Members Matter-Eater Lad Posted February 14, 2006 Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 The cover band I'm in is having a discussion on how to go about recording a demo for a club promo package. Are cassette based multi track recorders good enough for this? We have a decent one available to us, the Tascam 488 8 track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members babyfrank Posted February 14, 2006 Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 I too play in a cover band and we've done demos twice - on both occasions we went to a commercial demo studio and played live, but fully miked up and recorded on seperate tracks in order to get the correct balance of tracks, but still retaining the live feel. It would certainly be possible to do this using the Tascam - I've heard pretty good results from it used to do demos in the past. - but the 8 tracks might limit you for getting all your instruments (particularly the drums) recorded correctly - at the bare minimum you'd need a couple of mics overhead to pick up the drums, but realistically you'd want to mic the bass and snare, plus a couple of overheads - there go 4 tracks already, before you've even considered the instruments and vocals. You should consider going down the proper studio route - you want to sound as good as possible on this, and will get the benefit of decent engineers.mikes plus ease of mixing, and will definitely end up with a better end result. It'll cost you more than doing it on the Tascam, but look on it as an investment - you may lay out more, but your chances of getting gigs with a well-recorded demo are higher. We paid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted February 14, 2006 Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 You can do it, and I've used the same recorder for demos. What we did is used a separate mixing board for the drums, and then took the left and right from that into 2 channels so that it stays stereo. That way you still have 6 tracks leftover and you can use as many channels as you have for the drums. Another alternative is recording direct at a show. This way it's live and it sounds just as you'll sound. Try to do it at a show that has a good sound system and mic's everything. Then use a DAT or cd burner or even a laptop if you can. But a cassette tape recorder can be ok too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Matter-Eater Lad Posted February 14, 2006 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 Not to discount what babyfrank said, but that's what I was thinking. Using an outboard sub-mixer to mike up drums, guitars and play the songs musically onto 2 tracks. Then sing on the other 6. I would do the live recording except we aren't playing out yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted February 14, 2006 Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 Originally posted by Matter-Eater Lad Not to discount what babyfrank said, but that's what I was thinking. Using an outboard sub-mixer to mike up drums, guitars and play the songs musically onto 2 tracks. Then sing on the other 6. I would do the live recording except we aren't playing out yet. Yeah, that's how we did this Bulls on Parade/Tom Sawyer It's all live, submixed all of it into DAT recorder. It just us fooling around at practice so don't expect the greatest musical performance, haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Matter-Eater Lad Posted February 14, 2006 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2006 Yeah, that sounds fine. People have this idea that cassettes just don't work now but to me it's so much easier than dealing with digital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted February 15, 2006 Members Share Posted February 15, 2006 Originally posted by Matter-Eater Lad Yeah, that sounds fine. People have this idea that cassettes just don't work now but to me it's so much easier than dealing with digital. Exactly, it doesn't have to be amazing quality. Just enough so bar owners know if you're good enough to play their club. Obviously, if you have the means to record an amazing demo, go for it. But if you can't it doesn't mean you'll never get booked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theron Posted February 15, 2006 Members Share Posted February 15, 2006 Yeah, that 8 track cassette recording did sound pretty good! Nice job! We did the same thing BabyFrank was talking about a couple of years ago. We went into a local studio that had a package deal going and got 10 hours of recording/mixing time for something like $300. We recorded all the instruments live, then did vocal and guitar solos as overdubs, in about 5 hours and used the rest of the time to have the engineer mix and master it out for us. The results are on our website in my sig. I'm glad we went that route because we got a solid sounding demo done quickly without having to muck about mixing and recording ourselves (which we've also done). If you have the $ to put into it, it's a great way to go, but we'd already been gigging so we just diverted part of one night's pay to cover it. We're about to go update the demo with some new tunes, and plan to do it the same way. Either way, good luck with the demo and get a ton o' gigs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kevin T Posted February 15, 2006 Members Share Posted February 15, 2006 Many bar owners know that studios can make you sound much better/different than you will live. Some have told me live non studio demo preffered.I do DAT/Cassette mindisc live 2tracks of a gig/party they here what they will get & the audience reaction to the band . Small Binaural mics placed so the PA /vocals are prominent works well. Put it on a CD & make um listen via headphones while your Talking bookings. A good binaural demo will make the smile everytime (sounds like your in the room ) . Works for me! Kevin T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members babyfrank Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Ha! After advocating the studio route, we did something a lot more low-tech at the weekend. A friend recorded us on his laptop - I used a small mixer to take a decent submix of instruments and fed that to the laptop - results were good, if not great, and certainly gave us a