microphone

[zeeneefa]

What is the best microphone to live record a full garage band? I've been using a Line 6 backtrack because I'm broke and now that I have the money I'm looking for a cheap microphone to record straight into my laptop for my band. Or about 4 microphones cheap microphones that I can use with a mixer.
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[mikehalloran]

It depends how loud they play. There is no right answer but many, many wrong ones.

Way not enough information here.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

On a budget still? You really can't go wrong with a few Shure SM-58 mics. $100 a pop.

[Phil O]

There are also some Audix i5 3-pack deals around. They come in at about $80/mic. Use the i5 as you would an SM57.

Also check out this resource:
http://recordinghacks.com/microphones
Phil

[Prime Mover]

Yeah, I just bought an i5 the other day from my friend, who's an Audix dealer... totally kills a 57.

However, come on people, that's NOT the mic to record a full band. If there is such a thing, it's a condenser.

Realistically, though, if you want to start somewhere that you can build up from, I would buy one standard dynamic (Audix i5 or Shure SM57/58), a kick drum mic (Audix d6 or Shure Beta52), and a pair of condensers (loads of options out there, I went with a pair of Oktava MK-12s, but there are cheaper options). Use the condenser pair as your drum overheads, and mic the snare and kick with the dynamics, and put the bass guitar through a DI box. Now you have rhythm tracks. Then, you can lay down the guitar tracks afterwards using the i5 / SM57 on the cabinet. Record vocals with the i5 or SM58 (57s aren't nearly as good for this, but they'll work okay too).

With this assortment of 4 mics, you can make yourself a fine recording... FAR better than anything you're going to get with similatenous recording with one mic in a room. You will also need a 4-channel audio interface (5 if you want to record bass at the same time as drums), and I'd recommend going for an 8-channel like the MOTU 8pre or Focusrite Saffire. You can possibly find an interface for $400 (even cheaper used on eBay), and mics, we're talking $500. So for under $1000, you can get yourself the basic equipment to make a pretty decent studio recording. With a bit of experimentation and inginuity, you can get some really good sound out of this.

The best thing is that this gives you usable tools to build upon. Even after expanding your arsenal, that basic equipment can remain your backbone for years to come. "A single mic to record a band in a room", isn't a particularly useful approach, and the equipment you'll need for that won't likely serve you as well for building on in the future.

Basically, consider your near-future development as a recording artist, and try to get equipment that wont immediately be useless to you. The audio interface is probably the most critical in this regard. You can go out and get a cheap 1-channel interface for $80, but then you're stuck with single channel recording, which you'll VERY QUICKLY find is not enough. Even 4-channels will be a tight squeeze, you'll be limited to only 4 mics on drums (no room to expand past the mic suggestions I mentioned), and you'll have to record bass separately, which will make things more difficult and possibly less tight. With 8-channels, though, you'll have A LOT of options, and a lot of room to grow: future dedicated mics for HiHat and toms, and two mics on the snare (top and bottom, very useful), or if you find you can get a great sound with 6 drum mics, you could also DI in the rhythm guitar for scratch tracks. I got by with 8 channels for many years, only this year did I expand my rack with more channels.

If you only take away ONE thing from this entire post, it would be to get an 8-channel audio interface. Even if you only buy one mic, it will be money better spent then getting a 4-channel interface and 4 mics.

[rhythm_kitchen]

Lot's of good advice but unless you deal with the standing wave and tune the heads accordingly the band will hate the result. Regardless of mics.

I'd try hard to close mic the kick, snare, hh w/ at least one overhead. Bass DI. Vox DI. Condenser for hh.

A bargain now is the discontinued Sennheiser e609 (replaced by the e906).

[Prime Mover]

Uhhh, dude? Vox DI? That's not even possible, what did you really mean there?

Also, I disagree that you need a condenser for the HH. For one, HH mics should be very secondary, low in the mix, just to emphasize the attack. Your overheads (condensers) should still be your main HH mics. Then you just want to put a dynamic on the HH to give you some leverage to be able to balance it with the rest of the kit.

I would argue that typical condensers aren't generally a good choices for close miking drums. They're often not designed to be able to sustain very high SPL, and will degrade over time. Also, the whole point of close miking is to be able to isolate certain kit pieces. Condensers, having a much greater falloff distance (which makes them ideal for many situations), will pick up other pieces of the kit far more than dynamics will. HH and Snare are especially difficult, even with dynamics, because they're right next to each other. With a condenser, you're never going to have a "snare mic" or "HiHat mic", you're going to have a "Snare, HiHat, and some other things" mic... basically a badly placed overhead.

And PS, for kick drum, you really NEED to use a specialized kick drum mic. Not just for quality of recording, but a kick drum will destroy the average mic. Those beasts put out extremely high SPL (after all, you can actually feel the wind), and will gradually kill the diaphragm of a standard mic, even a tank like an SM58. It should be a mic designed to take high SPL, like a designated kick drum mic. Large floor toms should generally use high SPL mics as well, and often benefit from the frequency response of kick drum mics

But back to other things. Tuning... yes, tuning is extremely important, and it's something I'm still not quite comfortable with yet (seeing as though I'm not a drummer). Close micing kick is essential. Either get a resonant head with a hole, or just take off the resonator entirely, and stick the mic inside. IMO, the best kick drum sound comes from inside the drum. Not only does it give you the best sound, but it's completely isolating, so you'll have a lot of control over shaping of the kick EQ without effecting anything else. Remember, kick drums rely just as much on high frequencies as any other piece of the kit, so get it as far away from cymbals and hihats as possible, and that means inside the shell, near the batter. I really hate having to mic an enclosed resonant head because the drum doesn't have a port.