare too. I've had success by doing v-kicks, and v-toms, and using a real snare, cymbals, and Hat. put a d-drum trigger on the snare, and record that MIDI along with a mic on it doing audio. Stereo OH on the brass and snare really keep the 'live drums' vibe going, while still giving you some control over the output later on. And you only need 4 channels of audio to get going.

These days, I tell my drummer to STFU about his stupid feel. He's a fucking drummer for fucks sake. Play the MIDI kit, cymbals and all, and if your lucky, I'll just quantize your ass instead of replacing you with a loop. I'm getting much better results sonically, and life is SOOOOO much easier.

Just like direct guitar. Its a comprimise for the situation. In a perfect world, we'd all have a great acoustic kit, in a great room, with great mics/pre's on every thing...kinda like James Lugo's vid.

 

[Bob Savage]

These days, I tell my drummer to STFU about his stupid feel. He's a fucking drummer for fucks sake.

I don't understand. Is the drummer less important than a guitar player or something?

 

[squealie]

These days, I tell my drummer to STFU about his stupid feel. He's a fucking drummer for fucks sake.

I don't understand. Is the drummer less important than a guitar player or something?

My drummer is.


Naw, Bob. It was an attempt at humor. But in honesty, the ends justify the means, for me. If the final product is easier, and sonically superior (in my case, not everybody's, admittedly) ...then I have essentially forced my drummer to use the v-kit. He complained, endlessly. Until he began to realize, that it works (for us) way better. Another huge impact that it had, was that his ability to contribute with arrangements improved. No longer was drum recording a rush job, because of the setup. He could sit down, with the scratch tracks, and work out his parts without the pressure, or fatigue from pounding clatterbang drums.

Honestly, I'm just trying to be helpful, and share some experience here. I've spent years, I mean YEARS researching and experimenting with DIY drum recording. Bad drums ruin rock records. I should know, I've done loads of bad drum recordings.

So my statement stands. And I doubt that my post was your first encounter with hyperbole. I don't know why it is that I've always rubbed you so wrong. But I don't mean to.

 

[stratotone]

Thanks to everyone. I think I am about to spend some dough... just a few more quick questions:

1) Since I would be interfacing say the mackie 16 channel FW into my PC, I could record 16 tracks, then overdub 16 more (or a few more, whatever) into the program as long as I had horsepower enough within the DAW to handle the extra tracks, right? (and I looked it up, I can run 16 tracks back into the mackie for 'analog style mixing' but it's not a control surface.)

2) For the midi thing, I could use a midi interface (I have a Tascam Mk II and a Maudio Fasttrack pro) and record the midi'd drums at the same time as the 16 channels above, just sent to a midi track on the recording software (as long as it supported midi recording). right?

If the answers to 1 and 2 are yes, I'm about to bust out the wallet.

Pete

 

[squealie]

Thanks to everyone. I think I am about to spend some dough... just a few more quick questions:

1) Since I would be interfacing say the mackie 16 channel FW into my PC, I could record 16 tracks, then overdub 16 more (or a few more, whatever) into the program as long as I had horsepower enough within the DAW to handle the extra tracks, right? (and I looked it up, I can run 16 tracks back into the mackie for 'analog style mixing' but it's not a control surface.)

2) For the midi thing, I could use a midi interface (I have a Tascam Mk II and a Maudio Fasttrack pro) and record the midi'd drums at the same time as the 16 channels above, just sent to a midi track on the recording software (as long as it supported midi recording). right?

If the answers to 1 and 2 are yes, I'm about to bust out the wallet.

Pete

Yeah to both. If you have a recent PC, in good health, the track count won't really affect you. My i7 doesn't bat an eye at 70+ tracks of audio + realtime samplers, Slate, and FX.

The MIDI thing should work fine. It should sync, as long as your DAW supports using multiple interfaces simultaneously. Most do.

 

[stratotone]

BOOM, did it. Bought a mackie 1640i - 16 mic preamps, more than I'll ever need but I won't be pissed later if I DID ever need it. Bought a demo, with a $200 rebate until the end of the month, I'll be in it for $200 more than the price of the 1620i which only has 8 mic preamps.

thanks Squealie!

Pete

 

[squealie]

Enjoy!

 

[Roland]

You're gonnna love the pres on the Mackie bro! Very clear and flat. One important question bud, what are you computer specs?

Squealie,

Thought I'd let you know what I think about you and all your good information.



Two motha fucka, TWO!

 

[CaseyCor]

Nice Pete! I really like those Onyx interfaces. Looking to get the same one you just bought in the near future.

I still love recording acoustic drums with a million mics, so I need the 16 inputs for sure.

I've also got a Alesis digital drum kit that I use for scratch tracks when recording. I like to either record me/the other drummer playing my kit, or just use the brain to sample a MIDI track created in Logic. I use that to lay down the bass, guitar, and vocals. Then we go back and spend time on recording real drums. I love recording drums, but I hate the pressure/time it can take, so I like to do it last if I can. Get everything else out of the way while using the MIDI track, so then I can focus on nothing but drums, instead of being worried about all of the other work I have to do. And having all of the other tracks done individually instead of live gives me plenty of space to tinker with the drum sounds, and frees up all of my equipment for use on the drums. By doing it this way, I'm not limited to how many mics I can use because I have to record bass/guitar/vocals as well.

Get everything else out of the way, and then give me 16 inputs and a relaxed environment to spend time recording Acoustic Drums

 

[Bob Savage]

Naw, Bob. It was an attempt at humor...

So my statement stands. And I doubt that my post was your first encounter with hyperbole. I don't know why it is that I've always rubbed you so wrong. But I don't mean to.

Sorry mang, missed it.

I don't recall a history with you but if we have one, it had nothing to do with my response. I've actually heard people minimize the importance of drummers and bass players, so thanks for the answer. I still prefer micing a nice acoustic kit but you're right, it's a lot more work than setting up to use triggers and it's a heck of a lot noisier.

 

[Roland]

Nice Pete! I really like those Onyx interfaces. Looking to get the same one you just bought in the near future.

I still love recording acoustic drums with a million mics, so I need the 16 inputs for sure.

I've also got a Alesis digital drum kit that I use for scratch tracks when recording. I like to either record me/the other drummer playing my kit, or just use the brain to sample a MIDI track created in Logic. I use that to lay down the bass, guitar, and vocals. Then we go back and spend time on recording real drums. I love recording drums, but I hate the pressure/time it can take, so I like to do it last if I can. Get everything else out of the way while using the MIDI track, so then I can focus on nothing but drums, instead of being worried about all of the other work I have to do. And having all of the other tracks done individually instead of live gives me plenty of space to tinker with the drum sounds, and frees up all of my equipment for use on the drums. By doing it this way, I'm not limited to how many mics I can use because I have to record bass/guitar/vocals as well.

Get everything else out of the way, and then give me 16 inputs and a relaxed environment to recording Acoustic Drums

Hmmm...I never thought about it that way. I like your brain!