I NEED HELP WITH HOME RECORDING

[Gamete]

PLEASE COULD SOMEONE HELP ME??

IM DOING HOME RECORDING WITH MY BAND USING A BOSS BR-8 8 TRACK

FIRST WE RECORD OUR RYTHM GUITAR THROUGH LINEOUT OF OUR AMP, THEN INTO THE REORDER....

THEN DRUMS GO DOWN WHILE LISTENING TO THE GUITAR TRACK THROUGH HEADPHONES

WE RECORD THE DRUMS WITH 2 BERIGHNER MICS, ONE IN THE MIDLE AND ONE NEAR THE RIDE

THAT GOES INTO OUR 100 WATT PA THAT THEN ONLY HAS ONE SPEAKER (FOR MONITORING THE DRUMS)

THEN WE RUN A CABLE FROM LINEOUT FROM THE PA TO THE MIC IN ON THE RECORDER.....
WE DO THAT BECAUSE RIGHT NOW WE DONT HAVE A CABLE THAT CAN GO STRAIGHT FROM THE MIC INTO THE RECORDER BECAUSE THE THE RECORDER TAKES 1/4 INPUT CABLES.

I KNOW THAT I SHOULD RUN A MIC DIRECTLY INTO THE RECORDER BUT WILL THIS WAY WORK UNTIL WE GET THE RIGHT CABLE??

IF ANYONE COULD HELP ME IT WOULD BE SO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!

THANKS

[Herman Munster]

I might approach things a little different. I'm not sure how the Boss works, but assuming it can generate a click this is how I'd do it.

1) Record a scratch track of the whole song with guitar and vocal just using one mic. The guitar player/singer should monitor through headphones and use a click at the appropriate tempo.

2) Record the drums with the 2 mics. I might do 2 overheads or one overhead and one in front of the kit, but play around with it until you get the sound you want. The drummer should monitor through headphones as well and play with the scratch track and click. It should not be a problem to run it through the mixer, but be careful as this could create some noise depending on the mixer and the way things are routed.

3) Bass is next in the same way
4) Guitar next
5) Vocals last

There's not a right and wrong way, but this is how I'd do it. It sounds like your using a monitor in the room which could create a feedback loop and other problems. Hope that helps. War Eagle!

[Gamete]

hi mike!

do you know what a "bypass" is? i seen it in the recorders LCD and wondered if it will take all the effects out of the recorders prossesor while recording guitar/bass and drums.......?

can you help?

thanks alote !

[Herman Munster]

I would assume that it is an effects bypass. Check the manual. If you don't have it you might be able to find it online. Hope it works out.

[smy1]

Am I the only one smelling a troll here?

[lowfreq33]

Originally Posted by smy1

Am I the only one smelling a troll here?

Not necessarily, he could be just a noob.

[bike guy]

Probably not a troll, but definitely a Bama fan.

Roll Tide Roll!

[lowfreq33]

Oh, that's worse then.

[ClaySchmitt]

CAPS LOCK = CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME

[kafka]

Originally Posted by smy1

Am I the only one smelling a troll here?

I don't think so. Caps lock aside, he has a real question. It's not like he's asking us to write his term paper for him or tell him how to bankrupt daddy.

You might have some issues with that setup, Gamete. On the BR-8 the 1/4" MIC ins are balanced TRS inputs for MICs. They have a different impedance than the line out on your PA. You'd do better to run your line out from the PA into the RCA line ins on the BR-8. I assume your line out on the PA is just a TS. You can pick up a pair of 1/4" TS to RCA cables at Radio Shack. If not (i.e. if it's balanced TRS line out), you might be able to use the 1/4" TS to RCA cable, and just plug it in one "notch" instead of all the way.

I agree that first recording a scratch track might be the best start. Just record the whole band with your 2 mics. Don't worry about how it sounds, because you're going to delete it later. You just want to get the arrangement and feel down so everyone feels good when they play along to it. Re-record the bass and drums at the same time. The bass player can go directly into the BR-8. Then do guitars. Have the singer sing along to your re-recorded tracks instead of the scratch track so pitch problems don't throw him off. This is just one way to do it. Whatever works for you is the best approach.

