Recording a band all at once.

[StackedSax]

Heya guys, wonder if anyone could shed any light on some of my questions: I want to record my band in the studio playing live. It's a large band: a 10-piece funk band, with 5 horns, drums, organ, bass, guitar and lead vocals. I'd really like capture the chemistry of the band, and feel that's only possible by playing together live. I was envisioning the type of recording setup that was used in Stanton Moore's debut album "All Kooked Out!" They essentially had everyone playing together in a room, but separated by Plexiglass barriers. Hopefully this will allow for some reasonable amount of isolation on the mics, but still give the players the feeling of playing live. The question is mainly on the equipment necessary to capture such a moment. With this many mics: 5 horn mics 1 guitar mic/input 1 bass mic/input 1 organ mic/input 1 lead vocal mic 3 backup vocal mics and drums might take 6-8 mics.. So let's say a maximum of 20 inputs. Minimum might be 15 if we didn't use the backup vocal mics and took a few off the drums. If I want to record all at once, what sort of DAW hardware do y'all recommend? Particularly, I need to know: 1) What sort of hard-drive bandwidth will that many inputs require? Will 7200rpm IDE drives be enough? 2) What sort of breakout box and/or sound card will support that many inputs? I've seen MOTU has a 24 input box, but it seems to have a maximum recording quality of 24 bit at 48kHz. I am under the impression that I might want to get at least 96kHz in order to play with the sound in greater detail. The recording technique of not having complete isolation may be questionable to some (or many), but the real question here is about the equipment that I need should I decide to try it this way.. So those are my initial questions, more may follow.. Thanks to anyone who can lend some insight... -StackedSax

[AudioMaverick]

Take a trip through my web site (link below)... particularly the "Tid Bits", "Process" and "Computer" links. I need to bring some of the pages up to date. But, you'll get the gist... You may be interested in the samples of my latest recording, the band "Possibly7". These guys played live, but all over my little house (Ihave notes). Just a suggestion on the horns -- you might try to set up a matched stereo pair and have them play in the space. A little trial-n-error on the height and width should give you a nice field. Of course, they sould be able to control their volume, together. Good luck on your recording! {Dang typos!}

[Steve LeBlanc]

[quote]I am under the impression that I might want to get at least 96kHz in order to play with the sound in greater detail.[/quote]I think that would be totally unnecessary...I know of a few people who recorded their albums with MOTU...they sound excellent. 24bit is more than enough to play with...but don't take my word for it, ask around.

[where02190]

Depending on how oftern you are going to do this, it may be to your advantage to just record in a studio rather than purchase and then learn how to use all this gear. You will need interfaces, a good computer, audio and video monitors, possibly a console, headphones and amps for them, good mics, preamps, stands, tons o cabling, some good dynamics processors, a good room, this can quickly become 5 figures. Studio competition is feirce, and with a bit of research you can certainly find a facility that you can get a few hundred hours for the kind of money you'll be spending on this set-up, and they (unlike you) will be experienced professionals with their room and equipment. Not that I am trying to talk you out of putting a recording set-up together, but it is way more than just having the gear. the key is knowing insitinctually what to do with it, which comes with years of experience. Hope this is helpful.

[Tedly Nightshade]

It's true, a lot of momentum may be lost by the time you get all the computer gear set up and troubleshoot everything, let alone deal with all the actual recording issues. A STEEP learning curve, will take you months minimum or even years to get the best results. What you are describing, everyone playing live at once, should be a fairly inexpensive project to take to a first class studio. IF you are all really tight and performing well together, for which mucho rehearsal and gigging is the best approach. If you get tight enough, you could potentially track the whole thing in mere hours in a nice studio with a fantastic big old tracking room and a really good engineer. "Just a suggestion on the horns -- you might try to set up a matched stereo pair and have them play in the space. A little trial-n-error on the height and width should give you a nice field. Of course, they sould be able to control their volume, together." I agree strongly, but you will need a really good room, and these are fairly hard to come by, Ted "

[StackedSax]

Well, ok, but assuming I still want to do it this way, what do you all suggest I get to interface with my computer? Thanks, -A

[where02190]

Well, assuming you got a huge budget to do this right, A Protools TDM or HD rig gives you the flexability to go to almost any facility to mix, and is the industry standard. What do you have experience on? Certainly that is what you should be using. Are you also one of these musicians? Wearing both the engineer and musician hat is damn near impossible, and your recordings will suffer. Studio time is cheap these days. Why buy what you are not familiar with to create a second rate project. Go into a good studio with a good engineer, and hopefully the ensuing recording contract will allow you to then at your leasure put together a decent project studio. Bottom line you are looking at a good $30K minimum (exclusive of the facility itself) to do this even close to right. That buys a crapload of studio time.

[StackedSax]

Thank you for the suggestion of the protools stuff, I have been looking at that as an option. Clearly, I'm interested in trying this myself, so any more advice on particular equipment that I would need to start would be most appreciated. -Alex

[Rog]

I'd avoid PT like the plague - it has a VERY expensive entry fee, the stuff is superceded every few years, meaning your investment is worthless (check out the prices for older PT hardware at the moment) too soon and, to top it all, it doesn't even sound very good. I'd get a shit-hot PC, RME Hammefall and your choice of software (Sonar, Nuendo, etc.) and the very best convertors you can afford. After that, you want a decent desk, some good pres and some good plugins (Waves are worth a look) As an alternative, check out the Radar system and dump the audio to a PC for editing, etc.

[Tedly Nightshade]

How much editing is going to necessary with this live in th studio funk band thing? Maybe get a RADAR Project, track it all (that's the time taker) and take it somewhere posh to mix it. I'd skip the plexiglas, myself. Baffles can be good but reflective ones don't seem as good. Or get the whole band to sound good in the room- that's what they're for, right? Ted

[SFOracle]

For this type of situation, check out Phil O'Keefe's setup. I believe he uses the Yamaha AW4416CDHD (actually 2 of them) for tracking then transfers to ProTools for editing. This is an exceptionally portable rig. You could find a really good sounding room and record live there. Then transfer it all over to you favorite DAW for editing at home. It also gives you a real hardware surface for mixing and a CD Burner for a relatively moderate initial investment.

[strat0124]

I just did a bluegrass band Saturday with five instruments and three part harmonies. It was challenging for sure. Not having any isolation, I put em in a semi circle and let their natural band dynamics come out (no headphones). It was cool to see them come down in volume when a lead break came, and then sharing the breaks, all done naturally. The vocal tracks suffered the most, but the instruments sound fab. So there'll be vocals to redo and thats about it. They were really practiced before they came in and that helped alot. There was some bleed but its not that bad, really musical bleed! :) Fun but it wore me out....I had a gig that night as well.....still in recovery mode.

[gtrmac]

First a disclaimer. I would go to a studio for the mics, the room, and to have an engineer to setup and run the equipment. For recording a 10 piece band a major consideration would be the room. I would want to have a large room with good acoustics. This would influence the sound of the recording as much as the equipment you used. Having said that I will recommend the following. I used my setup but I took it to a studio and connected it to the console there and used the mics and equipment in the studio. I'm assuming you have a lot of money: Yamaha O2R96 Pentium 4 2GHz PC, 2 ATA-100 HDD 512MB RAM RME Hammerfall 9652 audiocard Steinberg Nuendo I've used Nuendo to record a live session and it worked without problem. We ran it for 10 hours of tracking overdubs and mixing without a crash or reboot. But I spent a lot of time learning how to set up the Windows optimizations and hardware so that it worked this well.