good idea of how things are sounding. If my vocals had been a bit better I moght even be prepared to submit some of these as potential demo tracks. I like the idea of recording live, but the trouble (for us) is getting a suitable location to site the gear, and someone to look after it while we play. We're playing a gig in a couple of weeks at a local hall where the balcony will not be in use, so i'd toyed with the idea of setting up a camcorder there to record the gig... may get a decent audio feed from that too (it's a MiniDV camcorder) Cheers, BF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Badside Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by Kevin T Many bar owners know that studios can make you sound much better/different than you will live. Some have told me live non studio demo preffered... Anyone here ever faked a live recording? You know, add some crowd noise, minimize FX/processing but put additionnal reverb, etc, don't put more tracks than there are musicians in the band, leave all mics open to pick up the typical bleed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by Hardtailed Anyone here ever faked a live recording? You know, add some crowd noise, minimize FX/processing but put additionnal reverb, etc, don't put more tracks than there are musicians in the band, leave all mics open to pick up the typical bleed. No but I've heard it done... and it was horrible. Even worse I saw a cover band use live video footage and stream the songs by the original artists they were covering. Lame... and oh so obvious. We did a non traditional recording. We hired a sound guy who had a mobile recording desk to record one of our live shows. We went this route not because we wanted to save money... but instead because we wanted a live recording and we didn't have the time between our schedule and personal lives to spend 10 hours in a studio. We had done studio recordings before and the result was always sounded processed, compressed, and uninspired. He did the entire night, boo boos and all. He gave a balanced un mastered MP3 of the performances. Total cost: $400. I then took Sonar and imported the MP3's, use some post op effects 'eq'd the main mix, added a little compression and reverb then exported again as a MP3. The result wasn't the best recording in the world, however it certainly captured our energy, style and has resulted in a lot more attention than our previous "by the numbers" demo recording. If interested check out some clips here: http://www.myspace.com/nutsinablender Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by wheresgrant3 Even worse I saw a cover band use live video footage and stream the songs by the original artists they were covering. Lame... and oh so obvious. Hehe, I think I know who you're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BeauNasty Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 We have the luxurty of knowing national level soundmen, but we were able to record a live show direct to a burner, re-EQ and master using Pro-Tools, and then chop the music & record the voice over. This is some old {censored}...almost 3 years I think. We have a different frontman now. Cover Band Audio Clip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Krashpad Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by Hardtailed Anyone here ever faked a live recording? You know, add some crowd noise, minimize FX/processing but put additionnal reverb, etc, don't put more tracks than there are musicians in the band, leave all mics open to pick up the typical bleed. We sorta did something like that but not really. In our case it was intended as a joke, and we put something after the song title (like "Dream Sequence Mix" or something) to indicate it was NOT a live recording, plus though we were a trio at the time, yet when the guitar went to solo we left the rhythm guitar in, so it should've been dead obvious that it was not a real live track. Still we continually had people ask us about the "live" song on the recording! What may've fooled people is that we recorded it in our drummer's home studio, and he had this friend with a real raspy stereotypical roadie/carny/bouncer type voice who did an intro, as if he were doing a stage introduction, and then during the outro he acted like he came on the PA and said something like "OK people, the show cannot continue if you rush the stage..." Real hilarious stuff, and people STILL thought it was real. I should note that although this was a self-made "demo," it really wasn't used to get gigs (we're an original band so not in the commercial market where that sort of thing is required) but just a few were made and sold as merch at shows. BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Badside Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 When you think about it, most commercial "live" albums these days have some tracks that are redone in a studio. Why can't we? It's just that, so far I've never been able to capture the vibe and energy of our band on a tape or disc, whether it's a live recording, studio, video, etc. A big part of our success is the interaction with the crowd and the way we act on stage, but just setting up a camera doesn't do the trick (too static), we'd need multiple angles and 1 or 2 moving cameras, but it gets tricky cause you need people to hold the cameras, plus you need the cameras! And everytime I lend my digicam to someone, it's always crap (shaky images, doesn't feel like filming the whole show and ends up not even getting a whole song, {censored}ty image composition). I guess I should hire a film crew... but you still have to find a gig that is easily filmed (not too crowded, good lighting, etc) yet be sure it's gonna be a good night (submitting a video of a show with 2 persons in the audience isn't gonna help). Because of these problems, we still use our {censored}ty studio demo and get gigs mostly from word of mouth (people in the audience who digs the show and basically sells us to other places) plus some convincing booking agents (getting your foot in the door is the difficult part...). I guess a studio demo is better than no demo at all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by Kevin T Many bar owners know that studios can make you sound much better/different than you