What to know when entering the Recording Forum

[SMX_Dizzy]

1) What's your budget? We can't suggest anything until we know what you have to work with.

2) How many mics do you NEED to use? You don't really NEED 7-9 mics for a 5-piece drumset. Unless you have buttloads of toms, you can do well with 3-4 mics TOTAL for the set, and even use some of those for other purposes (snare mic for guitar cabs, overheads for vox, etc.)

3) Specs on the computer? We can't really give you much help if you're using a 6 year-old Compaq desktop, but if you don't tell us you might end up wasting a LOT of money.

4) Do you want a stereo channel (left and right), or all individual channels? Go USB if you're fine with all channels being put into a stereo channel, but go firewire or USB 2.0 if you want all of your channels to be seperate.


Anything else, feel free to add! Hopefully this can be stickied. The majority of new threads here are "Hey, recommend me some recording stuff!" when we have no idea about their background.

[Niall McEvoy]

USB 2.0 stills only records a stereo channel, Firewire separates all the channels.

[Against]

very good thread idea! great thinking, dude.

[Jonah Hex]

USB 2.0 stills only records a stereo channel, Firewire separates all the channels.

Actually - look at the Alesis Multimix USB 2.0 gear. It outputs the seperate channels for up to 18 channels. (16 independent and a stereo pair).

Would I trust it over Firewire? No. But they do it.

[SMX_Dizzy]

5) Are you going to be doing live sound, recording, or both? "I need something for my band" is not really specific.

[Rupert Neve]

6) Specify Mac or PC.

[Gord The Drummer]

7) Take everything we say in a positive light, even if we say "hate" or "loathe" (cause loathe sounds cooler). It is a perspective thing. For example, I hate SSL consoles... but an SSL console is still better than anything I could ever hope to have at home.

The difference is that when you work in a studio, they will have larger consoles that you will get to have experience with, it's a different type of gear. So although you may hate a piece of gear at the professional level, it doesn't mean that it isn't an amazing piece of gear, it means that you don't necessarily like it at that level; but if you were at the home recording level, you would die for that very same piece of gear you hate at the professional level... you would PREFER something else professionally, but appreciate that it is still a great piece of equipment.

[MortalDrumbat]

i just want to say how brilliant you are for making this thread smx

[thismercifulfate]

8) I think the kind(s) of music you play and the type of sound(s) you want in a recording is (are) also worth mentioning. If you have a very nice kit that you're proud of and have spent hours tuning and you want it to sound on record like it sounds in person, you won't mic it with the same number of mics and in the same manner as a kit that you don't want to capture the natural sound of, but rather want to get a more "processed" sound with.

9) Know it's very easy to underestimate the cost of recording gear. When you have a budget, don't just find a set of mics and a mixer that fit it, because with those two things you're far from having a working setup! Before I bought mine, I always completely underestimated the cost of cables and stands. And the more mics and gear you get, the more of them you need, and while single ones seem cheap, it adds up very quickly!

And do you have anything decent to listen to your recordings through? If you want to produce a quality recording, your $20 headphones or PC speakers aren't going to cut it.

10) Your signal chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Get a system that is "balanced"; why get mics that cost 4 digits each if your preamps are mediocre, or buy the cheapest no-name cables you can find to save costs after spending a lot on some nice mics and preamps?

There's more I want to add, but I gotta head to class!

[eddytanhh]

.

How many mics do you NEED to use? You don't really NEED 7-9 mics for a 5-piece drumset. Unless you have buttloads of toms, you can do well with 3-4 mics TOTAL for the set, and even use some of those for other purposes (snare mic for guitar cabs, overheads for vox, etc.)

.

i do not need any mics when recording drums, i just need a laptop.

[Audiofan]

Here are some tips for a drummer entering a studio, as far as set up goes: http://en.audiofanzine.com/getting-s...a-drummer.html

Great topic!