Recording a rock band demo

eyeborg · Post by **eyeborg** » Sun May 21, 2006 11:53 pm

Is it worth me having a go? Live is the only audio app I know (I'm a beginner to intermediate), and at this stage none of us in my band want to pay lots of money to a studio+engineer after previous bad experiences with a very dull sounding result and empty pockets! Has anyone here tried this? Any tips, warnings, tricks, stories, advice etc are welcome.

Our set-up is very simple: 1 male vocal, 1 guitar with distortion, 1 bass (me), and a drummer. No fancy fx's or other 'stuff'. The style is alternative metal/rock.

Hope to hear from you!

- grete

stinky · Post by **stinky** » Mon May 22, 2006 12:34 am

wouldn't see why not, but for one reason!! :

multitrack recording depends on the speed of your computer and harddrive..

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Mon May 22, 2006 12:58 am

u can just track everything in arrangement view much like a traditional
DAW. Then switch from take to take by switching the enable envelope.
Works out pretty easy.... Can then sub-mix the tracks into mixes for
effecting... off to master track...

-Ben

abletoff · Post by **abletoff** » Mon May 22, 2006 1:00 am

I do it all the time. The best hdds and the more ram you can get are reccomended though.

erichkopp · Post by **erichkopp** » Mon May 22, 2006 1:24 am

I've done it a few times and it's come out pretty decent every time. Just make sure to spend a bit of time moving the mics around and doing small audition tracks until you get everything sounding real good.

eyeborg · Post by **eyeborg** » Mon May 22, 2006 2:12 am

Thanks for so many quick replies! I've got an intel mac with 2GB ram, M audio soundcard and I'm not using any strange plugins that aren't universal yet, so I should be ok hardware wise...

As far as I can see Live only allows recording into one channel at a time, right?

Is there any 'sound engineering for dummies' type book out there that you'd recommend? Or else I'll be pestering you all for advice every 5 minutes...!

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:30 am

There is a setting in options that lets u arm more then one track.

Exclusive Arm or something.

-Ben

erichkopp · Post by **erichkopp** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:48 am

Hit record on the first track. Press and hold control and then click record on any additional track you want to record. I just realized this the other day and I couldn't believe I never knew about it before.

Michael Hatsis · Post by **Michael Hatsis** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:55 am

Also, in options there is something like "start recording on scene launch" look into that one too. I record alot of the time multitrack style from the sesh view, just fire a scene and then when you move it over to the arrangement view everything will sync up.

eyeborg · Post by **eyeborg** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:56 am

Aha! It's hidden away in the preferences under 'Misc'. Thanks for letting me know about that.