Room to Studio.

[a1rflow]

Hi, im on a mission to create a pretty large room into a nice studio. It doesn't have to be professional or anything, just as long as my band and I can record what we want to record, and jam when we want to jam.

I need to know exactly what we need. First things first, our PA system sucks. We dont really have a singer yet, but we are planning on getting one, and usually we all sing when we feel like it. (thus needing a PA system.) Now in order to record, I understand that you need a mixer and all that, but It just confuses me so much. I don't get anything about recording.

We need to mic drums. I've heard that's insanely hard to do for a newbie like me. We also need to mic our guitar amps, and I have no idea how to get the sound from our amps to CD. (As long as we get it on our computer, we're good. :) )

I understand we're also gonna need a computer. We have plenty (my band mate has lots of old ones that im sure we can reformat and clean up to make a pretty decnet computer.)

Anyway, I hope you all get my problem now. I would be willing to read lots of material to get this down. This is my mission. :thumb:

[10571z]

wats ur budget wat currency

[ebv-dave]

I'm speaking from experience of renting out similar rooms, but from what i've seen, miking up your guitar amps is pretty simple, you just put it infront of the speaker, (the closer the better), you can also just put your amps straight into the PA system, if you have a line out. Drums are slightly more difficult, 4 mikes are the least you'll need, obviously the more the better. This would be one mike for the bass drum, one near the snare and high-hat, and one near the floor tom, or cymbals. This would sound quite empty one a recording, so you use the last mike (preferably the best mike as well), to go over the drum kit, this makes it souns alot better, you just get a deeper feel to the sound.

With the recording it really depends what you want to get, if it's for recording onto a cd, you may have to spend some money. My band tend to record things just for our purposes, so we can hear what a song sounds like, and think of ways to improve it, or for the singer to write lyrics, this doesn't need as good a recorder. What we use is a Korg multitracker, which was bought from eBay for about 170 pounds. This has an inbuilt microphone, placing it in the room will pick up all the sound fine, and a usb to put it onto a pc, and you can convert them into mp3 files using DbPoweramp.

[a1rflow]

Thanks for the replies.

To 10571, our budget is currently as low as possible (we are poor, yes.) and since we live in the US, US dollars.

[a1rflow]

Oh yeah and since it has an in-built microphone, the quality won't be as good right?

If we were to use those regular recorders, would we plug 1 of our amps as a line out to one track? Or would we mike our guitar amps, and the mike would go to track one of the recorder?

And to record the rest of the song, we would continue on recording track 2 by miking another guitar amp, and track 3 by miking the drum set. Right?

[ThePinkPanther]

the line out of guitar amps is a big no-no, mic it.

[BlackNoiseAudio]

K. Here we go.... Mic the cab, closely with a dynamic mic (sm57, etc) move the mic around, on and off axis with the cone of the speaker until you get the tones you want. Drums can be done with 3 mics if you are willing to spend some time moving mics until they sound good. Kick drum is neceesary, snare drum is necessary. A decent condenser in a good position above the drum kit, will pick up everything else pretty good. It's tough to do, but it can sound just as good as 7 or 8 mic setups. Put everything on it's own track on your recorder. The main thing to remember is that moving your mics just a little can make all the difference in the world. Play with them until you get the sound you want.

[10571z]

Thanks for the replies.

To 10571, our budget is currently as low as possible (we are poor, yes.) and since we live in the US, US dollars.

but can you give us a number??? like $2000- $4000 or sumtin

[shishin]

Ok...I built my studio a little while a go and my pesonal favorite way to go is with a firewire interface. Go on to musicians friend, then to recording, then to hardware and some of them should come up. I'm hopefull that you have a faily good computer, that's fairly important. You wouldn't want it quitting on you. But back to the interface. I think the best option for the price is a Presonus Firepod. I believe it has 10 inputs so you should be able to do all the instrments at once if desired. It comes with cubase software so you have something to mix it all with, and I belive it has up to 48 channels in the software so it should be more than enough for any backing tracks you wanna do. So that right there is gonna be 600 witthout tax.
Now, the next thing you're gonna wanna get is mics. I know that there are people that are willing to spend 18 hours doing the drum sound with four mics and make sound great, but just in case you aren't interested in that, I think the best solution is just to buy a pack of drum mics. You can get packs of 4 to about 7 depending on your needs. Brands like Nady and CAD range from about 60-200 dpending on which pack you get. These aren't the highest of quality, but if you use the software on cubase and equalize them and just play with where you position the mics, you should be able to get a pretty great sound. Personally, I was pleased with a recording I did with the CAD 7 pack that cost me about 215$ or so with tax. so with both of these, you're lookin at a little under nine hundred with tax.
A vocal mic can be bought fairly cheaply as well. I'd look for just a cheap MXL mic. They're pretty good for the price, andd you'll have money for other things later. Now you're at about 1000$
YOu can use the bass drum mic to record the bass if you wish, or you can go direct in. If you do it right, it can sound great.
For guitars you may want to look into an sm-57. They are complete work horses. They can be used for drums, guitars, and I know a few big artists have used the for vocals too. I use 2 for my guitar, but I like to over do things alot. But back to the guitars, record with the sm-57 placed about three inches or so from your cab. The play around with angles or whatever til you get the sound you want. If you have a line out on your amp, and you have an extra input, you way want to try recording direct from the amp too, and mix them together . 1100$ or so now.
Now, you may want to get a few pre amps to give your sound a little more depth. I'd say, go Bheringer for each of these...they're cheap, and they sound pretty good for the price, and after all, its better than nothing. So if you buy 2 or 3 you're gonna be around 1500.
Lastly, a big one for recording is sound conditioning. Now, I'm not gonna get into using diffusion and sound dampening, because if you're doing it right, $$$!! So instead i'll give you methods of just dampening. Sond dampening is used to get rid of reverd and noise that'll be bouncing all over the place, and give you a cleaner sound. There are a few ways to do this. 1: put blankets on the wall. Primative, but effective. aNd its easy to take down if you wish. 2:Use carpet padding and put it on the walls...its pretty **** cheap and it works faily good as well..And 3: acoustic foam. It sounds amazing but its complete rape.
So if you get all the stuff you'll probabally be looking at 1700$, 1800$. But you can get things on ebay or buy them used off people for cheap and maybe save a little money. Pre amps can be found on ebay for nearly half the original price. ok...soo...I'm done for today.

[shishin]

****. I forgot monitors and headphones. You can get as many headphones as you want, but I recomend getting at least 3. And as far as monitors go, try bheringer truth monitors. YOu can get the small ones for 130$ I think.