Band Recording
David Kinden - 29th July 08
There is a large number of high quality stereo soundcards and audio interfaces on the market. While multi-track setups make band recordings a lot easier, it is possible to get good results with only stereo inputs.
Firstly you have to decide if you want to record all the instruments together, or do them separately as overdubs.
‘Live’ Band Recording
If you think the band would play better together, the drum, bass and guitar microphones can be mixed with a hardware mixer and recorded to stereo tracks.
This method means once the stuff is down you have no control over each instrument. It’s best to do some test recording for a good balance first. You could pan the kit to the left channel, and the rest of the instruments to the right, meaning at least you could change the relative levels of them both afterwards. Live recordings mean any mistakes will be set in stone, so it's worth making sure the song is tight when doing it this way.
Band Overdubs
Alternately you could record each part as overdubs. If the drummer knows the song and is happy to play to a click track you might decide to use this. Be sure to check the tempo is correct by playing through the song.
Another method is to have the guitarist play along with the drummer, the headphone output from the guitar amp can be split to two headphones, one for the drummer, one for the guitarist. Headphone splitters are available from most electronics stores and are a very useful bit of kit. With musicians that know the song any tempo changes can be accommodated for. Often a song naturally speeds up slightly at choruses.
Ask the drummer to click or play hit-hats over the intro or any other parts without drums. Doing this means when it comes to overdubbing the rest of the band they have a beat to keep time to.
Vocals
Whether you record the instruments by a live recording or overdubs it’s usually best to leave the vocals to the end. This way you don’t get spill from instruments into the vocal mic, giving a better quality recording. It also means the singer is under less pressure to get all the words and notes right. By recording multiple takes of the vocal, you can listen to each carefully and select the best lines from each one. The good bits can be moved to a new track, and the bad bits muted. This technique is called ‘Comping’ because you create a composite version of the vocal line.
