Hi, my band and I are going to self-record an EP this summer. This is what we have right now:

a Boss BR-532 Digital (yeah, yeah, I know..) Recorder
a Shure sm57
a Radioshack Boundary Mic (We'll probably have two of these soon..)
various cheap Peavey and Radioshack mics that we use live..
a Behringer UB802 Mixer
and a computer with Adobe Audition (Cool Edit Pro 2), Acid Pro 4.0, Wavelab, Fruityloops, and other programs.

We want to get a decent, cheap condenser mic that's good for vocals and also a mic that's good for kick drums/bass amps. We don't have very much money at all and any recommendations would be appreciated.

We're also having problems micing the drums..it's either too tinny..just too damn high..or we can't hear the snare or kick very well. Any input on how to mic these the best we can with what we have would be really, really great.

Thankyou for your time!

BeanMaestroFresh wrote:We want to get a decent, cheap condenser mic that's good for vocals and also a mic that's good for kick drums/bass amps. We don't have very much money at all and any recommendations would be appreciated.

You can probably find a Rode NT1-A on eBay for $150. That's probably good enough to start with. You can get a $50 AKG bass drum mic in Guitar Center right now (be warned: it will sound like a $50 bass drum mic!) but it'll be a start.

BeanMaestroFresh wrote:We're also having problems micing the drums..it's either too tinny..just too damn high..or we can't hear the snare or kick very well. Any input on how to mic these the best we can with what we have would be really, really great.

Try putting the SM57 under the snare rather than on top (assuming you're using it for the snare!). Experiment with it. If you get a condenser, consider using that as an overhead and then boosting the low end to get more of the bass drum.

Or, save the money that you would have spent on a condenser, sell the SM57, work your asses off at the weekends to make a bit more to add to the pool and spend it on time in a semi-decent studio. If you pick the right place, you should end up with a better sounding EP than what you can do yourselves, and you'll learn more about recording in the process. My first band did something very similar to this while we were in high school, and we were very happy with the results. We spent 6 hours tracking and 4 hours mixing, and we got 6 good sounding recordings of our crap songs.

i also spent time in a studio as a young'n, but didn't go in with enough of an inquisitive sense to learn as much as I could.

So i say hang on to your gear and experiment with it. Also, read a lot... this board is full of great information. There are some threads that talk about ways to mic drums using only a few microphones.

My (unprofessional) advice: use the best gear you have (i wouldn't waste my money messing around with radioshack mics... four $30 radioshack mics are not nearly as valuable as, say, an audio technica Pro37R or that NT-1.) Keep things simple... which you may not have a choice about anyway, since your gear is limited--you only have two mic pres on that mixer and probably don't have more than 4 inputs on that digital recorder, so do the best with what you have. Learn about signal-to-noise ratio, headroom, stereo mic techniques, room acoustics. Play with the stuff until you realize the limitations of your gear... then, when you realize why your efforts only sound so-so, you can go into that studio with questions.

Also, all the digital gizmos make it easy to get distracted by things like software eq, compression plugins, and so forth. I'd advise trying to get a decent sound without touching any of this stuff. I wasted many an hour years ago fucking around with Sonic Foundry software trying to get stuff to sound right, not realizing that the original signal was a piece of shit to begin with, unable to be rescued.

good luck.

oh, folks here have lauded the AKG D112 as a good bass and kickdrum dynamic. I think they're about $125ish on ebay.

BeanMaestroFresh wrote:We're also having problems micing the drums..it's either too tinny..just too damn high..or we can't hear the snare or kick very well. Any input on how to mic these the best we can with what we have would be really, really great.

the drum sound on this song was achieved with an almost identical setup to what you're describing (i had a tascam porta 1 to use for mic pre's/mixing, and a PII computer with Cool Edit Pro on it) using only two mics, i know one was a SM57 on the kick and floor tom, and i forget what i used on the snare/hihat/rack tom, it woulda either been an SM58 or an Audio Technica Pro37R... just two mics, the SM57 very near the floor tom and kick drum, only a couple inches away from each of them, and the other mic woulda been in the space between the kick drum, the snare drum, and the hihat, pointed upwards toward the snare, with some foam or a washcloth layed over the top of it in a way that it didn't obscure the straight line towards the snare drum, but the noise from the hihat (which would be coming from the side of the mic) would have to travel through the foam/thick fabric before it got to the mic. both of the mics would be only about 6" or maybe 8" off the ground, as i didn't own stands, resting on chunks of foam, pointed upward toward the sound sources.

