Studios

Hello.
I have my own rock band and we practise at school regulary.
I want to make my own recording studio, i have an imac with garage band.
Can anyone tell me what i need.

I have the following:

Drums kit.
3 Guitars.
Piano. ect

In the band their are:

2 Guitarist.
1 Lead Singer and 2 Backings
1 Bass Guitarist.
1 Drummer.
1 Pianoist.

Can anyone tell me what i need to get.
For example. mixers ect.

with garageband, you can buy a usb mic and start recording right away. to do this you would have to use the mic and record the amp for your guitars. it’s probably not ideal, but if you have a good enough mic it should give you good sound.

your biggest issue is going to be the drum kit. personally i want at least 8 mics on the drums, always. for a home studio for a teenager, thats hard to come by. my best advice is to get access to as many mics as possible and that will give you the best options for getting good sound out of the kit. just putting a mic in the center of a room sounds terrible.

in order to use that many mics you will need an audio interface with 8 inputs. audio interfaces will connect your XLR (mic) cables, and 1/4" (instrument) cables to a box that will connect to your computer via USB or firewire. with this you aren’t limited to USB mics, and most interfaces will come with recording software what will allow you to record and mix your music.

there are a number of different types of interfaces, which you choose depends on how you want to record your stuff. like i said, the biggest issue is the drums. i always want more inputs, but thats because i have a lot of experience and know how to get the most out of those inputs. you may choose not to go that route, it’s up to you. if your piano player ever uses a MIDI keyboard, you will want to make sure you have a MIDI input on the interface. interfaces give you an option to multi-track (record everything at once) or you can record everything individually. for instance, you can record your guitars and bass together, or you can record them individually and then mix them together. so you can theoretically get a two input interface and record everything individually and mix them. that would save you money, but some people have trouble playing without the rest of the band. it depends on your band and their abilities.

after an interface you need a mic. the mic is the most important piece of recording. don’t be cheap on a mic, i recommend spending no less than $100 on a mic. again, the choice is yours, you can probably find a decent one cheaper, but i personally wouldn’t trust it. for guitars look at the Shure SM57. you will find those in every major studio. for vocals i like the Rode NT1a, if your budget is tight, look into the Shure SM58. there are some drum mic packages you can find online that have 5-10 mics that are good for drums. there are a lot of options as far as mic’ing the drums so i wouldn’t worry a whole lot at first. but really look into the SM57. it is good for drums, guitars, and almost everything else, though not the best on vocals.

with those two things you have enough to get started. you can always add plug-ins, studio monitors, sound proofing and more mics, but its not needed up front.

look into sites like guitarcenter.com sweetwater.com and musiciansfriend.com for info on audio interfaces. also it would probably help you to search for info on DAW’s (digital audio workstations) for mroe info on how home studios are set-up. i think wikipedia.org has a good article.

i also recommend doing research on acoustics, and the principles of sound. when you understand more about it and how to manipulate the sound, you can make more quality recordings. also look into simple sound proofing, it can save headaches in the long run.

good luck