So we’ve come to the point where we need to get a demo recorded and not seemingly content with doing it the easy way, we’ve decided to do it ourselves. Madness? Probably, but it will certainly be interesting.

The main issue was how we were going to get the drums recorded. Again, forgetting about some of the great recordings you can get with some two mic variations, we decided we wanted to mic most of the kit up and record it. Annoyingly there aren’t a great deal of recorders that can record more than two inputs simultaneously, but at least there are some. After a little research we decided to settle on the Zoom R16.

Then came the drum mics…

An ideal situation and a much larger budget would have seen us selecting a number of separate mics. This not being the case we had a look around at mic sets, finally landing on the AKG Rhythm Pack. The pack contains 1 D112, 2 C430’s and 3 D40’s. Knowing AKG can put together a good mic or two, and having used the D112 a couple of times, I’m hopeful that this set should get a good job done.

Since we’re pretty new to the DIY method, I think it will be a case of trial and error. We’ll try recording the band altogether as well as individually to see what works. I guess one of the big benefits of the DIY method is that you can try a number of possibilities without spending much on studio time. We’ll do most of the processing in Logic/Live 8 and hopefully it will all turn out good.

We’ll write updates about how everything is going and if anyone has any comments or ideas on setting up the mics or such just write them in. Hopefully others are in a similar situation and we can all help each other out. 🙂