if you're only gonna buy one mic, i'd look for a cheap EV RE-20. folks speak very well of it as a kick drum mic, and it might do alright for some vocals too. the Pro37R as a drum/room mic would also be a good addition, as i think the drum overheads are crucial to a good drum sound. the sound in the recording i linked above is fine, i think, for a 2-mic approach where there's no pair of anything, much less a pair of nice condensors. but i'm much happier with the sounds i can get now, with a nice stereo pair for drum OH's.

don't even use those "cheap" mics, or radioshack mics, or whatever they are. if in your mind they're worse sounding than the SM57, you probably shouldn't ever use them. introducing more crappy mics will totally crap out your sound. you'd likely do better to just use a single SM57 than to use an SM57 and a handful of crap mics. or i think so anyways.

hey, good luck, and have fun!

Learn everything you can. This board is a great source of information, but don't limit it to here. Knowledge is far more valuable than equipment (to an extent) IMOHO. I got into recording the same as you, looking to record a EP in junior high. Take your time about it, make up for what you lack in equipment with technique, patients and time.

With your budget in mind:
-I would follow everyone's suggestions and get a condensor microphone for a single overhead. A drumset without one would sound very dark and lack personality. The Rode may be a good choice.
-Look around ebay or MF for a kick mic that's in your price range.

Make sure you're not being over-anal about the whole thing. Evaluate what's important to you. For example, try posistioning the overhead to pick up cymbals and toms and use some other mics to pick up the snare or kick from different places to blend together later. For me atleast, the sound of the snare and kick is more important than if every tom is the same volume or able to be panned perfectly. Decide what's important to you, and prioritize.

From what I've seen recording is a very trying experience and will create some inner-band disputes/problems, and reveal some conflicts that weren't that apparent before... especially with high school bands. I suggest that the night before starting the recording process have the band sit down and discuss what's on their mind, and everyone agree to try their best at communication and being understanding with each other's concerns.

Good luck, have fun, and once again learn everything you can... you can never learn too much (hell, you can never learn just enough, either.)

gio wrote:oh, folks here have lauded the AKG D112 as a good bass and kickdrum dynamic. I think they're about $125ish on ebay.

i got mine on ebay about a month ago for $75.

if you look and be patient, you'll find a good buy.

and i definitely agree with reading whatever you can. i started reading this board a small number of months ago, and i feel like my knowledge has more than doubled in that time..

good luck

We got pretty good results micing the snare with an SM57 on our self recorded EP - Our drummer actually has a set of Audix drum mics - 5 of them, i want to say.. We also have a Marshal MXL (dunno the model number), but it was the first time we used it. As an overhead, it worked really well - Large diaphragms tend to be more sensitive than hand mics (ala SM58, or the Peavy mics you mentioned before) - But we also used the Bass drum mic in the set to catch some low freq's of the bass.. It kind of muddied the sound, though, and we ended up recording the bass direct.

By far, the best results I got from recording was doing it live with (gasp) three mics. We had one hanging overhead (higher freq mic), one on the ground (low freq mic) and a large diaphragm about 6 - 8 feet away from the band (in front) to catch the amibience. We didnt record the whole EP this way, only 2 songs, but IMO, those two tracks have a more natural sound that the rest of the EP is lost on. Experimenting is the best way to get good results, and self recording lends itself quite readily to this notion. Try different things and figure out what works best for the sound you're trying to achieve. My problems always came from laying the vocals down.

Best of Luck!

Thankyou very much for the input, everyone.

We're planning on borrowing some drum-mics and a larger mixer from a band-member's church. Hopefully we'll be able to figure it out - and if not we'll just save up money and go to a decent studio around here, as mentioned in this thread. The setup we have right now in my basement is adequate for some decent demos, which is what we'll use it for from now on.

Come up with $300 and I'll give you 3 days at my home studio. Cheaper than buying gear!