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hi. whats the cheapest and easiest way to record rehearsals. don't need high quality, just something to listen back to without expensive equipment. tried my phone but its to loud for it to cope with and comes out way to distorted. any ideas??? thanks
Joined: Apr 19, 2005 Posts: 5794 Location: At the bottom of the garden, amongst the birds and the bees
Try going to Livewire rehearsal studios, they do it all for you.
Otherwise, doing it with a phone is possible, it just takes some lateral thinking.
The biggest difficulty is levels - what you hear in the room is incredibly misleading (especially if you aren't using ear protection). If possible, listen outside the room to see if you can hear everything. Assuming you can trust it to not be nicked, try putting your phone out there too.
Always turn the bass down lower than you think it should be too - get it to where it sounds right and then put it down a couple of notches more, as it's always the thing that wrecks recordings in closed room.
Once all the levels sound okay, stick something over the microphone on your phone - a chunk of dense foam, a few of layers of material (like a t-shirt or something), etc. Something that's reasonably dense but breathable. That way, you cut the pressure levels getting to the diaphragm so there should be less distortion. It also has the added effect of filtering some of the high-end, which should make the cymbals less ear-splitting. Put the phone on something similar too - again, a bit of foam, a screwed up t-shirt of something. It acts as very basic decoupling - basically it lessens the amount of vibrations travelling through the floor into the phone, which adds a lot of low-end and mud. Don't put the phone on an amp/PA/etc., or right in front of a cab/the kick. Stick it on the floor, out of the way, not directly in line with anything creating noise.
The same things apply to compact cameras with video modes, but their microphones normally handle loud noises better (still not well enough, but it is an improvement).
we get a pretty listenable result from a two track recording. Position a mic at the back of the room away from the drum kit and behind the guitar amp and run a line-out from the bass. We were pretty surprised at the sound really. I'll bung an MP3 on our myspace so you can hear www.myspace.com/weareivmike - Paar. This is without vocals, but trust me, they sound fine too. We practice at Earth where the rooms are perfect for this setup. I record onto my boss br900 which was stupidly expensive but I'm sure there are other cheaper alternatives. My old 4-track tape recorder was ok for this sort of thing.
Joined: Feb 13, 2005 Posts: 4509 Location: The Rock Boudoir
Premium Member
Pedro- wrote:
Doesn't Chim have an H4? It's fucking awesome
I dunno - you live with him!
I've tried the mic setup thing a few times, but for heavy metal it doesn't really cut it in my experience. The H4 is by far the best, clear, all-round live/practice recording tool I've used. However, you may well get much better results on cleaner musical styles.
We use LiveWire. They do all the technical stuff and we just listen to the results. And it's included in the price, which is no more than the other rehearsal studios in Norwich. Simple!
You'll need to download free software to cut the tracks into individual files from the original hour-long CD, but it's easy to do.
hi all..thanks for your replies, yeah i've seen the h4, bit pricey for what i want though, will try following steves advice about using the phone as that would be perfect if it works. cheers again
Joined: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 1119 Location: Norwich
Premium Member
you can (and always have been able to) do a live recording onto a 4 track at Plug Studios - included in the price of your rehearsal (just book the recorder when you book your rehearsal).
We do of course do proper recording also, at very reasonable rates.....but the 4 track will give you a pretty good snapshot of your sound - most bands use it to remember what they have written the week before! _________________ PLUG STUDIOS
24 track Recording facilities, Rehearsal Studios & P.A Hire Centre
Kingsway Norwich
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