Recording 4 Piece Band 16 Inputs.. Suggestions?

[jamievespa]

Hi there,

I don't post around here much but I could do with a few suggestions from fellow members

A band I know would like to do some recording, they would prefer to record live as the performance as a band is a big part of their sound.

I'm currently studying at Birmingham Conservatoire and have access to fairly well spec'd studios. As they want to track live I could use the studio equipped with a Yamaha 02R desk and the larger of the 2 patchbay equipped rooms (16in).

So really I'm after suggestions for what to use for these 16 channels, the band is a 4 piece rock/pop group with drums, 2 guitars, bass, lead vox and full backing vox. I was thinking:

BD/SN/OHL/OHR = Drums = 4
Guitar 1 = 1
Guitar 2 = 1
DI/Cab = Bass = 2
Room = 2

I just can't decide on Vox, would you get the band to do scratch vox live and send that through everyone's cans and then overdub single voxs? Also what about backing vocals during the actual band tracking?

Cheers for any help you can give me

Jamie

[AnthonyRochester]

Keep it simple for the musicians, but get enough mics recorded to give you enough control when mixing. You'll want more than 4 mics on the drums, and you can if you have 16 tracks to record to and enough gear. 2 different mics on the kick drum can be useful. Mic each tom if you can. Do record a guide lead vocal for people to hear when recording, but if backing vocals are done by the band, they might play their instruments better if they don't have to sing as well.

[jamievespa]

Yeah I was suggesting just a basic drum kit mic up however I think I can afford to go to town a little more.

Good point about the backing vocals too!

[libertine]

I'm starting a similar project tomorrow. We have 24 ins, but for the sake of control in the mix, here's what I'm doing:

- Micing drum kit with 12 mics, including stereo room
- basic SM58s for the singers to sing a live scratch with the band
- DI'ing the guitars and bass into Pro Tools with an Amp Sim for their monitors, then Reamping later.
- Overdubbing lead instruments and vocals after the fact

This way, the band still gets to play in the room together, capturing all the vibe of the performance, then I have all the control I need in terms of keeping guitar/bass bleed out of my drum mics, and still having great, real-amp sounds for those instruments.

[apdv1]

Do you have 16 inputs or 16 tracks. If you have 16 inputs get the best drum sound you can and worry about the rest later. Everyone plays together but you can add guitars, vocals etc. if its 16 tracks I would do 7-8 drums to leave enough for everything else.

[jamievespa]

I have 16 inputs, so now I'm probably looking at a full kit mic set up then guitars, bass and vox