Urgent help for recording studio rehearsals needed!

ijonty

I've got a Zoom H5 for recording our sessions. It's got a room mic, and two XLR inputs. But I need more and wonder if there's a clever way of doing it.

This is what we do currently:

• Room mic for the drums
• An XLR mic to one guitar amp
• Vocals first through the mixing desk, then into the other XLR

The problem is, I need to record the bass, and another guitar. At the moment, they are being picked up by the room mic, but it's really muffled.

I could buy an adapter to the Zoom which replaces the room mic with two more XLRs to make total of 4, but that still won't be enough because I'm really recording 5 (two guitars, bass, drums, vocals).

Is there something clever I could be doing with the mixing desk? Any help really appreciated. We've got another session tomorrow and I'm really keen to get a good sound recorded. It doesn't need to be good enough to stream to fans (we haven't got any yet), it's just while we rehearse songs so we can listen back and see what works best.

Thanks!

steamabacus

Depending on the desk, there are a few things you can probably do.

Firstly, you can separate two outputs by panning hard left and hard right. Then send just the vocal side to the PA, but both to the recorder.

Secondly, if the desk has one or more 'pre-fader' auxilliary sends, you can use those to send to the recorder while keeping the channel fader down - the send is 'pre-fader' and goes to the recorder, the PA is 'post-fader' (and the fader is down) and so the signal is not sent out to the PA.

Thirdly, depending on the desk, you may be able to configure further outputs - for example, some Mackie desks have a 'mute' button on each channel which also routes to a separate 'alt' output.


It would probably help to give the exact make and model of the desk.

ijonty

Hi @steamabacus that's really helpful. I think the desk might be a 'Mackie 12 channel compact mixer', but I'm not sure. 

spark240

I dont get it?....why aren't you just sticking everything into the Mackie and recording in stereo ( from tape outputs)  into the zoom 2 x XLR inputs??

ijonty

Hi @spark240, it's me that doesn't get it. I'm completely new to all this, so don't really know what I'm doing. I've not used a Mackie so making it up as I go along.

I guess what I thought I should be doing was record each input separately if possible, so I can then mess around with the levels in post. 

Do you mean mic up each instrument into the desk, then take the overall sound out of the desk? Would that mean getting all the levels bang on during rehearsal? Sorry if these are ignorant questions...

spark240

Yes , all into the desk, Guitars // Bass / Vocal direct into desk, that Mackie mixer has no other separate outputs so you are stuck with the mix at the main outs, there is no way with your kit to record separate tracks really, well 2 at the most ( The Zoom is a simple stereo recorder).

You need to step up a gear if you want to be recording tracks to mix afterwards, a simp,e way is to use something like a Boss BR800, has 4 separate inputs, you can record individual tracks then mix later.

For now one of you could monitor the Zoom inout ( our Mackie outputs ) on headphones to try and ensure a decent mix, but this would be the same mix coming from the PA which might be odd in the room. 

Or....geta 4ch cans amp and all listen on headphones ;-)

rico

@ijonty are you rehearsing at Pirate Earlsfield? I have gone through a few iterations of recording sessions there with a Zoom H1 and H4 both direct to the recorder, through the mixing desk and combinations thereof and it just doesn't sound that great. 

For a start the desks there only have 4 XLR inputs so you're limited to that. Recently I convinced the guys in the band that we need to go down the route of multitrack recorders and we got a Zoom R16 off ebay, a drum mic kit and some decent XLR cables from Thomann. We recorded our session yesterday with separate inputs for kick, snare, hi tom, low tom, single OH, DI bass, guitar and vox (taken from a line out from the mixer) and it sounds WAY better than anything we did before even if it was the first time using it.

Total outlay was about £400 which for a simultaneous 8 track recorder, 7 piece drum mic kit and 8 good XLR cables isn't that bad I don't think and between four of us is a lot more manageable. 

ijonty

Thanks @rico it’s Earlsfield yeah. We seem to spend loads of time trying to record but never quite get it right. Half of me thinks we just scrap recording and just rehearse, but we need to listen back to hear where we need to improve. The OpenLive thing they offer never seems to work either. Vocals are always way too high in the mix. Your approach sounds interesting though. Does it take long to set up each time?

rico

For the last year or so we have used the little H1 to capture ideas but the vocals are always too low. The openlive recordings always have the vocals too high! That's if the PA isn't borked and distorting really early. 

When we used the R16 for the first time on Sunday, it took us (well mainly me) about 20-30 minutes to get the band mic'd up and take some levels. This was also while the drummer was faffing about and walking all over the cables etc . Next time I reckon we can get everything mic'd up and take levels in about 15 minutes. 

If you are interested in hearing one of the songs let me know and ill export something out of Reaper. The sound quality really is miles better. 

ijonty

Hi, definitely interested in hearing something. I'm pretty new to recording, so don't quite follow exactly what you are doing, but will google R16 and see what I find...

ijonty

This what you mean? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-R16-Recorder-Interface-Controller/dp/B002HQWM2Y

rico

ijonty said:

This what you mean? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-R16-Recorder-Interface-Controller/dp/B002HQWM2Y

That’s the one! They usually go for about £180-£200 on eBay. Have a look at some vids on youtube, it really is pretty simple to use. 

PM me an email address and I’ll ping a track or two over. 

rico

In a nutshell this is what I did:

1. Mic up the drums, guitars, bass etc
2. Connect up the mics to the R16
3. Set levels so that the inputs aren’t clipping
4. Press record!

The hard bit is editing and mixing in a DAW!

Ive been watching some good tutorial vids on YouTube, I will post some links tomorrow.  

ijonty

Thanks. So are you putting vocals through the PA?

rico

ijonty said:

Thanks. So are you putting vocals through the PA?

Yeah then a line out from the mixing desk into the R16.