[Gamete]

yea i figured that we had something wrong....

and the vocals werent coming out right nor the drums when recorded out of the pa into the recorder.....

so i geuss were just gonna say **** recording until we get a cable....

id rather just get the right mic cable so we can go stright into the recorder rather then bying the out cable that we need....

thanks though!!!

[Herman Munster]

War Eagle! I do think he's just a noob and this is low end theory right??? I suppose Bama fans do belong in the "low end" forum

[kafka]

Originally Posted by Gamete

id rather just get the right mic cable so we can go stright into the recorder rather then bying the out cable that we need....

BTW, which mics are you using? Are they phantom powered?

[w_stylz]

You should just stop this and go out and buy a Pro Tools HD System tomorrow!!!

[Gamete]

actually i think the mics i have are phantom powered, they say phantom on the mics... lol so yea

they are made by berighner (i dont know how to spell it)

and just because im from alabama? that doesent mean i go for the football team, actually i hate football, and mom recently passed away, she went for auburn, so im with her if im with anything! lol

anyway enough with the football crap........

yea i am sorta a noob... so what? you gotta start somewhere.....

peace

[darjama]

Since you need phantom for the mics, you can get a separate phantom power supply to run them without the PA:
Audio Technica CP8506 48VDC 4-Channel Phantom Power Supply from zZounds.com!

or get a mic pre with phantom. For short $, these aren't bad:
ART Tube MP The Original from zZounds.com!
M-Audio Audio Buddy from zZounds.com!
Behringer MIC2200 Ultragain Pro from zZounds.com!

If you have a few extra $ to spend, I'd get the preamps. that way you can run 4 mics at once into your recorder. Of course then you'll be tempted to buy more mics...and stands...and cables.

[Gamete]

thanks so much everyone!! everything is really helping me.
if i need anymore help ill be sure to post a new thread

[Chadlington]

3 words

57's
Mackie
VCR

[kafka]

Originally Posted by darjama

Since you need phantom for the mics, you can get a separate phantom power supply to run them without the PA:
Audio Technica CP8506 48VDC 4-Channel Phantom Power Supply from zZounds.com!

or get a mic pre with phantom. For short $, these aren't bad:
ART Tube MP The Original from zZounds.com!
M-Audio Audio Buddy from zZounds.com!
Behringer MIC2200 Ultragain Pro from zZounds.com!

If you have a few extra $ to spend, I'd get the preamps. that way you can run 4 mics at once into your recorder. Of course then you'll be tempted to buy more mics...and stands...and cables.

Haven't worked with the above pre's, but yeah, you're going to need phantom power if you want to get the PA out of the chain. Now, the output of a mic pre is at line level and impedance and is usually balanced. So once again, you'd have to convert to the unbalanced RCA line ins, rather than using the MIC ins. The AT 48v phantom power supply above may be your best solution.

Or, get yourself a couple of Shure SM57s for $100 each and forget about the phantom powered mics for now. Everybody always ends up with a bunch of SM57's anyways, so I'd probably go for that if I were you.

[serraprop]

i actually used the br-8 for quite some time (until i upgraded) and got some great home recorded results out of it once i learned what it's good for. but 100mb zip discs? ugh....
- first thing you should do is go out and but a cheap behringer (or other) mixer with phantom power and rca inputs for your mics. Put 2 or 3 mics into that...get some different levels, mix them and then go into the rca 'line in' input on the br-8. You'll probabaly get some better results that way than what you're doing now. This way you can also use the mics on your amps instead of going direct...
- yeah, the bypass option cancels all the effects.
- the click track guide is worth using first since it's super easy to play along to.
- some of the built in effects on that thing are pretty decent too--the room reverbs etc.

Try and get some decent sounds from the br-8 and then transfer em into pro-tools.

good luck

[Aaron Miller]

FIRST WE RECORD OUR RYTHM GUITAR THROUGH LINEOUT OF OUR AMP, THEN INTO THE REORDER....

I bet your 8-track has a hi-z input and some decent guitar amp/cab modeling. Why not just plug the guitar strait into the recorder? Same goes for bass.

Better yet, spend a couple hundred bucks on a pair of 57's and cables and mic your cab. Use them on drums too, maybe combined with the Behringers you have; one on snare, one on kick, two as overheads or out-in-fronts. I'd keep the bass direct into the recorder.

