Tascam 388 is a great analog machine for basic rock and roll recordings, 8-track 1/4 tape with built in mixer.  And yes, record live in the studio if possible, with low-wattage tube amps, spend your time getting the takes right rather than endless editing, outboard processing, etc.  The sound going down to tape should be as close as possible to the sound you want on the record.

I agree with Mike Spenser that Analog tape machines, when used correctly, will achieve a warmer sound than most digital platforms can offer. Personally, I prefer the results from analog recordings. Yes, indeed I prefer tube amps. 1965 Bassman I rebuilt...Bogen phono player I rewired to a guitar amp...rebuilt VOX jaguar organ.  Although, I record digitally, I still incorporate a UA LA 610 or other tube preamp into most of my signal paths.  And, indeed, I hate clicking on a mouse to track and mix...therefore, I do not do such procedures.  I still mix analog, manually, just like you. Wish I had a Studer tape machine, but I don't.  Sorry, If I offended you.

my experience (i work 9/5 in a commercial studio):

 it simply doesn`t matter. shit in shit out! digital is great with a engineer who has the right knowledge to to garage punk stuff and the same is with analog recording.

i personally record/mix/master digital and i take really good care that the signal before the mic sounds exact the way i want it to sound. then i also think that live recording is the only way to make good R`N`R record... i mean vocal overdubs or some solo shit are no big deal but the main stuff sounds the best live... because of the feeling.

regarding some digital gear: you  can make a lot out of it but there are so many plugins and apps or whatever that it`s a bit hard to find the right stuff. once you feel right with it ... it`s very straight forward.

regarding "real" garage sound i made the experience that the mic preamp has a lot to say about the sound colour. tape distortion is something we compared in the studio... plugins and  tape machines: sorry but soundwise both sound very good. so it depends a bit of what you prefer workflow-wise.

hope that helps you a bit.

CHEERS

Rob

Great advice Great Dismal Swamis but if you want a true garage sound record everything in one go. Full stop. One track or instrument at a time is just bollocks....Rock and roll is not like one track at a time! Rock and roll, REAL rock and roll, is a bunch of musicians playing together, chemistry, looking and hearing and feeling each others vibes to make MAGIC in the studio. Unless you've been there, done it, then please don't confuse anybody with fancy hi tech info. No offense, it's just not the way to record what the original posting by Chris wanted to know. Simplicity, basic equipment, the way it was done then, the way to get that sound. Good luck to you with your hi end equipment. The limitations you talk about...what are they??? Mixing with your hands instead of a mouse? Pushing faders up and down? Using your ears instead of LED meters? Using a reel to reel with chalk or grease marker to tell where the tracks end and begin? Wow..how disadvantaged! Simple SM58's and maybe some cheap mics to get those grungy sounds. Tubes, real tubes, not some poxy digital overprocessed sound is what he wants, I am sure. Like I say, good luck to you when you want to record your "slick" sounding modern "rock" bands...bland, and thin and lifeless most of it. OK, well balanced, no mistakes, but NO character, NO life. That's why they have all this useless fancy expensive outboard gear to try and get that simple dirty sound that you can only get by being dirty and down home with recording the way if feels, not the way it "should" be... 

Hi,

I've been doing home recordings for about 15 years, and have recorded in a variety of studios (from analog dungeons to digital walls of computers.) Currently, I record digitally using a Tascam 2488, 24 track hard disc recorder, using a ton of analog front end to capture that warmth that can be lost recording digitally.  Recording analog is great, but certainly has its limitations with editing, as well as maintenance of reel to reel equipment.  Regardless, both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. 

I start the recording process recording the drums with a scratch guitar track.  Everything else is added to the recording once the drums tracks are recording properly.  To me, the drums are essential to the overall progress of the recording...set the tempo, emphasis on chorus, bridge etc.  If the drums sound like shit...I don't proceed!  Panning is essential to overall drum track separation, allowing for the headroom for the bass, guitar, organ, vocals.  I pan from the drummers persective...ie bass drum center...snare left, floor tom right..and so on.  I highly recommend the book home recordings for dummies. Just because the info regarding panning and eq are rather useful later down the road.

