[LAU] Suggestions on how to improve quality of recordings?

[david]

Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
> On 19 May 2007 at 0:20, david <gnome at hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> If you listen to a few of the recordings here:
>>
>> http://www.clanjones.org/stnicks/music/
>>
>> You can get an idea of some of the quality we're getting now.
> [snip]
>> We've been told by many people that the sound people hear from the main 
>> speakers is fine - but us in the band have no idea what it sounds like. 
> 
> Can one of the band (you?) sit out for a song to see what the mains 
> sound like?  Even if it was just during a rehearsal, you might learn a 
> lot.
> 
>> The guy doing our mixing says he is trying to mix it to match what he 
>> hears from the mains.
>>
>> Anyway, suggestions? My experience with recording anything was back in 
>> the early 70's in a garage band environment!
> 
> Any chance you can sit in on the process?  That might really help
> you to understand where it's going wrong.  I'd first try to see
> if the individual tracks sound OK.  Then I'd try just a vocal mix
> to see if that can work.  Likewise an independent instrumental
> mix.  Then a full mix.

Thanks, I'll mention that to our sound guy (also named Kevin, BTW - and
he also used to play drums for us!). Awhile back, he offered to give me
the raw tracks, so I could see what they were like - I'll take him up on
that and give them a listen.

> It sounds like it was recorded with mics
> in the room, and that the mics were maybe far from the musicians.

Our Kevin says we get a lot of bleed through into the vocalists mics
from the monitors. We don't have the money for in-ear monitors. The
instruments (except the crash cymbal and congas, if audible) are being
recorded directly. He has no idea what we can do about that. Perhaps
there's a way to cancel the instruments from the vocal tracks?

Not knowing which track you were talking about, Sunday before last (for
Mothers Day) we had three omnidirectional condenser mics set up along
the front of the stage so everyone could hear the 40-some-odd Sunday
school kids sing two songs. I don't know if they were on or off when the
kids weren't singing.

> But, on one track I heard the guitar like it was right next to
> me, and the bass comes out fine sometimes.  Hmmm.

Yes, our Kevin said he was trying to punch up the guitar and bass, in
response to people saying that they weren't coming through very well.

Our guitarist made the belated discovery that each of the effects
settings he uses has a different output level - so now he needs to go
through them individually and adjust the output levels so they're the
same. Then at least the sound board crew doesn't have to compensate for
a guitar input that's all over the map when it comes to levels.

> For what it's worth, we get much better results at our church
> using a cassette recorder mixed live off the main board by the
> same person running the main mix and stage mix at the same time.
> I say that not so that you'll copy our setup, but so that you'll
> have confidence that your recorded sound has potential to be
> better.  I play drums and also run sound, although most of the
> time I don't have to do both anymore.

Our Kevin used to record directly off the soundboard's line out
connections to line-in connections on his laptop - I don't remember why
he switched to using the A/D converter box, maybe the sound coming off
the line out wasn't good or he was having problems with the line-in on
his laptop.

If I could get recording working on my laptop, I could try recording a
service sometime.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community