What the other people said as far as order is right:

1) scratch track with rhythm guitar and vox. You can record them to seperate tracks, do a quickie mix on them and then bounce down to one mono track to save space.

2) Then drums, bass, rhythm guitar and finally lead guitar and vox.

And one thing, if you don't use a click track and there is a part of your song in which drums are not going to be present (typically an intro, a pause, etc.), make sure you click the sticks to keep time. It totally sucks when you've recorded the drums to the scratch track, then erase the scratch track and realize that there's nothing to keep time.

Good Luck!

Oh, I forgot to mention, check to see if your recorder accepts 250 Meg zip disks. I have some some extras that will never be used and would be glad to send them. PM me if interested

[Gamete]

finnaly!!! someone with the boss br-8!! lol hey man

yea the zip disk are pretty frustrating, our drummer had to do like 6 takes because i forgot to restart and save the guitar track, that way he could do as many takes as he wanted too, because you can just restart the recorder and it brings all the time back... =] that took some experimenting lol

anyway,yes we have been looking for a good cheap behringer (or other) mixer with phantom power. we are just kinda slacking on the cash lol. due to where we live its really hard to get jobs here if your hair is long. not only that its just a really small town and all the rednecks get the jobs.

but, what would i do with the rca input cable? im not sure as to what exactly i would hook them up too....im geussing out of the mixer into the rca inputs on the recorder?

yea thats what i thought the bypass did, since when i turned it on the effects buttons light turned off. yea ive used the click track alote and find it very helpful!!

i get really confused when trying to put effects on... im not sure how to exactly go into the recorder and edit the effect.....

anyway thanks for the help it is really really apreciated!

i knew something was wrong with the setup but wasnt sure...

THANKS AGAIN

[serraprop]

cool man...
when you're in the effects mode...let's say you plug your guitar into the "input 1" guitar in input. Rotate the "big knob" until you find an effect you like then use the right arrow across and the down arrow down until you come to the "edit" key--press enter then you'll see how that specific effect is constructed. You can turn a compressor on or off, change the attack/sustain/effect level of the compressor, change the mic distance from the amp, turn eq on or off, add delay or doubling...tons of stuff. The effects are different for the Vocal channel and the line in channel but the same approach to changing the settings applies. Once you make your own setting you can "write" it to your br-8 and it will save it for future use.

[serraprop]

yeah you would go rca out of the mixer into the rca "line in" channel on the boss. Once you get the mixer (prob $45) try and use it for everything until you get a better rig. keep it goin into the rca channel (you don't have to record it stereo everytime..guitars etc) and treat it like a pre-amp. it's easier if you just think of the br-8 as the final step of the process rather than a one-stop unit.

[Gamete]

serra pop,

ok that sounds pretty simple and i think i remember seeing edit but didnt know how to go to it.. what a noob i must be lol thats common sense... lol

what exactly does a commpresor do? and what is attack and sustain? i know what level is lol

would it be better to have he eq on of off?

could you send me a link of the cheap behrighner mixer that i will need?

i would really appreciate that man..

what do you mean i dont have to record it stereo everytime?

thank you alote

[serraprop]

you can get a mixer like that anywhere...guitar center, ebay...you name it. as for the other stuff....just record whatever sounds good to you..eq on or off...whatever, if it sounds good press record.
if you're recrding the drums you should record em to stereo (i.e. tracks 1&2, 3&4 etc...) but with guitar, bass, vocals just record on one track.

[Gamete]

im still not sure what exactly im looking for....

a mixer with phantom power abbilities?

a mixer with europower?

i would really appreciate a link.

a cheap on between $30 and $100 would work for my budget... thanks alote

[Gamete]

i need RCA cables to go from my PA line out to the inputs on my boss-br8 recorder....

i think this is right, so maybe i can get 2 tracks with this?

we have no panning on our PA, its a cheap 100 watt sound choice with level, low mid high and reverb knobs 4 channels

AV Link Dual RCA - 1/4" Cable and more Audio / RCA Cables at GuitarCenter.com.

is that link what i need to do so?confoo sed

thanks for any help.....