Things I do:

Drum mics make a huge difference! kick -audix D6, audix i5 snare, sometimes a 57 underneath,  senn 421 floor tom, don't really use rack toms, but if I do 57.  And 2 overhead mics.  Use some cheap Sampson pencil condensers pair on overheads, for trash effect I use a room mic--AT 4033.  Cymbals are the most difficult thing to control. Drummer has to be consistent with hits, maintain consistency with striking cymbals and snare.  Tune the drums!!!!

Double track vocals- two separate vocal takes...sometimes sung exactly the same, sometimes not.. panned center, or spread far left/ right, or sometimes in between

Double guitar tracks using two different guitars and/or amps.  Even cheap amps can sound great. recommend mics: Sennheiser md421/ or shure 57 center cone or off axis

I'll add more later! Hope this helps! I'm certainly not a pro, but I'm always learning new techniques and getting better results. Most important... Remember to have fun.

Mike Spenser has some good things to say

I am a garage musician. I have a pure 60's all valve (tube) recording studio in my home in London. It has reel to reel recording machines (I even have an old tape machine from Abbey Road Studios the Beatles recorded on!). My quick advice is to go analogue, forget the modern digital recording crap equipment, use multitrack tape machines, they are cheap now because they are "old school" and run some of the sounds through old valve amps. Mix with your ears and NOT your eyes...in other words, when you are mixing, do NOT look at the meters. If it sounds good, even if it is in the Red, keep it! Analogue distortion of going and pushing into the red is beautiful. Don't compress too much and leave the sound wide open.

If you only have digital equipment then just record the sound you like withthe distortion and overload from the valve amps and even mic up the drums and put through valve amps and record BELOW threshold. Don't go for overload digitally! You can always Normalize each track and complete track later. Just get the sound you want and record it at a normal level. People and engineers try and get a big sound by recording big amps and try and get too much level when recording. Some of my most trashy and garagey tracks have been recorded by recording with a mic in front of a small ghetto blaster with a 3 or 5 inch speaker at blasting volume!

Listen to some Cannibals tracks to get an idea of the sound I mean...

Hey!

As this is my first post I'm hoping I do this right in the right spot.

I'm an Audio Student and my band and I are recording at the moment so I'm looking for any advice on some Classic/Modern recording/mixing techniques for garage and punk bands. The punk thing is pretty straight forward and I'm pretty ok with that but any advice would be great.

Playlist 02/23/13

Join the garagepunk party and listen to The Jeff of the Future Radio Show from 1:00-3:00PM EST on 89.7 WITR-FM in Rochester, NY or streaming live at http://witr.rit.edu/ .

Do you still want a copy? Get in touch...here is a pic of the original posting in the Guardian the week it was originally shown...

Of course I have a copy of it. I thought I'd replied somehow to you about this? Maybe on Facebook or email? Anyway, there are snippets of it on Youtube and I have somewhere the avi file if you want. Just don't use it in lieu of any porn when you're having it away with your partner! BTW, it was shown several times and was actually the "Watch This" in the Guardian TV schedule at the time! 

Hey everyone,

I just purchased a Squier Jaguar short scale bass yesterday and I'm looking for suggestions on new strings.  I'll be playing with fuzz/distortion in a style similar to "bass follows guitar" bands like Ty Segall, Bass Drum of Death, Black Lips, and early Gossip.  I want something with a real booming low that's not afraid to get trebly either.  So far I'm looking at Labella Deep Talkin' Flats, D'Addario Chromes, and GHS Pressurewounds.  Whaddya think?

Check out Subtitles from Leicester, definitely worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh5kxD6ICBg

Yeah, get hold of The Kumari 7", it's ace.

Don't forget The Kumari

http://www.facebook.com/THEKUMARI

and The Baron Four

http://www.facebook.com/thebaronfour

!!

OK---I Give Up---It was me--- I Did it----Its my Fault---Sorry----OK

Had to get that off my chest!

Although there are a ton of reasons to have a full on quality website, I gotta say I think things like "about.me" pages are perfect for bands or other groups/individuals that have a variety of profiles & accounts in numerous Internet locations because you can consolidate everything in one little summary and list of links.

We agree.

Shaun Coleman said:

facebook is just another promotional tool.

