Band recording help?

[NimbleElephant]

So me and some friends have decided to get together and maybe record a little music, just for our own satisfaction. We want it to be as simple as possible. Maybe just record the music first and add voice later or something.

What would be the best and easiest way of doing this on a computer. Im willing to spend a little money if needed but not too much.

Any help?

[NimbleElephant]

*cough*

[DekapitatoR]

Go into a studio.

[EchozAurora]

1. Buy an old mixer and track recorder from a garage sale or a pawn shop

2. Get microphones for the drummer and vocalist

3. Use the track recorder to separate the instruments so you can fine-tune the levels with the mixer

4. Record the tracks

5. Get a 1/8" - 1/4" inch female-male adapter plug and a male-male 1/8" cable, plug one end into the mixer's headphone jack, and the other into your computer's mic jack

6. Then record off of the mixer to your favorite audio program (audacity is the free one)

7. Master and add any effects you'd like, and render to MP3.

There are other ways, but that one is pretty simple, and renders decent results depending on your skill in recording and mastering.

[jarrydn]

At 5/2/07 03:02 AM, EchozAurora wrote: There are other ways, but that one is pretty simple, and renders decent results depending on your skill in recording and mastering.

Define "decent"

If by decent, you mean a mono track with a high signal to noise ratio, then yeah, i guess it would be "decent".

[ProfessorChaos22]

Pitch in for a sound card interface, I have a presonus. It hooks up via firewire to any compatible computer. They are the cheaper kind, around $500, but it gets the job done. You can hook up line level signals (keyboards), guitars and microphones. And it's a huge space saver, it's pretty small. No problems with mine yet, although there are a lot of different varities out there, some get pretty expensive but you get more for the money (like 8 instrument inputs instead of 2). Check out the Presonus Firebox online, see if it's what you need. Other than that you can just go pick out a bunch of crappy gear like the guy above says. Have fun with your band!

[NimbleElephant]

Thanks for all the help guys!

[EchozAurora]

my crappy gear is cheap AND effective, and outputs in stereo, with built in effects hardware, plus allows you to level each instrument individually, along with tweaking the frequencies before going into the mix. =P

[Sanity-of-Insanity]

Audacity is simple and free all you really need is a Mic. It is not the greatest quality but it does a good job and is better than the Windows Sound Recorder.

[SBB]

At 5/3/07 12:58 PM, Sanity-of-Insanity wrote: Audacity is simple and free all you really need is a Mic. It is not the greatest quality but it does a good job and is better than the Windows Sound Recorder.

I don't think it'd be very good for band recording tho... really

[beatmasterJAG]

I'd record you!! I love recording ppl....cept you would have to jet set to my locale...... :[

Prolly not the most cost effective recording then.