I’m looking to create a portable recording setup on a seriously short shoestring…

I have a 5 piece drum kit (actually, 7 piece but I can live without the two smallest toms) with 5 drum mics – one each for kick, snare, floor & two rack toms. These are cheap things that came with XLR-jack leads, and I’ve since plugged the jack ends into jack-XLR adapters.

I also have a laptop with a cheap recording studio package on, which seems to work quite well, and quite simply too (I also have Cakewalks Sonar on my desktop so I could export from the cheap package as WAV files & then import onto the Sonar system as audio tracks & mix down on that).
and a Behringer USB interface, which has one headphone socket and one stereo (?) 1/4in jack input socket

my plan is this:
1) plug 5 drum mics into a small mixing desk
2) plug the outputs from this desk into the USB interface
3) plug the interface into the laptop & take the whole lot into the band’s rehearsal room
4) record the drum tracks for all of our songs, live, with the rest of the band in the same room. I appreciate there may be some bleed through from the guitar amps & p/a into the drum mics – which may not be a bad thing if it’s not too obvious – could be used as a guide track for…
5) record the individual guitar, bass, keyboards & vocals later

so my question is this:
what’s my best compromise between cheap and useful:
a) this desk: http://www.pmtonline.co.uk/yamaha-mg102c-10-channel-mixing-desk.html – £91 and in stock in my Local store
b) this desk: http://www.pmtonline.co.uk/wharfedale-connect-802-usb-6-channel-mixing-desk.html – £69 and in stock in my local store
c) this cheap box: http://www.maplin.co.uk/4-channel-mono-mixer-31136 – £20 – or maybe
d) this slightly less cheap box: http://www.maplin.co.uk/4-channel-stereo-mixer-31137 – £28

a) looks to me like a nice piece of kit and will get lots of use for as long as I’m doing music. would one of my mics go into one of the Line inputs? or would I only be able to use 4 mics at a time?
b) looks like it’ll only take 4 inputs at a time so I’ll have to decide whether I want two mics on the rack toms & none on the floor tom, or one between them and one on the floor tom – subject to the line inputs working with drum mics
c) cheap, but see (b) above
d) cheap and I’d have to decide which drums to go into each of the L and R channels

Option a looks best. Use xlr leads in the first 4 channels then xlr to 1/4 inch mono jack in the next two. Do a rough guide track using a room mic, then record to this. I did a similar project a while back on to 8 track. I would use one mic on the kick, one on the snare, 2 “overheads” at ear level pointing at the kit, then use the last mic as a room mic. Just tape it to the floor somewhere where the room sounds good. Get on your hands and knees and crawl around listening whilst someone plays the kit. Place where it sounds best. Once imported into your sequencer, I would rely on the over heads and the room mic and use the kick and snare mic for emphasis. Add 60ms of delay to the room mic. Helps add weight to the sound.

Nice price on the Yamaha desk – I would go with that, especially since it has compression on the mic channels

You don’t need the xlr to 1/4 in that skaifan suggested as you are already using 1/4 to XLR adapters. However it is unlikely that the line inputs will be good enough to you might just have to use the suggestion for 4 mics that skaifan gave and live without the 5th.

Sorry can’t help, I’m a cameraman and as any soundman will tell you we no f all about f all.

I’d steer clear of mono mixers if you are planning on recording live drums; a slight pan on each microphone goes a long way to avoiding them sounding flat.

If you’ve only got XLR>Jack cables and the mixer has jack inputs I wouldn’t bother with a jack=>XLR adapter at the desk; you’ve already lost the balanced signal. You can ‘cheat’ and mix two mics through a single balanced input; but it’s a bit dodgy and not recommended – better to spend the money on a desk with a few more inputs.

Have you thought of going 2nd hand ? I got a 16 channel desk for ~100 notes; it’s ideal for live work (probably overkill for what you are planning) – Just make sure the faders are all smooth; nothing worse than a bit of crackle on a live mix….

If you’ve only got XLR>Jack cables and the mixer has jack inputs I wouldn’t bother with a jack=>XLR adapter at the desk

As far as I can see with the Yamaha desk there you will need them as the XLR input is mic level and the jack input is line level

you’ve already lost the balanced signal

Not if they are stereo jacks surely? But you’re probably right if they are crappy mics

@leffeboy – sorry; yes you are right I didn’t look closely enough; the mic inputs on that Yamaha desk are XLR only – so you’ll either need to use your adapters or buy proper XLR balanced cables.

Agreed with the mic setup from scaifan – one on the kick; one on the snare and two high level – I’d skip the room though as you’ll get way too much bleed through from the rest of the band – you may yet find the bleed excessive as it is. If you can get them try and make sure the high level mics are condenser; it’ll help it all sound nice and crisp.

The room mic would only come into play should you be multi tracking to a guide track. As for the desk being mono. Once you have importe the files into the sequencer, you can build your stereo track in there. Just keep the kick mic in the middle.

You can get a good drum sound on 4 mics, Bass, snare(hihat) and stereo overheads.

+1 for getting a stereo input into your computer. Drums will sound much better with a proper stereo image.

No don’t even think about using line inputs for mics…

I personally wouldn’t approach it in this way at all and would be looking to get an audio interface that had the number of inputs I required. You could then mix the sound properly after recording. You will not get a good sound mixing it into 1 or 2 channels prior to recording unless you have amazing experience at doing this already… which it sounds like you don’t. Look at 2nd hand equipment, if it works.. it works, just check all the inputs though before you buy something. However the problem will be finding an interface with more than 2 mic inputs on a budget, 2nd hand will be your friend here…

cheers chaps, some sound advice there.

I’ve just been chatting to our keyboard player & he already has a mixer for his keys, with plenty of spare channels for the kit, so we’re going to have a play in rehearsal room tomorrow night, see what exactly we can get out before we start putting a shopping list together

I was definitely thinking of one each on snare & kick, one on floor tom & possibly the other two at height (if we have enough mic stands in the room!). They’re all cheap dynamic mics, no condensers unfortunately.

Keyboard guy & bass player were both sound engineers at uni so we do have some experience in the room anyway

s/h is an option too. thanks again 🙂