When I have my promoter hat on I'm looking for the ways to tell how successful-in-a-small-way a band is. All bands overhype themselves in conversation - you can't fake FB likes! They can be manipulated a bit, (ask your family/friends to like you and then watch them pay you zero interest thereafter) but its still a useful tool. Nothing more, nothing less. If a band has 2000 likes I'm pretty sure they'll be more of a pull than one with 50. common sense, surely!

In a competitive world you need it all - FB, SC, BC, a website, a record out, and so on. So ignore FB at your peril - yet overanalyse it at your peril too!

Radio What Wave Playlist Feb 21/2013

Another short show due to playoff hockey...

1. The Reply...Better You...from their recently released Downtown Soul EP.

2. Television....Fire Engine...from Lux and Ivy's Favourites Volume 17...it was Bryan and Ivy's birthday the other day.

3. The Scenics...No Sleep...from their first new release in over 30 years, Dead Man Walks Down Bayview.

4. Bloody Diamonds....She Ain't Pretty...recorded live on Radio WW 9/27/12 and they will be returning to London in about a month as a 2 piece combo.

5. The Hippies...Canteens....from Slippery's Club Hits, the cassette that comes with What Wave 24 and is currently #10 on the CHRW charts!!

6. Crash 80's...Waiting For The Heat...late 70's London Ontario combo and there only release.

7. The Cramps...Garbageman...goes out to Garbagecan Dan who was celebrating his birthday during this show.

8. The Cramps...The Way I Walk...had to play another Cramps 7" for Bryan and Ivy, the birthday duo!!

9. Cheap Thrills...Boys and Babes...from their only 10", they will be in town at Call The Office on Mar 1st.

10. Slade...Mama Weer All Crazee Now....no doubt about that. Early 70's top 10 hit in the UK.

11. Bob Segarini....Gotta Have Pop...from the 1978 LP of the same name.

12. TV Freaks...Bird Song...from their only LP and they will be in town tonite at Brennan's.

13. Teenanger...Cops But Not....from their most recent LP, Frights and they will also be at Brennan's tonite.

14. Royal Hangmen...Action...from their self titled debut LP...Swiss garagepunkers.

15. Murphy and The Mob...Born Loser...from Back From The Grave Volume 3. We're all born losers as this goes out to The noble Savages for playing this song for me a coupla weeks back!

That's a wrap,thanx for the phone ins, emails, messages etc....back again next week,hopefully we've got a full 90m then.

Here's a link to the podcast:

http://chrwradio.ca/content/radio-what-wave#prev-shows

the Ultra Lounge series is classic, pretty much any title is killer in the series

Show #410: "The Eggman Collection #130"

The Eggman Collection is basically a big potpourri of every song I've ever liked in my life...EVER! It's literally a huge mixing bowl full of songs written onto tiny pieces of paper. Over 20,000 songs that I've been compiling for the past 20-plus years of my life. Every song I've ever liked has gone into this bowl, and every three weeks I draw them out randomly one-by-one and play them for you in no particular order. A mix of everything and anything I like, no matter what genre, era, style or year of release...if I like it, then I'll play it! No repeats of the same song ever! Tune in tonight (Friday) at 10pm EST for the 130th installment of The Eggman Collection and hear bands and artists like: Kevin Ayers, Rainbow, Kansas, Stu James & The Mojos, The Blue Men, Os Mundi, The Paragons, Dantalian's Chariot, Dion, Billy Nicholls, The Ballroom, Strawbs, Emitt Rhodes, Sweet Thursday, The Golden Dawn, The Beatles, David Bowie, David Crosby, Fanny, Kangaroo, The Merry-Go-Round, Gong, and many others!!

***To stream The Metaphysical Circus live via the web click this link: http://portsmouthcommunityradio.org/listen ... to listen to past shows, view playlists and more, fan the show by "liking it" on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Metap ... 6748511750
Live every Friday night at 10pm to 1am EST on WSCA-LP 106.1 FM, Portsmouth Community Radio!

Watch my playlist unravel before your eyes LIVE here: http://wscafm.radioactivity.fm/

Egg

check it out this brazilian stoner band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8omQUdwral4

And the immortal Venom (I love you, Black Flag)