Sverige wrote:our situation has improved a little bit. we have a cassette 4 track and a mixer (for the time being). we're planning on getting a few of those cheap ass mics, and we have 1 or 2 SM57s. any advice on how we should record through the 4 track? we want to record live (drums, bass, guitar) and any help on where to put mics would be much appreciated.

It is possible to have one mic on the drums when starting out. So much of the sound of your recording has to do with placement. And since you don't have a lot of gear getting in your way, you can actually use your time to do focus on experimentation with distance and angles. You'd be amazed at the difference in sound quality and tone quality when putting a microphone slightly off axis.

I have a friend who gets inspired by his limitations. It makes him excited to see exactly what kind of recording feats he can pull off with the sparest of gear.

That said, when I was first recording bands into my 4-track I would put my mono drum mic about 4 feet above the snare. Then you spend time figuring out which way to angle it so as to get a decent balance of kick, hi-hat & cymbal. Definitely read everything you can but experimentation goes a long way.