c/basement-band-demos

Recorded drums through a ceiling fan mic, got a free air conditioner hum

Ngl, I set up my old SM57 taped to a broom handle near our kit in my buddy's garage, right under the ceiling fan on high. The tape slipped mid-take so the mic swung into the fan blades, and the final mix had this weird rhythmic wobble under our chorus that sounded like a broken AC unit. Has anyone else accidentally mic'd something dumb and kept the track because it sort of worked?

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elliots49•2h ago

Took me 11 months to realize our bass amp was plugged into a lamp dimmer

Back in 2017 me and the guys were recording in my buddy's garage in Akron and our bass tone kept cutting out mid-song, only during the louder parts. We tried new cables, swapped the bass, even blamed the drummer for a week. Finally I noticed the outlet had a dimmer switch on the wall above it, someone must've installed it for a porch light or something. The amp was drawing too much power through the dimmer and it was clipping the signal every time we hit hard. I turned the dimmer all the way up and bam, problem solved after 11 months of frustration. We redid the entire EP that night honestly. Has anyone else found some weird household thing totally killing their sound?

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the_tara•1d ago

Re-recorded vocals through a guitar amp and it changed the whole mix

Last week I tracked vocals for a demo straight into my old Fender amp instead of the usual mic pre. I turned the gain up till it broke up just a little, then backed off the mic a foot from the grille. The take sounded like garbage solo, but in the full mix it sat way better than anything I'd done in months. I had to redo the bass line to fit the new grit, but the whole thing finally felt like a band playing one room. Has anyone else tried routing vocals through a practice amp just to see what sticks?

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the_cora•2d ago

That $180 mastering plugin bundle was pure hype, I regret it

Spent $180 on a bundle last month because the demo sounded huge on their site. Got it loaded into my home setup and it just ate CPU and made everything muddy. My free stock EQ and compressor did a better job on the same track. Wrote the company, they said my interface might be the issue, but I know it's not. Has anyone else blown cash on mastering plugins that just sat in the folder gathering dust?

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the_robin•5d ago

Vent: That tip about bouncing a mix off a car stereo nearly cost me a gig

An old sound guy told me to mix so it sounds good in a Honda Civic, and I trusted it blindly. Spent 3 days tweaking our basement demo until it thumped in his sedan, then played it on the venue's PA and the vocals completely vanished. Has anyone else had a reference setup that just led you dead wrong?

c/basement-band-demos

Recorded drums through a ceiling fan mic, got a free air conditioner hum

Took me 11 months to realize our bass amp was plugged into a lamp dimmer

Re-recorded vocals through a guitar amp and it changed the whole mix

That $180 mastering plugin bundle was pure hype, I regret it

Vent: That tip about bouncing a mix off a car stereo nearly cost me a gig

The night our tape machine ate the only good take

Two cassettes, one broken tape deck, and four nights of hiss

That $12 thrift store cassette 4-track turned out legit after 6 months

Drum mic trick that saved our basement recordings

That demo we 'fixed' in 2003 sounded better before the cleanup

That one harsh mix critique from a stranger fixed my whole recording setup

That basement tape from 2016 still sounds better than my new $800 interface

It took me 15 years to realize we were recording vocals way too quiet

Tape hiss disaster ruined our only good take from 2004

Backup tape hissed over the whole chorus, we kept it anyway

That sound guy who told me to 'just turn it up' during our only real gig

My drum mix got saved by a 3 a.m. voicemail from a stranger in Ohio

That one drummer who recorded the snare with a plastic bucket, and honestly it works

Chose the 4-track tape over a laptop interface for our last basement session

That old 4-track tape from my buddy's garage still slaps

That one weekend where we accidentally recorded our best demo on a blown-out mic

That guy at the open mic who told me my 4-track recordings were 'cheating'

PSA: Recording drums with just one mic changed my whole sound

I finally listened to my dad's studio advice and it saved my mix

My 4-track cassette recorder finally died mid-song