You and your band have written some killer songs and you’re about to start recording your stuff, and you are being tasked with doing the recording and most likely the mixing. Below are some essential tips for recording your own band. These are some of the things I’ve picked up after almost 30 years of playing in bands, and recording several albums of my own bands.
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PLAN EVERYTHING
Go through all of the songs mentally and make a note of what instrumentation you’ll be needing on all of them. A couple of them might need some percussion, another one some acoustic guitars, keyboards or some weird fx of some sort.
Once you’ve done that, set up your recording sessions in whatever DAW you’re using for every song with all the tracks you know you’re going to need for your first tracking session ready to go. You really don’t want to be wasting time doing that on tracking day.
Also, have a good idea of what gear you’ll be using for what – and make sure everything’s actually working. Troubleshooting stuff with your whole band there is just horrible, avoid that at all costs.
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IT WILL TAKE A LOT MORE TIME THAN YOU THINK
This is where almost every amateur band fails miserably, again and again – and most of us have been there. Proper recording really is putting your playing under a microscope and highlights everything that isn’t perfect. And nothing is ever perfect. This is exactly why doing some sort of preproduction is absolutely crucial.
We know the story. You want to record the basic tracks for 10 or 11 songs in one weekend. Well, let’s be honest here. Unless you’re all seasoned players with impeccable timing and chops, that just isn’t going to happen. If you want a great result, that is. A lot of us have learned that the hard way. What pretty much every young band does is rush through it and then notice all the mistakes afterwards that sometimes can not be fixed without doing it all over again. Don’t do that.
Aim for about half of that, and instead do things properly over 2 or 3 weekends, not counting time for overdubs. Even better, a full week during vacations or something like that. Get the foundation right first. This will keep whoever’s doing the editing and mixing from going batshit crazy, and your stuff WILL sound a whole lot better.
Another thing I’ve found works well is keeping the initial sessions to just rhythm tracks with maybe a guide vocal. That way you can sort whatever editing you need to do before starting to pile on overdubs.
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TAKE TIME SETTING EVERYTHING UP
As the recording engineer, it’s vital that you do this properly. Don’t just throw up a few mics here and there and just hit the record button. I’ve tried.
Go over the drumkit and make sure it’s tuned well and has fairly new heads on it, and that it doesn’t have any rattling parts or squeaky pedals and stuff like that. Use as little dampening as possible. A little ring and resonance is a good thing – it helps with kit elements poking through the mix, and you can always get rid of the worst frequencies with surgical EQ. Much better than trying to add something that isn’t there.
Having a few extra cymbals and snares around that you can use for certain songs is also a smart thing. If you don’t have any, borrow from another local drummer or something like that. And don’t even try recording your kit with the über-cheap cymbal sets that often comes with the cheaper drumkits. You can quite easily make a cheap drumkit sound good, but entry level cymbals? NO WAY. That can’t be done.
Then there’s obvious things like making sure guitars are well setup and intonated, and that amps doesn’t have faulty or microphonic tubes.
Now’s the time to set up mics. For initial tracking, use your best microphones and preamps for drum overheads (stero pair is recommended), kick and snare drum. Everything else can pretty much be redone later if needed, but if your drums doesn’t sound right, your mix is going to suck. Guaranteed.
Raise your cymbals as high as possible without it getting uncomfortable for the drummer, and use the microhones polar pattern to minimize bleed.
Example: a microphone with a cardioid polar pattern will reject other sounds well at 180 degrees – in other words the back of the mic where the XLR cable is plugged in, at least on most dynamic microphones. So, in general point the back of the mic towards the element you want the least possible blead from.
As for guitar amps, spend time getting mic placement right. Move it around until it sounds great, instead of doing whatever a certain YouTube «guru» says you should do. There is no default placement that works for everything.
And lastly: make sure every band member is happy with their monitoring. This is vital for getting good performances. Ideally you should all have separate mixes so each of you can hear what you want.
Fortunately most of the modern multi channel audio interfaces has some sort of mixer software included where you can set up individual monitor mixes with no latency. Failing that, an external mixer can also be useful for this purpose, I’ve frequently used digital mixers for this.
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BLEED OR ISOLATION?
Bleed between instruments tracked live can be a wonderful thing. It does add a certain glue to the whole sound when done right. It does require a few things though.
First of all, every player in the band needs to really know the songs inside out and know exactly what they should be playing. Not only that, but it needs to be exceptionally tight. If you find that you for example need to start editing guitars heavily that has a lot of drum bleed in the tracks, you’re screwed.
Secondly it can get even worse if you’re all playing in a small room that isn’t treated acousticallly.
More often than not, the best solution is some sort of isolation, and there are several ways you can go about it.
Easiest way is having your bass player record direct, and placing guitar amps or cabinets in a different room if possible. Yeah, it means long cable runs and stuff like that, but usually it’s what keeps people pretty happy during tracking.
Another good way is recording all guitars direct and using amp modelling gizmos (such as Kemper, Axe-Fx, Boss GT boards, Eleven rack or similar) for monitoring during tracking, and later reamping those DI tracks using either real amps or modelling software if necessary. Some guitar players in particular can be really fuzzy about doing it this way though. I know quite a few that just can’t play well without having «their» sound.
Another alternative is an iso-cab or similar, which basically is a wooden enclosure padded on the inside with acoustic absorbtion, where you put your cabinet and mic inside. Quite expensive though, unless you build it yourself (results may vary).
Trick here is figuring out what suits your band, and what you have available.
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AGREE ON DIRECTION
Given the music, it might sometimes be obvious, but it’s something to think about. Every band is different. Some bands are really stuck on everything having to sound exactly like it does live, while others love a bit of extra production. And in many cases, within one band members have different tastes production wise. Important thing is you all agree on what kind of sound and production you’re going for BEFORE you start mixing. This really saves you a lot of frustration further down the line. Not uncommon that suddenly a band member throws a fit because he can’t stand the overall sound for whatever reason – usually the singer who isn’t loud enough, and needs way more reverb and delay on his/her voice than is sensible. JK of course. 😉
Tip: it might be smart having one of the guys in the band have a listen or take part during the mixing before the rest of the band hears it. Easier to avoid a «you vs the rest» scenario that way.
Remember: no matter what you do, every band member will never be entirely happy with everything in the mixes. Mixing basically is a series of compromises where you eventually end up at some sort of middle ground where everyone is relatively happy.
Good luck!