Recording for a band

I know this isnt dealing with the mpc, but i was hoping heads in this forum would be able to help. Recently a couple of bands have approached me talking about recording a demo. When i further thought about it i realized that although "rock" isnt my bag of music, id love to work on recording and there is alot of money to be made. But i was trying to figure what equipment i would need, ie; mics for instruments, vocal mic, computer program, what my comp needs, and so on. Any help would be greatly appriciated.

Try the recording forum at Harmony-Central.com, it's one of the best on the net... http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/index.php
Do a search on it before you post though, that question is asked a million times.

There are a couple of good books that can probably answer your every question:
PRACTICAL RECORDING TECHNIQUES
MODERN RECORDING TECHNIQUES
I'm sure you can get em on Amazon.

Go down to your local Pro-Music Hire dept...

Cop a ADAT 8 track recorder...

A 24 Channel Track Desk...(12 channels for recording then 8 channels for mixing back down on without loosing your settings)

Then cop as many mics as you can including specialised kick and Over head mics...bounce down multiple snare and Over head mics to seperate channels for recording

Record your sessions....and do at least two takes of every song ...Do overdubs for the guitars if you need....and record the bass guitars in the one take.....take the adat back to your crib then mix it down into a PC live...or if you have a multiple output sound card you could do individual tracks...or if you have a solid sync source you could do one track at a time....

Now I did this for under $250 Aussie dollars for my band and it came out a treat....I did use 2 x gate, compressor on the drums though...

madness, thanks a ton, very helpful, maybe you could help me with this question... a bunch of bands, semi friends, wanted me to record their demos, like 4-5 songs, what would be a good price to charge some bands for me to record their whole demo, not by the hour.

There's another thing you could do, for my band I told them to record an album they'll have to by a preamp for my studio, it ran around 6 bills and it sounds much nicer than saying I'll charge 600$ to record the album. You can have them buy you a really good mic or speakers or a good soundcard. Just a suggestion.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=42ab2f51d68845a6ac5e8b8f7c6996fc&threadid=406403

Check that link out to see peoples different setups and how much they cost.

Yo Pawn!!!

This all depends on how experienced you are working with music and mixing levels etc., and what route your going to go down in regards to the gear. Let me tell you right now it 'aint that easy to get stuff to sound right with no experience...even for a demo (which doesnt have to sound too flash)

So, If you are going to go ahead. I would tell your mates you will do it for a nominal fee on top of whatever you have to hire in the way of Mics, Mixers Etc...$100 Bucks or so...Because, basically you have no experience right and there is a real art to placing mic's and setting the right gains, and setting the monitor mix etc...Plus, where are you going to do it.. You are gonna need an area with some good sounding accustics (a nice lounge room can sound nice on a good drum kit and you shouldn't have to add reverb).

There are people who have a whole set-up for recording demos at quite reasonable rates and because they are gonna have more experience than you, will probably make it sound better... So you should ring up such people and find out how much they charge $$$ what kind of gear processing they include $$$$ what the turn around time is, what they charge for the final cutting of the CD and use that as a basis for what your charging...and lower your rate appropriately...so all your mates will wan't to use you...and the more experience you get you may even be able to turn it into a business....