recording band rehearsals

[Fragle]

hey guys,

lately i've been thinking a lot about recording my bands rehearsals.
we've got the usual 2gtrs/bass/drums as well as 2 vocalists....
what i was thinking is, sm57 on one guitar - i'm using a sansamp psa1 as my guitar preamp so maybe i can run that one direct, otherwise another 57 obviously. bass line out taken from the head.
as for vox, we're running a small mixer for the pa which also has the kick trigger routed to it.....so technically i could just use the stereo out (it's a cheap mixer that only has a global stereo out instead of individual channel outputs)....snare would be another sm57 most likely.
the thing i'm absolutely not sure about is the rest of the kit. given the HIGH volume in a rehearsal space with the full band playing, i'm not sure if the usual stereo overheads approach will work out for picking up the overall kit. any suggestions for that one?
i'm obviously not looking for pristine sound quality here, just a listenable rehearsal recording to analize after band practice.

if anyone of you guys is doing something like that, it would be cool if you shared your experiences!
as i said, i'm especially curious about the cymbals.
btw, i purposely left out the toms, as my drummer has a LOT of them, and for micing all of them i'd really have to use a lot of pre's and inputs, which doesn't quite seem to be worth it considering the fact that it's just a rehearsal demo.

any pointers?
thanks!

 

[Trevoire520]

Done plenty of band rehearsals myself, normally I go for:

Vocals
kick
snare
stereo overheads (get em as low as you can)
bass di
guitars

it can be a pain getting the toms out as they tend to be quieter than the cymbals and snare, but normally boosting some low mids can help with this. after all it doesnt need to sound pristine, just enough so that you can hear the song.

You could also just throw up a spaced pair of omni's, provided the rehearsal room doesnt sound like complete trash and you can actually hear whats going on when you practice. Just record, listen, and then move the mic's/turn amps up or down as required. Much less faffing about than multitracking.

 

[Fragle]

so basically you're saying that despite of the guitar mayhem that's unleashed in the same room, the drum OH mics will still be able to pick up enough of the kit and not that much bleed?

btw, the room isn't the worst thing you've ever seen, but it's far from decent tbh....6x4 meters, conrete walls, typical basement basically

 

[Rez]

Concrete walls will sound horrible.... IMO I would try getting hold of stuff to hang off the walls. a few big duvets, blankets, old carpet etc will definately help.
Remember to mess around with Amp placement in the room. I've found just remembering to face the amps away from the drums will give big improvements. Simple stuff but idiots like me can forget the simple stuff...

 

[vespiz]

so basically you're saying that despite of the guitar mayhem that's unleashed in the same room, the drum OH mics will still be able to pick up enough of the kit and not that much bleed?

btw, the room isn't the worst thing you've ever seen, but it's far from decent tbh....6x4 meters, conrete walls, typical basement basically

Surprisingly good rejection in our case, actually, depending of course on the room. And we play loud. I've been doing demos with our band just this way. Bd, sn (hi/lo), 3 toms, oh, 2 gtrs, bass di and sometimes a room mic, mostly not. EQ'd, compressed and otherwise balanced before pressing rec.

Position the guitars in the "right" way (say, in a triangle with the drums) and put mics on them and they become room mics for the drums! Watch out for the left/right image.

 

[Trevoire520]

It really all depends on how you set up the amps, how loud everything is, what the room is like, how hard the drummer hit's his kit etc etc. Normally when i've tried to do stereo recording of rehearsals I find the drums are too loud more than the guitars.

As long as the guitars aren't totally drowning out the drums then you should be ok. Having the sound balanced in the room first and then experimenting with mic placement is really the key to this though.

 

[MEGA DAVE]

i always record a bands rehearsal prior to recording them and have been in a tiny room with large amps pointing towards the drums and still got enough clarity with the overhead mics on the drums