will live. Some have told me live non studio demo preffered. I've even had some bookers go so far as to ask for a live video, such is their mistrust in what they hear on studio demos. With all the trickery that is possible today in the studio, trying to prove that you can really play live and/or sound anything like your demo has become difficult. Pretty ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by Hardtailed When you think about it, most commercial "live" albums these days have some tracks that are redone in a studio. Why can't we? Because artists established enough to release a commercial live album have proven they can actually play live; we haven't. If we had, we wouldn't need to send out demos. Certainly 10 years ago one could've faked a few overdubs and it would've been all right, but nowadays I think it's a huge advantage to be able to say truthfully that your demo is totally live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dk123123dk Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by babyfrank Ha! After advocating the studio route, we did something a lot more low-tech at the weekend. A friend recorded us on his laptop - I used a small mixer to take a decent submix of instruments and fed that to the laptop - results were good, if not great, and certainly gave us a good idea of how things are sounding. If my vocals had been a bit better I moght even be prepared to submit some of these as potential demo tracks.I like the idea of recording live, but the trouble (for us) is getting a suitable location to site the gear, and someone to look after it while we play. We're playing a gig in a couple of weeks at a local hall where the balcony will not be in use, so i'd toyed with the idea of setting up a camcorder there to record the gig... may get a decent audio feed from that too (it's a MiniDV camcorder)Cheers,BF hey man the camcorder works great! We hooked up a single nady mic to the camcorder and recorded live at one of our shows. Then we just took the audio out of the camcorder, tossed it into a 1/8" input on our computer and voila! I have tossed a few ruff copies to other bands in the area, and they were asking me how much to reccord one of thier shows! haha! Lo Tech all the way! Unless you play NIN style music. But simple rock is best reccorded in simple ways! Let the music shine thru! dk123123dk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted February 21, 2006 Members Share Posted February 21, 2006 Originally posted by babyfrank so i'd toyed with the idea of setting up a camcorder there to record the gig... may get a decent audio feed from that too (it's a MiniDV camcorder) Haha, I have a demo we did like that too!! It was from an outdoor wedding we did last year. I ran it through some mastering gear though to even out the sound, but this is from a DV cam: Summer of 69/Don't You Forget About Me/You Give Love a Bad Name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted February 22, 2006 Members Share Posted February 22, 2006 Originally posted by fastplant Hehe, I think I know who you're talking about. Oh yeah you do! hehe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted February 22, 2006 Members Share Posted February 22, 2006 Originally posted by dk123123dk hey man the camcorder works great! We hooked up a single nady mic to the camcorder and recorded live at one of our shows. Then we just took the audio out of the camcorder, tossed it into a 1/8" input on our computer and voila! I have tossed a few ruff copies to other bands in the area, and they were asking me how much to reccord one of thier shows! haha!Lo Tech all the way! Unless you play NIN style music. But simple rock is best reccorded in simple ways! Let the music shine thru!dk123123dk Every time I've tried to record our band using a camcorder the audio is awful. Did you use an external mic and mixer? Was it a condenser mic or dynamic. How did you match the XLR connection to the 1/8"input? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Terry Allan Hall Posted February 22, 2006 Members Share Posted February 22, 2006 Originally posted by Kevin T Many bar owners know that studios can make you sound much better/different than you will live. Some have told me live non studio demo preffered.I do DAT/Cassette mindisc live 2tracks of a gig/party they here what they will get & the audience reaction to the band . Small Binaural mics placed so the PA /vocals are prominent works well. Put it on a CD & make um listen via headphones while your Talking bookings. A good binaural demo will make the smile everytime (sounds like your in the room ) . Works for me!Kevin T That's what I do...too many venues have been burned by sub-standard acts utilizing studio trickery to sound better than they actually are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HOOMER Posted February 25, 2006 Members Share Posted February 25, 2006 we did this after throwing the multitracker out the window......output from your pa board(assuming everthing you want on tape is in there)..and use that as your mixer and output it to a good quality cassette recorder/with decent tape....get "audacity" online for free which allows you to convert analog files to digital. Plug your cassette deck to a pc souncard and record it in "audacity". after that it has some cool tools to use such as eq, echo etc...and you can burn cds from there...its really user friendly.check it out....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sideswipedv Posted February 26, 2006 Members Share Posted February 26, 2006 we used a 16 channel peavey mixer to get everything in the mix in our band room. I had my daughter run the mix for us and then recorded direct to a cd recorder. It has been getting us gigs so i guess im happy. I would love to do the whole studio thing but we just felt like spending the money to record cover songs wasnt what we wanted to do. I dont have anything posted online as of yet, we are still in the process of putting our web site together.We decided to go with a single track montage' that's about 5 minutes long. Just fade in and fade out of songs using cubase. This way we get to let them hear 8 songs and hopefully they dont get bored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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