JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum another "will this work?" thread - DI guitar recording

My goal is to record "live" in my rehearsal room with three players...guitar, bass, and drums.

I have a 2 channel Behringer Mixer with Line & Mic level. It has Stereo Main Outs and Aux Control Room Outs. My recorder is a Yamaha AW16G.

Can this mixer work as a DI box for the guitar and bass?

Can I plug the bass into CH1 of the mixer, pan it hard left and send the main mix out to the bass amp and/or PA, and then send the control room mix to the recorder? And plug the guitar into CH2 of the mixer, pan it hard right and send the main mix out to the guitar amp and/or PA, and then send the control room mix to the recorder?

I would then mic the drums and send directly to the recorder. I know there will be bleed into the drum mics, but that's OK.

What I am trying to achieve is getting a clean guitar and bass signal to the recorder which can later be processed/mixed etc...

I would like to do this recording using the gear I already have if at all possible. So I am brainstorming.

Hope this question makes sense and someone can tell me if this will work. Pros, cons..other considerations... etc...

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Kester

Hi Kester,

If you need to split the live signal for monitoring and the recorded signal, your little mixer idea and the panning trick will work. You can also use an aux send on the mixer to send a direct recording feed. If your aux send can be set to "pre-fader", then you'll have better control of the balance between the PA feed and the recording feed since you can adjust them separately.

Just remember, that the Behringer probably does NOT have the best input impedance for use as a direct box, so your guitar and bass signals won't sound nearly as good as what they would if you were using a real direct box as an input to the mixer.

Direct recording of bass is pretty common, but most guitarists want to hear some effects with their guitars rather than the clean "DI" sound. Had you thought that part through?

Hi Larry,

Thank you for your response.

That's a good tip about using the aux send pre-fader. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

After doing some more research I realized that the input impedance on the Behringer might not be optimal. It's those little details that trip me up most of the time!

With regard to the guitar sound. I have given that some consideration. The AW16G has some built in guitar sounds, so I considered choosing which ever ones of those fit the song(s) and assigning them to the guitar signal. But the results might be better if we can get ahold of an external guitar processor to use for that purpose. I've been researching some options. And I am still confused as to whether the guitar processors change the impedance, or if I will still need a DI box.

The AW16G has one Hi-Z input that I could use on the bass signal, so I am hoping that would take care of the sound quality in that department.

I'm trying to do this on a shoe string budget, but I also want to get the the best sound possible. Guess that's most everyone's challenge! So I have to do a lot of research and make any necessary purchases wisely.

There are alot more things to consider than my usual approach of playing all the instruments myself and overdubbing. But I am very much looking forward to the experience and the challenge - and to jamming out with my friends!

Thanks very much for your help. It means a lot to get some pro feedback. I appreciate it!

Kester

I think you may be going round the houses to get back to the beginning. You may find that in the long run it might be cheaper and easier to do a trade in and upgrade your mixer. They are not that expensive, you could even pick up a second hand one cheap. All the little gizmos and extras that you may have to purchase instead to solve your problem will probably cost more and not do the job or provide the sounds and balances you want.
Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and go for it. Rental might be another option.

You may be right, Big Jim.

I am still considering various options.

I actually just discovered an interesting video tutorial on the AWinspire site which may be the approach I end up taking.

It shows a full band rehearsal being recorded onto the AW1600 (big brother to my recorder the AW16G) and with the way they set things up - having some of the gear mic'ed and some of it going straight into the recorder and then out to a PA for monitoring
- just might work for us. That's the direction I'm leaning right now.

In case anyone is interested in watching the tutorial, it can be found under "Recording Live" at:

http://www.awinspire.com/tuts/tuts.php

I am open to all suggestions & appreciate the input.

Thanks!

For what purpose are the recordings? I record most practices we have to a cd that is ready at the end of practice. I often am introducing songs to the group, and albeit a very rough take I want a record of what the feel we achieved was. We put two condenser mics about a foot or so in front of the mains,up about eye level so they don't get the bass fart sound, and that achieves the vocals coming through louder than the ambient recording of the drums, bass, and guitar. Now, these recordings are just for us, we can't remix these, but we have a stereo recording of what we sounded like that day totally hassle free.
Now the Protools setup we have in the same studio is a whole other ballgame we won't get into here. Moker

Hi Moker,

The purpose of the recordings is yet to be determined... LOL!

But seriously, I see exactly where you are coming from in terms of deciding in advance what the goal is, because it might dictate how precise the recording techniques need to be.

The deal here is that I am going to be playing with some friends of mine who live far away and we only get a chance to play together every couple of years. But every time we do, it's magic!!

In the past, when we have gotten together, I have recorded with two mics live in the room direct to a free standing CD burner -
much like you are describing. The recordings have been OK , but not nearly as good as the performances. And I'm always left wishing I had put more thought into capturing the recordings. So now that I have a recorder that's capable of recording 8 simultaneous tracks, I want to do the best I can. And give us an option of maybe overdubbing some harmonies or other parts after the fact ,and mixing things down with some effects/processing, etc...

In other words, take advantage of the muti-tracking capabilities, but still performing in a very live-type scenario. So I guess I am looking for the middle ground between throwing two mics up in the room and the Protools rig! Maybe something akin to recording through the mixing board at a live gig, but with more separation of tracks.

Eventhough the final recordings may only be for our personal use - because we cherish our times spent playing music together, I want to make the best recordings possible. And who knows? If it goes well, maybe we'll actually make an album together someday. That would be a dream come true for me.

Thanks fo your interest and input.

Kester

I have not used an AWG so cannot really provide much help. Like Moker when we do a live recording we just use the stereo out from the desk into a recorder. Quite often we record gigs and it is an indication of how well we played and anything that needs changed. That produces the same sound as you would hear if in audience. OK you cannot do much to the thing post record but if you know the desk and its limitations live sounds are ok.
If I was to use your YAM I would use it as a mixer with everything plugged into it. There seems to be enough imputs according to it's specs. Then use its out into your small mixer and amp
Ideally if money was no object I would have a stereo interface straight into my pc. Some desks already have this feature as a firewire or usb facility add cubase or equivalent and you have a complete home studio.