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Thread: Band demo recordings

  1. #1
    Forum Member hi-watt357's Avatar
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    Band demo recordings

    I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but I just never got around to it until now.

    We recorded some demos late last year, and it was about as DIY as you could get. I recorded the majority of the instrument tracks one-at-a-time in our practice space using a Tascam DP-008. Our guitarist (Jimmy) has a sound design/audio post studio with Pro-Tools, and he recorded all of the vocals and a couple of guitar overdubs there. We dumped all of the .wav files from the Tascam into Pro-Tools at Jimmy's place and he pretty much mixed all of the tracks (with input from the rest of us). There are some things I would have done differently in mixing (like making the kick drum more present), but they're demos, so we decided that they were good enough to put out there and get shows booked, etc.

    Some notes of interest about the recordings:

    • All of the drums were recorded with four mics and dumped down into just two tracks...the little Tascam only has two inputs.


    • Jimmy used my Vox AD60VT (with a couple of his own dirt boxes in front) for almost all of his guitar parts (he's the one playing all the leads).


    • On "Love And A Hand Grenade", all of the guitar tracks were done with Vox Valvetronix amps of some ilk. Both Jimmy and Gib used my AD60VT for their parts, and I added a guitar track using my Vox VR30.


    At times the process was a pain in the ass, primarily because we would have rather tracked live as a band, but we worked with what we had, and I think the results came out pretty good considering.

    So without further ado, I give you...Hot Wives
    "I got Jackie Onassis in my pants." - The Dictators

    - Scott.

  2. #2
    Forum Member boobtube21's Avatar
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    Re: Band demo recordings

    Dig it! What mics did you use? What mic setup did you use? snare, kick, 2 overheads?

  3. #3
    Forum Member hi-watt357's Avatar
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    Re: Band demo recordings

    Quote Originally Posted by boobtube21 View Post
    Dig it! What mics did you use? What mic setup did you use? snare, kick, 2 overheads?
    Thanks!

    On the drums, I used a AKG D112 on the kick, and SM57 on the snare and two MXL 991's for overheads. I ran those through a little Phonic mixer with 4 XLR inputs. I mixed the kit as well as I could sitting out in the hallway of our practice space with headphones on. Then I panned the kick and one overhead left and the snare and the other overhead right, and went out from the mixer to the left and right inputs of the Tascam for my 2 tracks of drums.

    It wasn't ideal, obviously, but that's the gear I have currently.

    For all the guitars, on each take, I used an SM57 close, off-axis from the cone, along with a MXL 990 a couple of feet away so we could play with textures when it came time to mix. I think there might have been some guitar track overdubs that were recorded with only the SM57, but I don't know which ones.

    Bass was only recorded with mics on one track: "Love And A Hand Grenade", and that was the D112 on the 15 and an SM57 on one of the 10's. "Hand That Bites The Feed" is the direct out from a Hartke amp. "Electromagnet" is direct into the Tascam. And Gib recorded the bass for "Here Come The Fakers" at his house using Pro-Tools, so he used some direct interface for that, but I don't know what.

    For vocals, I think Jimmy use a MXL V67G or some mic that looks like one of those.
    "I got Jackie Onassis in my pants." - The Dictators

    - Scott.

  4. #4
    Forum Member Skip's Avatar
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    Re: Band demo recordings

    enjoyed the music!


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