Recording set

the three ingredients to getting a good recording:
1. good gear
2. good room
3. good skills

from what you've listed, you're using subpar preamps and subpar a/d conversion. that's going to hurt quite a bit. so is mic'ing drums w/ one mic. if the others are lacking as well, then you've got an uphill battle.

are you multi-tracking, or are you playing all at once and mixing on the fly down to stereo before even getting to the mac?

 

mics need preamps, if you're taking the guitars straight into the mixer, you're using the Hi-Z line input, not the preamps.

i don't want to bum you out too much, but reckon on spending a few thousand on room treatment and some years getting experience to get really solid sounds. to say nothing of the $$$$$$ for good gear.

the more skills the engineer has, the less the other two matter, but know that guys spend decades becoming great engineers. i've been a hobbyist recordist for a few decades, and i'm only a mediocre engineer -- but i have great fun doing it and for anyone else who has great fun, i say keep at it. but expectations must be managed.

 

oh yeah -- do yourself a favor and get a multi-tracking setup. mixing live to "tape" is an artform in and of itself, and you don't need that added complication.

drop some money on a firewire interface so you can track the instruments separately. that way you can mix properly, and any of those boxes will give you better conversion than what's built into the mac.

you can spend your way into some better preamps, too.

then do yourself another favor and buy as many GIK 244's as you can afford / fit in your room. your room is an instrument and treating helps everything from producing better sounds to being able to actually hear what you're doing.

 

Re-examine your statement that you're sure you have all the levels set correctly. Chances are you don't have your gains properly set, either under driving or overdriving the Mac's audio input, or introducing distortion in the mixer/signal path.

Grab some books from the library and read up "Home Recording for Mucisians" is a classic -- also magazines: Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician, Recording, Computer Music, Future Music, Keyboard, etc. They are full of how-to articles.

Mic placement is one of the key skills -- the mic will record only what it hears. If it is not placed just where the sound is the best from the (amp, mouth, cello, drum, whatever) then it'll sound less than best.

These are the skills that Zim was referring to, not your instrumental skills.

 

ooh -- good point.

 

"a bundle" is relative, though i'm sensitive to the fact that high schoolers may not have much money. in the $500 range, you could get a presonus firepod. i can't vouch for the sound quality, though i'd bet money it's better than you're using, and it's got the features you need (8 pre's, conversion, line inputs, monitoring section).

what it'd allow you to do is multi-track, which i can't stress enough. you don't actually need your mixer, really -- a lot of project studios are mixerless. there are ways you could incorporate your mixer while tracking, but i'd suggest against it because i think your mackie mixer is going to do more sonic harm than good.

"it" is a little amibiguous. i reckon your cousin could help you with mic placement and gain staging -- two very important skills. if "it" means mixing down to 2-track before committing to "tape", i'll have to say they're giving you bad advice.

i don't know if you've read the primer, but i think it may help clear up some confusion for you.