Recording a full 8x10 rig

[gibsonlp]

Hi guys,
Today we had our first full day recording session, we all took a day off and had the whole day just for recording.
After the first test session I noticed something really odd, my bass was strong enough in the room and was heard really well by everyone, however - the mic recording my bass was getting other instruments in and getting it really strong, the leaks were too hard and basically I couldn't use the bass track for anything (there was 6 to 12dB difference between the overall leaks to my main signal!). I had no idea what's wrong but then it hit me!
Up until now we used a BXR which is a single speaker amp, whatever it pushed to the room it pushed to the mic as well, when I had a mic in front of a single 10" speaker of my SVT cab I essentially mic'd only 1/8th of my total output!!! this meant that in order to get my bass strong enough I had to push more gain in the preamp and with that - everything else was amplified as well!

I had no idea what to do, but I then called my good friend Marc Lazare from the forum (marc67), he gave me an excellent tip! I took my 4001 vintage case and opened it in front of my cab in an "L" shape, I then put a thick blanket on it and that's it! the new sound wall provided me with enough attenuation so not only less leaks came into my mic but I was able to push my SVT a bit more (less sound entered the room) and reduce the mic gain as well, at last - the difference between the leaks and the main signal became normal (about 25-30dB), the sound was great as well.

Just wanted to share...

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

usually bands will record each other separately so there is no bleeding of instruments into other recording sources. yes, you can build various deflections like walls or turning cabs away from each other, etc. you can even try putting cabs in other rooms of a building for isolation or enhanced various reverb situations like long bare hallways, high stairwells or bathrooms...great for guitars, btw.
in this respect you would be wearing headsets to hear whats going on. it's very difficult to get a great recording if everyone is blasting their gear in the same room as they also have to contend with the drummer. if he doesn't bash a certain way, then you don't get that live feel. now you have to keep your volume up to his or he can't hear you. now you get bleed. even if you're recording on separate tracks, you'll still hear the other instruments in tracks you don't want them in and now everything starts to get messy. everyone playing at the same time is great if you just want to give an objective listen to the construction of a song as a guide, but gets tough to isolate tracks if someone makes a flub, then it's tougher to fix. to record your bass, plug into a good direct box (that doesn't load your signal down) as well as the amp. get a mike and face the middle of the voice coil about two inches away. get another mike and again put it at two inches from the speaker but this time off the edge of the cone in the same plane. this way you can hear all three voicings and choose and mix them in or out or together.

[gibsonlp]

Thanks for the tips Ron!
Most of the bands I know and love recorded at least their rhythm section live into separate tracks, it's very hard to get that "feel" when recording separately.
Our acoustic in the studio was done by a pro, so in that aspect we are okay, the bleedings are really minimal, both guitars can be muted out and will be gone (almost) completely (40-50dB lower than the main signal on the drum channels which are recorded with 4 mics - Glyn Johns technique), same goes for the drums - the are barely there on the guitar channels, about 40dB lower than the guitar signal and that's a LOT, only the bass channel gets a bit leaky due to my 8x10 cab and single mic, but it looks like your idea will help with that as well (more mics and di = lower total gain on mics = lower leaks)
I gotta go to work - the 2 mics + DI is a good idea, I'll try it in our next session, I have plenty of channels left to experiment with that, I also wanted to put a condensor half a meter away from the cab to get the entire cab output.

Thanks!

[gareth]

I get over this by just tracking the bass with a DI and then going back in and doing four inputs. I use a DI, then a mic on the 4x10, one on the 1x15 and one in the room. Then it's a matter of balancing them out. If I'm recording the bass in stereo, I bring both stacks in and just double up on the mikes.

A bit of overkill perhaps, but bass is like drag racing. There's no replacement for displacement IMHO.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

the technique specified in my post was from glyn's brother andy johns (cinderella) when he produced and engineered our last two studio albums,"dirty weapons" and "method to the madness". we would then go on to use it in our live shows. btw, the mics he used were sm57's.

[gibsonlp]

Thanks Gareth and Ron,
Ron: I reread your post, putting the amps in different rooms sounds like a good idea, the problem is that this is a residential area and if we go outside the studio - the neighbors would hear us and complain (not to mention my friend's wife and daughter...)
It's not a super professional recording as we don't really have professional equipment, we just need some high quality demos and I believe it's high quality enough, I'll soon upload some demo songs so you could tell me what you think of the sound (and perhaps of the songs as well! )
If and when we record our album we will go to a real studio.

Thanks again.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

gil...it's the musicians that don't care about other people's feelings or what other people think that get ahead of all the others to the top of the list ...look at axle rose ! (ooops . did i say that ? )

[bge66]

Run a DI + the mic the amp. Then go for performance. When you mix, maybe you use the DI, maybe you don't - but always try to keep as many options open as you can. I've had great results using a Tech 21 Bass DI + AKG D112 on the amp and using a couple PZM's mounted back to back to pull in room sound from the whole band, including bass amp...

[cerrem]

If you have access to use a Electro-Voice RE-20 mic for the SVT cab, give it a try and see if it works for you...
I had sucess with that mic in recording the SVT 8x10 cab.... It has the punch and low frequency response as well as the pattern to reject the outside noises from bleading...
Sometimes I just back the mic away from the cab and then WAMO you hit the sweet spot where it all comes together...

Chris