Live off the floor recording

[chille01]

This is a question mostly for the recording engineers.  I know there were a few on the old SR.com jam room, but not sure if any have made it over here yet.  Also for anybody that has bothered to do their own recording, or had experience recording. I'm tracking with the band next month, and we are going to track the band together to get a real performance vibe.  We've tried recording one instrument at a time with the click before, and it just doesn't jive for what we do.  So we want to get at least the beds with the band all playing together.  We may go back and overdub guitars after the fact, but we want to original bed tracks to be the band playing together.

So... we have a small studio with a live room, a green room, and a control room.  I am trying to decide if I should set up just the drums in the live room, and put the amps in the other two rooms and track with headphones... or if I should just set us all up in the live room, keep the amp volumes down and hope for the best?  The live room itself isn't anything special, and I don't think there is any great "room sound" to be had on the drums.  It's small and treated to a certain degree, so the sound is pretty dry.  So really the benefit of keeping the drums alone in the room is that the drum tracks would have minimal bleed from other instruments, and make it easier to add some reverb etc. after the fact.

  I've read about some fairly big names tracking with everything in the same room, and just being creative with partitions on the drums, and how they place the amps etc.  The simplicity of this appeals to me.  Just rocking together without headphone mixes and shit to worry about.  However, I fully understand that I sacrifice instrument isolation by doing it this way.

I don't know... I could go on and on about it... but maybe I should stop here and get some opinions first.

[spookstrickland]

I think for that great band vibe feel to come through you need to track in the same room with out headphones.  Having "Cans" on your head can be a real groove breaker especially for something as physical as drumming.  I think guitar players and bass players are less effected but it seems to really put a damper on the drummer.

Also turn your amps way down as low as you can get them and the drummer can still hear them good enough.  I know it sounds lame turning down.  Your amps if you close mic them will still sound good and the drums will sound huge because they will be able to reverberate around the room with out the guitar and bass eating up all that space.

When you overdub leave your amps where you had them crank them up loud and then use a mic a little further back to catch the room sound.  It will sound huge and it will all blend together and sound like it was recorded all at the same time.

Cheers

[Ranbat]

Some of the last recordings I did with my last band were live. I just used low foam walls to help cut down on the bleed through. Basically we had these foam walls about waist high and most all the mics were lower than waist high. There were a few that were higher on the drums, but the cabs were lower than waist high so it didn't bleed into those mics much.

[Volume]

I think for that great band vibe feel to come through you need to track in the same room with out headphones.  Having "Cans" on your head can be a real groove breaker especially for something as physical as drumming.  I think guitar players and bass players are less effected but it seems to really put a damper on the drummer.

It shouldn't be a problem if you're a good drummer. In fact it should be better because the drummer can decide the balance of the other instruments according to his requirements.

As for the click track. It doesn't have to be there for the whole song, for example you can start out with a click and drop it in the last solo/chorus/whatever and let the tempo go up for a more rocking vibe.

The last album we did really backwards, we didn't have a drummer so we recorded the songs with programmed drums and a friend of ours came in and laid down the drums last after most of the other stuff was recorded. It's not the best way to work, but in that situation it was the best option and we're all really happy with that album. For our new album we're going a different route. The drums are in their own room, but there will be some bleed from the guitars in the other room. Hopefully this will give it a better vibe/feel even if we don't use those guitar tracks. We're actually going to record the drums for six songs mon-wed.

[peyotepeddler]

Some of the last recordings I did with my last band were live. I just used low foam walls to help cut down on the bleed through. Basically we had these foam walls about waist high and most all the mics were lower than waist high. There were a few that were higher on the drums, but the cabs were lower than waist high so it didn't bleed into those mics much.

that was my thinking, i've seen it done with 6 inch foam, and also plexiglass


still some bleeding, but no deal breaker

[db3jed]

When you all track in the same room with amps and drums then bleed is gonna' happen.
The trick is to make the bleed work for you or at the very least not against you.
The key really is how you mic the drums and with what mics.

I've recorded like this on several different occasions with excellent results.

You almost need to view the recording as a "live mix" if you are in a small room and can't get away from each other (which is a detriment to feeling close and connected which is the purpose of recording like this in the first place).
So, after miking everything, you should adjust mic/amp/player positions until what comes back at you through the studio monitors sounds good.

Now, you just need perfect takes because due to the bleed, you will not be able to punch in guitar/bass overdubs because the original bum note will still be in the drum tracks.
You might be tempted to try to gate the drum mics but I've never had any satisfactory results with this type of recording.
It sounded very unnatural.
(You also really shouldn't sing during the tracking for the same reason or sing it right and stand where the bleed through vocals will work in the mix. Not an ideal situation.)

