how would you handle this setup?

[KeithTidd]

Hey guys, this band i work with alot likes playing live together in the studio. The issue is that i can't always book my school's studio that has more than 2 iso's (there's alot of studios that are only 2 rooms, but only one or two with more than that). Which bring me to this question;

you have a drum room and a single ISO room. 2 guitar amps, direct keys, direct bass, drums, 2 vocals. I can get take care of the keys, drums and bass no prob, but the issue i'm having is how to deal with the guitar amps? should i put them both in the same room? how would i place them and mic them? side by side? cabinets back to back? as far away as possible? I'm worried about phase issues having them in the same room. They do alot of switching and stuff so i can't really use amp sims.

how would you approach recording two amps in a small room at the same time?

another option would be to have them in the same room as the drums, becuase it's a big room, but i worry it will bleed too much into the drums.

here's how big the drum room would be. pretty big if you can't tell form the picture.

 

[Machinated]

Could you DI the guitars and reamp afterwards?

 

[KeithTidd]

yea, but usually i don't have enough time. Also i don't own a reamp or have the abillity to reamp at home. Also they have good amps (mark 4 and a dual rec). I only own a 5150 combo and some amp sims. I usually blend their DI's with guitar rig.

 

[Saculus]

Put one guitar in the iso booth, and gobo packing blanket the second amp of the better player in the live room. Its not ideal but better isolation overall with least chance of problems due to performance.

 

[ahjteam]

I would treat it like a live mix and just put them all to the same space

 

[paladin shredder]

I've been in the same situation and recorded two amps back to back in an iso booth. Make sure both amps are relatively equal in volume, and close micing is a must. If you hear too much leakage from one amp into the others mic (which i doubt will happen), you may need to turn down the amplifiers. For me, the guitar tracks I recorded turned out really well using this technique and there were no phase issues. But, just to play it safe, I would definitely recommend recording a di of each performance along with the amp if you have the inputs.

 

[Nebulous]

I would treat it like a live mix and just put them all to the same space

I would agree with this, based on this point:
If you have them in a small iso room, you will get alot of boxiness in the tone. If you have one in the iso and the other in the live room, they will sound very out of balance.
At least in the bigger room you could have some space between the two and use gobos and blankets, etc to isolate them and they won't get all boxy with a mic infront of them.