Recording a Band at your Home Studio
Recording a band in a home studio is always a challenging part for today ’ s aspiring home studio owners . Many have the fear that the desired quality might not be reached by recording in a home studio environment , especially tracking drums . While sound treatment is pretty crucial to take care of the room reverberation , flutter echo and bass build-ups , this does not mean you ’ ll need to burn a hole in your pocket . Simple sound absorption panels on the reflected walls and bass traps in the corners should do the trick . Ok , lets us start with simple step by step approach to good recording a band at your home studio .
1 . Let ’ s start with the drums . First things first , make sure that the drummer always tracks to a click-track simply because it makes the entire post-production and editing process easier . Most people do not have an eightinput interface , so a four-channel input interface will do . Place a mic on the kick drum , one on the snare and two condensers for the overheads , this will capture the entire kit and give you a great sounding drum kit . There are plenty of mic techniques for drum recordings that require a minimal number of mics . The Glyn Johns Mic technique , for instance , only requires 3 microphones and it sounds stellar . Personally , I ’ ve recorded an entire drum kit using just one condenser mic ( a Rode NT-1A ) and ended with a great , natural-sounding output . When it comes down to it , what ’ s important is the sound and the placement of the microphones . For the kick drum , you can use an AKG D112 , the legendary Shure SM57 on the snare and any pair of small or large diaphragm condenser microphones on the overheads . That should do the trick .
2 . You can record electric or bass guitars through the direct input in your interface . If you want to record an electric guitar through a cabinet then place an Shure SM57 on the speaker . Also take another input through the DI , so you can choose to blend the two sounds if you wish . Always double track your rhythm guitars and hard-pan them to give it some width and more punch . Make sure that you vary tones while tracking a solo or lead section .
4 . Finally , we come to tracking the vocals which is often the core part of the song . Place a dynamic mic or a condenser in the center of the room to avoid unnecessary room reflections in your recording . Use the pop-filter to avoid the popping sound caused by plosives . If your room is not treated at all , it ’ s usually better to use a dynamic mic , like a Shure SM58 , because it does not pick up unwanted sounds from your recording environment .
5 . Try to achieve a good result during the recording stage itself rather than having a “ Let ’ s fix it in the mix !” attitude towards the whole thing . Always apply the 80 / 20 rule , 80 % of the work in the recording stage and 20 % while mixing .
6 . Try not to overload your session with way too many plugins . This will only push your CPU hard and is absolutely not required to get the required results . Try to use plugins effectively and only when required . Remember it ’ s all about how your sound is finally translated .
Hope these tips will help you track a band more efficiently at your home studio setup . Have fun !
Author : Baba . L . Prasad . He is the owner and chief Sound / Mix and Mastering Engineer at Digi Sound Studio . He also teaches Sound Engineering and Music Production courses . For more details , visit www . digisoundacademy . com
The Score Magazine
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