Spook had a decent suggestion but rather than trying to keep amps low (which you're not used to anyway) balance everything against the drums (in the room) and if you need more guitar/bass in your final mix then either overdub additional tracks (with the amps in the same position as Spook suggested) and mix to taste or, if you're dead set on sounding like a "live" three piece (or whatever) then simply track a D.I. of ea. stringed instrument (i.e.; guitar/bass to direct box(es) to tape/disc on separate tracks) and re-amp the D.I. signal and record to another track.
Now you have multiple tracks of the stringed instruments derived from one take of ea. instrument.
Re-amp boxes can be had for very affordable prices these days.
I use the Radial ProRMP and love it.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ProRMP/

Sorry for the blog but hope it helps.
Good luck!

[chille01]

No need to be sorry.  This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for when I posted this.  I guess I'll have to talk to the guys and see if they think we have those "perfect takes" in us.  We did our first record this way years ago, though we did put the amps in iso booths.  But we didn't do any overdubs at all.  That might be taking it a little too far in the "totally live" direction though this time.  Part of me really likes the idea, and another part of me wants to have the opportunity to experiment with mic placement and get the best sounds for each instrument we possibly can... which may be contradictory to keeping it all in the same room.  Ultimately it will be a band decision. 

Do you all think it is really just flat out impossible to redo guitar or bass tracks if we all track in the same room?  I don't mean punch ins on the odd note here or there... I mean go back and track the entire guitar track over again after the fact.  I would think that whatever bleed get's into the drums mics would be negligible once all the other tracks are layered on top.  If we do the initial setup carefully that is.  But maybe I'm wrong about that.

[db3jed]

Do you all think it is really just flat out impossible to redo guitar or bass tracks if we all track in the same room?

No it's not impossible.
With amps in the room you're gonna' get bleed into the drum mics. It's just pretty much unavoidable.
How you set everything up is going to dictate to what degree everything bleeds.
Every room/mic setup/band position yields something completely different.
Just play with all of that until you get something that gives you tracks the band can live with.

[VOLVO)))]

I've done a fair amount of home/jam room recording, the foam walls are the best way to go. I've always turned the cabs away from the drums, and stuck foam between 'em. Mics that aren't omnidirectional, like SM57s, directly over the drums almost completely eliminate bleed, at least make it not as noticeable.. The overheads are what pick up the amps. I usually keep those fairly low because I slam my cymbals, and snare, so it'll overpower everything since the snare is waaaayyyy up. Brass snares are loud as fuck.

[lordfinesse]

Do you all think it is really just flat out impossible to redo guitar or bass tracks if we all track in the same room?  I don't mean punch ins on the odd note here or there... I mean go back and track the entire guitar track over again after the fact.

We do this all the time. I think doing this actually adds some ambience. It can add even more interest if you play the new part a little different than the original, especially for a guitar part.

[tossom]

The key I think is being able to see each other - and use headphones.  So depending on what level of musicians are in the band, if you have a screen through to the live room record the drums alone in the live room, mic up a bass amp in the control room and line the guitarist in using a multi fx unit and have him overdub later.  If you cant do without the singer, stick the fucker in a corridor somewhere with long leads to do a guide vocal. 

Every recording I have done with overdubbed bass has sounded like shit, think a perfect take of drum and bass gives a solid foundation to build on.  Ideally, as you said, use isolation booths but if you can't what I mentioned has worked for me - and bands I have worked for.

What spook said about overdubbing guitar is spot on, I loved room mic'ing amps.  If you have the gear you could try close mic'ing with a cardiod (SM57) and using condensers as room mics and seeing if you can get a blend. 

Or... Here is a tactic I read about when studying, it actually applies to drums (think Led Zep used it) -

Gate the room mic, so they only open up when you are really pushing the amp.  I have always imagined it would sound interesting, never had the chance to try.  I'll shut up now.

[chille01]

Yeah Tossom.  That is basically the other option.  Either we put everything in the live room and place mics as carefully as possible to minimize the bleed, or I put the two guitar amps in the green room and the bass amp in the control room.  We all still jam in the same room, but with headphones.  It isn't really the use of headphones I don't like... it's having to fuck with headphone mixes and splitters.  I've been in situations where you're standing so close to the drums that you have to crank the cans to hear anything else, which harshes on your ears pretty quickly.

Plus it almost seems like a challenge to me now... I'll have to pay really close attention to the drum mic placement and choice if we put all the amps in the room with it.  Not that you shouldn't anyway, but doing it this way just seems like a fun puzzle to me.  Of course, I probably have my rose tinted glasses on pretty securely too.