I'm the audio engineer for a local band, and we want to record a little album. So we don't want to spend too much money on this..
So obviously, I can't afford a studio mixer. And so I've looked at audio interfaces like M-Audio ProFire 2626 and similar.
We have a drum kit which I mic with 8 mics which all require a pre-amp:
- Inside kick
- Outside kick
- Snare
- Tom 1
- Tom 2
- Tom 3 (Floor)
- Hi-hat
- Room mic
Then we have some 1/4 jacks:
- Bass player
- Acoustic guitar
- Electric guitar (amp on the computer)
Then we have some more XLRs that require a pre-amp:
- Vocal microphone 1
- Vocal microphone 2
Then we're "recording the piano" via MIDI.
Do we need to record everything simultaneously, or can we record it twice or thrice to get all the instruments recorded? We have never recorded before, so we don't know if it will be possible, or if it'll get out of beat...
We don't want to spend more than $400 if possible. After looking around on the internet, I didn't find anything that had 8 pre-amps and at the same time didn't cost more than $1000.
I'm not familiar with the companies here, as I only have experience with live mixing and already recorded music on the computer..
What would you recommend for the job?