Help needed w/ home recording

[infinitedreamsix]

My band has started recording our first demo. We have decided to do it ourselves at home with the equipment at our disposal. A little background as well. We are a prog rock/metal band, two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards. We have done two recordings with this set up and they are on our myspace at myspace.com/waitforsleep2008.
The recording set up we have is as follows:
-Computer running the latest Pro Tools(that I'm aware of)
-Digidesign Mbox 2
-Cad set of drum mics
-M-Audio Nova condenser
-Audix I5 mic
-Yamaha Mixer for the drums into the interface.
The instrument set up is:
Mesa Stiletto(one guitarist), DC-5(other guitarist) both through recto 4x12 cabs. My bass is going through an Eden WT330 head(DI) through a Mesa Powerhouse 1200 cab.
I was just looking to get some tips on how to make things work in the most efficient way and sound the best for what we have. One problem we have been having is the "blanket" sound. Any tips or info would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

 

[Astiletto]

This is the recording we threw together, just a quick sample of the tones we got. The equipment is everything listed above. The mic is placed between the dust cap and cone of the speaker. I ran a high pass filter to help with the "woof" of the dc. The guitars were recorded in my garage at a decent volume. Any advice or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1030004

 

[jlomonac]

hey! you have almost the exact same set up that i use in my band. the way we do it, we have 1 guitar, 1 bass, and drums, we play the same prog/metal. the drum mics go into the yamaha PA, then we have both mics from the guitar and bass amps (guitar amps is a dual recto 2x12 cab, bass is a Peavy combo amp) we use shure S57 for the amps. the mics are also connected into the PA, from the PA we get both L and R channel into our Mbox 2 mini (only has 2 inputs). everything is mixed in the PA such as levels and any pan. the disadvantage is that we only get one track in Protools since everything comes out of the PA together. you can check our sound here www.myspace.com/prytheband, the voice on this tack was recorded separetly. we got compliments from the voice studio on how well the instrumental track sounded even though its all in one track. give it a try!

 

[VijfZiel]

Wait for sleep:

I've heard your music! To me, it sounds very nice!! Congrats!

The only thing I noticed a little bad are the drums. The snare's wire sounds a lot! (Awaken) I think it's the way you put the mic. I recommend to record the drums in an studio to get the tracks separated.

This is what to do to the master to give it more shine and volume. Get a software called peak pro. In it you will import only the LR bounce. When you're done, insert the Tracks plug-in (this one DOES NOT come with peak pro). Search for the "masters" presets to get an idea of how it would sound like. It gives you defintely a better sound. You can try too with transient monster. You can also send me the master if you get some problems, don't worry my friend.


Pry:

Nice music! I will appreciate to hear more from you. Toms sounds awesome.

 

[VijfZiel]

Wait for sleep:

I've heard your music! To me, it sounds very nice!! Congrats!

The only thing I noticed a little bad are the drums. The snare's wire sounds a lot! (Awaken) I think it's the way you put the mic. I recommend to record the drums in an studio to get the tracks separated.

This is what to do to the master to give it more shine and volume. Get a software called peak pro. In it you will import only the LR bounce. When you're done, insert the Tracks plug-in (this one DOES NOT come with peak pro). Search for the "masters" presets to get an idea of how it would sound like. It gives you defintely a better sound. You can try too with transient monster. You can also send me the master if you get some problems, don't worry my friend.


Pry:

Nice music! I will appreciate to hear more from you. Toms sounds awesome.

Forgot to say!!! The master is distorted!!! Watch out for that!!!!!

 

[infinitedreamsix]

Thanks for the awesome responses. I'm glad you enjoyed the music as well. We are going to be re-recording those tracks as well with the others for the demo. On Awaken, the drummer got a new snare and heads for it I think the day before so it did that session, as he called it "too snare-y". But we now have a new drummer recording with us that has more experience recording and more aware of what needs to be done to make the drums sound good. I have a friend at the college i go to that has offered to do the drum tracking so we can separate everything out, the only problem is finding the right time between the drummer, guy tracking and that room being open lol. About the master, ya I've noticed it peaking and dist. too, we will defiantly watch for that when we mix the others. Any other wise words to offer? lol thanks again!

 

[VijfZiel]

Glad it helped!

The drums are very difficult to record, not only because of positioning mics and phase problems, the real problem comes within the drum quality and the musician! Try to use at least 3 mic, but I recommend 8, but I know that nearly no one has 8 mics in house! Any doubt you get with tracking feel free to contact me!

 

[jlomonac]

VijfZiel thanks! we put a lot of work just to record the one song! i still think we can record with a better quality, we just need the time to set up everything perfectly hehehe. we're thinking of uploading one of our instrumental tracks soon, should be awesome!

-pry

 

[VijfZiel]

No problem jlomonac! Don't hesitate in sending me the link to your song to listen it!!

 

[jay_q]

Sounds cool.

The only thing is the AD/DA converters in the MBOX are known in the recording industry to be rather sucky so I would suggest picking up one of the Rosetta AD/DA converters. ALthgouh they aren't cheap, you will get a great bang for your buck for years to come with it with respect to sound quality.

Jay