Lo fi band - home studio on a budget? Please help :)

[lechatnoir]

Hi guys and gals, my first time here, so please be gentle I'd really really appreciate it if someone could help me out

I'm the singer/guitarist in a lo fi duo called le Chat Noir, I guess you could say we're a Black Keys/White Stripes-type band with a dash of good old-fashioned 50's rock'n'roll spirit. We've been knocking our some very basic demos of our stuff just using a really old, cheap mic stuck in the middle of the room (!) and it's been okay for our purposes because I've managed to make the recordings quite vibey and raw. You can see what i've been up to so far at http://www.myspace.com/chatnoirband.

However, we've been getting some interest from labels as well as a lot of positive feedback from fans, and I'd really like to take our recordings up a notch. I want to achieve a much better initial recording, though of course we still want to keep a fairly lo-fi vibe overall (it's just our sound!). I've just ordered an AT2020 for vocals after reading some positive feedback, I think it'll suit my fairly trebly vocal, but I'd really like to now invest in some drum mics and a mixer of some sort.

We're on a really tight budget, say £200-300 ($600?) for the whole setup. I have a good PC with a Creative Audigy 2 sound card and Adobe Audition 2.0, so I'm not too bothered about upgrading that area - my plan was to get drum mics and run these (along with the AT2020 on my amp?) into a mini mixer for a basic mix, then into the sound card's line in. I was thinking perhaps to keep things simple two overheards and a kick mic would be the best setup, as perhaps for the budget 3 okay-ish mics would be better than a 7-piece set of rubbish.

Obviously I'm not expecting miraculous results from this setup, but remember it's a lo fi vibe anyway so I'm not after the unreasonable idea of a perfect sound for that kind of money!

Please, please, please, I'd be most appreciative if somebody could give me some advice!

-x-

[max cooper]

Look, I think it's great to take an interest in recording your band yourself.

But understand that if the immediate goal is to make some better recordings to send to A&R, management folk, and/or to sell at gigs, I'd say in the interest of your band's career, book some time at a solid yet not-too-pricey studio.

But I'm not saying you shouldn't learn recording. I got into recording the same way you're getting into it.

But it's easy to get sidetracked and if the band is good and has a spark, maybe focus on that for the moment.

[djui5]

Originally Posted by max cooper

Look, I think it's great to take an interest in recording your band yourself.

But understand that if the immediate goal is to make some better recordings to send to A&R, management folk, and/or to sell at gigs, I'd say in the interest of your band's career, book some time at a solid yet not-too-pricey studio.

There are great "indie" studios, that are inexpensive, and can retain your lo-fi vibe quite well.

[lechatnoir]

Thanks for the responses guys. I know there are some good low-budget studios around, but I guess I like to be able to record things at home - especially as I find it really helpful to just bang stuff down whenever I feel like it. Though I guess you could argue that i don't need a better setup for that! aaaanyway... have decided to take a little plunge and invest in a pair of overheads from Red5 and an Alesis USB mixer and see what we can muster. Thanks for the advice anyway!