There is a whole lot more to recording a band than just throwing a few mics into a room and saying "alright, hit it!"

Granted, Led Zeppelin famously used only three microphones on the drums to capture the madman known as John Bonham. But alas, John Bonham you are not.

If you're a regular band you'll have a drummer (using between 3 and 8 mics), a bassist (using a direct line and possibly a mic'd amp), a guitarist (1 or 2 mics on his amp please), and a yodeler... er, singer.

(Or you might be a saxophone octuplet playing Guns'n'Roses covers, in which case you'll need at least 8 mics for each individual sax and maybe one or two pairs of stereo mics for the overall room sound.)

Sure you can just set up one mic in a room and press record just to get something you can post on your myspace profile. But it isn't going to sound like a professional recording.

You need to use as many mics as needed to truly "capture" the sound of your band.

When Atlas Takes Aim records drums I want as many options possible, but our recording studio has to go back to being our living room at the end of the weekend. So I mic the drums on overkill.

I track using around 16 individual drum mics. I don't use all of them in the final product. In fact, one song on our recent album uses just three drum mics.

It's the OPTION that I want.

So, even with a fairly minimalist approach you're looking at around a dozen individual tracks for all instruments and vocals.

ATA Hint: use several extra mics for variety/options. And don't be afraid to put a mic in a weird place. We threw an extra mic in the corner of a closet and it ended up being the main drum mic for "Oxford Comma".

Ok, you've got the basic tracks down. Now what?

~Mason & ATA

"Next Week: Overdubbing"

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