Recording Vox live

[CaptainRazorlegs]

How often (if ever) do bands record instruments live with their singer bouncing around the live room recording a solid take? Imagine for more old garage stuff this would cut lots of cost and time out of their session to get everything done in one take and in one room.

Reason why I ask is because my band branched into a side project, its basically us but without the bass player and the singer. just a guitar, guitar tuned down a couple halfsteps and drums. the other guitarist and I came up with the idea to record our up comming session all live so we wont waste time and can bang everything out whilist playing so the vibe is there and there isnt any vocal booth awkwardness.

Any recordings out there recorded like so?

The closest thing i can think of is "When the sun goes down" by the arctic monkeys, you can hear pick-on-string strumming and what not in the intro, but thats only the intro.

[loudboy]

About 85-90% of the classic Tom Petty, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen records were cut live with the band.

Iso booths and stuff were used, but they were all playing together.

[alschnier]

try using something like a 57, or SM7 for the vocalist, & just do a scratch vocal track. also helps to isolate the amps a little. keep in the same room, but direct away from drum mics, make small gobos out of what's available (roadcases, furniture, etc) - it'll go a long way. you'll still get a nice organic live sound w. some bleed, but preserve the drum trax

[re-animator]

About 85-90% of the classic Tom Petty, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen records were cut live with the band.

Iso booths and stuff were used, but they were all playing together.

I'm pretty sure they overdubbed the vocals afterwards.

[alschnier]

that's the thing - if you want the vocal to go down live during that 1st take, , you might want to put him in an iso booth (or at least use something like a reflexion filter)

[loudboy]

I'm pretty sure they overdubbed the vocals afterwards.

Nope.

Added seasoning her and there, but the majority of the stuff those guys did was the band playing live and Tom, Bruce and Neil singing live.

Neil especially, cuts virtually all his vocals live.

[Nelson89]

Use a 57 or 58....there will be bleed, but bleed isn't so bad when everyones tight, just position the singer somewhere where the bleed is somewhat musical. (because without an iso booth, there will always be bleed...may as well use it).

When i do it this way i actually use an sm7b if you can get your hands on one to borrow or what not. It has good off axis rejection, sort of like a 57/58 but smoother with less bleed.

But yeh, if the singer is good enough, then by all means do it this way. I did it this way with my last EP for the bands reference, but then i just overdubbed the vocals again anyway and chose the best takes.

If you look at the Pearl Jam AOL sessions, they record like this. It's just about being tight, and if your singer is good enough, it'll come out in one take. (make sure you're practiced and he's warmed up).

[jmoose]

try using something like a 57, or SM7 for the vocalist, & just do a scratch vocal track. also helps to isolate the amps a little. keep in the same room, but direct away from drum mics, make small gobos out of what's available (roadcases, furniture, etc) - it'll go a long way. you'll still get a nice organic live sound w. some bleed, but preserve the drum trax


Yeah... pretty much. Probably 90% of the battle is controlling what the other players are putting into the room.

SM7 is solid, my first pick is almost always a sennheiser 441 if the singer is ok with not having a "hand" mic and can eat it on stand. Plant their lips and not come off the thing... if its done well you'll actually have enough isolation to punch in!

No matter the mic (i've even used U87s etc) the key is what everyone else is putting into the room and where the singer is in relation to the rest of the noise. That method of recording is harder to setup and pull off but well worth the effort.

If possible back the singer into a corner so that there's nothing behind, nor directly to the sides of the mic. Gobo it off with soft materials... real GOBOS, cases covered in blankets, blankets hung off mic stands etc.

Lots of records made that way... Henry Rollins, Lou Reed... Pearl Jam... a lot of Tom Pettys "Mojo" sounds like live vocals to me. I've done a handful of records that way... nobody on cans, everyone blasting away on wedges like a live gig. Sometimes the singer has cans yet nobody else is wearing cans, they get the vocals on a carefully positioned wedge.

One thing I've never ever seen is a singer "bouncing" around the room while tracking. They'll get their station and can bounce around all they want in there. The "station" is usually a booth built out of gobos...

[CaptainRazorlegs]

Awesome, the studio we are going to has sound barriers and a back enclosed part of the live room. Thinking about putting both or one of the amps in the back room to help with bleed, and just bang everything out in the live room. Another thing is we need quite a few visual ques, almost like concert master/mistress scroll ques, so it would be cool for us to all be in the same room. XD

SM-57/58 idea is spot on aswell, we arent going to mix the vocals too high in the mix, kind of like jesus lizard vocal mix. Any other artists you guys can think of? Im interested to hear some genuine live tracks. Rumors of the U-men recording everything live, dunno if that includes vocals.

[jmoose]

Since you're going into a studio rather then DIY what you really need to do is talk to the engineer/producer who's going to be working on your session. Tell them that you want to record "live" with no headphones and ask if they have any experience doing that... ask to hear something they've recorded that way. If they don't have anything and have never recorded in that fashion then find someone else to record your album.

No matter how it goes probably 90% of the battle is controlling the sound in the room. Position and volume of the instruments throughout the room has direct influence on microphone choice and placement... after a while experience tells us whether the guitar amp blasting into the overheads is just too loud, needs to be moved, or both. Prepare to spend a long while on setup, but once its all up roll tape!!!

[RomanS]

We just finished recording my band's first album a few weeks ago, and we recorded almost everything live (except for a a few overdubs to fix things, double tracks, or stuff like that).
Drums, bass (going DI), and me (guitar) were all in one room (with my amp standing in an extra room); the two singers (one of whom also plays acoustic guitar) were both in the control room, which has a very large window, so we could see each other well - enough isolation so we could do overdubs on everything, if we wanted, but a real live "feel" nevertheless...