Basic Q about recording with music!

ElleBee

New Member
Hi, my teenage boy plays drums. He plays to backing tracks that he listens to through headphones with ear defenders over the top. Works well. But I'd love to be able to hear the music whilst he's playing and be able to record it - nothing professional, just to keep for my benefit! What equipment would we need to be able to do that? He's tried playing music through a loud Bluetooth speaker (most tracks are on his iPhone) but he can't hear the music over the top of his drums if he wears ear plugs or ear defenders (and it's too loud not to have any protection). We're neither of us very technically minded so any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Ella
 
The simplest way to do this might be to borrow a guitar amplifier or powered speaker from somebody, play the backing track at higher volume through the amplifier. You may need a cable to connect his iPhone to the amplifier. Make a video of your son drumming along with the backing track. It may be loud but you only have to do it for a few minutes.
 
There is are ways to do what you're describing, but none of them are simple, or cheap. Even for "nothing professional" results, you would still need a microphone or two, mic stands, cables, a sound mixer, and some cables and adapters to get the sound from the mixer into the camera (which is your phone, right?) while that same camera records the video. Your phone might not even be able to do this, so you'll want to research that before you buy anything.

Instead, you could find a local drummer or recording studio, who has all this equipment already, go to their place, and rent their services and equipment for a few hours. Your son would probably love this!
 
Hi, my teenage boy plays drums. He plays to backing tracks that he listens to through headphones with ear defenders over the top. Works well. But I'd love to be able to hear the music whilst he's playing and be able to record it - nothing professional, just to keep for my benefit! What equipment would we need to be able to do that? He's tried playing music through a loud Bluetooth speaker (most tracks are on his iPhone) but he can't hear the music over the top of his drums if he wears ear plugs or ear defenders (and it's too loud not to have any protection). We're neither of us very technically minded so any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Ella


First off - props to you for supporting his drumming!

Even enough to track down this forum and ask us!!

That's REALLLLLLY cool of you!

Unfortunately the above folks are right - there's not a super cheap way of doing this.

If you have a laptop that's decent you could do something like this:

Digital Reference 4 piece mic kit- $100
10 pack of XLR cables on Ebay- $37
Zoom H2n as overhead or room mic- $100
Behringer u-phoria umc audio interface- $100
stands- $0 (clamps come with mic kit)
Cubase- $0 (it comes with the zoom)

Multi-track drum recording for a 4 piece kit with only $337 - but you or he will need some skills to work all that equipment (Which might be fun for him anyways if he's really into music).


Another option that could work that I love is called the Yamaha EAD10. Just note that it costs about $500 - but I found a nearly brand new one for $350 on ebay (or you can look at reverb.com too for used gear).

It's a recording setup that clips the bass drum that you could put together in like 1 minute haha - it's the easiest thing.

It has an amazing app on the phone that allows you import songs and play along to them and record them - it's super easy to use. It also has a metronome and tons of cool stuff like effects that he can put on his drums.

It's a killer product that's very easy to use if he has a decent phone to run the app - and later if he did have a laptop - he could send the audio from the EAD10 into the laptop.

Here's a link to it:



That's a very simple way of doing it too.

Again - I LOVE that you are here - I hope we can help!!!
 
No expert here but I think you're going to need to spend a little money and learn a little about recording software. I use a Tascam DR-05 handheld recorder which can be had for under $100 new to record my kit. I then import the track to software and line it up to the backing track. Simple software such as GarageBand (mac users), Audacity (free, windows or mac but a little more complex), or BandLab (free online, there are others) can be used for this. Think of these as the entry-level recording software that are easier to use but if you are not technical at all it still may be a steep learning curve. I use the Tascam and BandLab to collaborate with my bandmates and get good results. Not professional but good enough for our needs.
 
Hi, my teenage boy plays drums. He plays to backing tracks that he listens to through headphones with ear defenders over the top. Works well. But I'd love to be able to hear the music whilst he's playing and be able to record it - nothing professional, just to keep for my benefit! What equipment would we need to be able to do that? He's tried playing music through a loud Bluetooth speaker (most tracks are on his iPhone) but he can't hear the music over the top of his drums if he wears ear plugs or ear defenders (and it's too loud not to have any protection). We're neither of us very technically minded so any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Ella

For recording: Yamaha EAD10
For amplification: Yamaha DBR12 (They also make a 10" and a 15" if you have size, volume, or budget preferences)
A cable to connect them: 1/4" Shielded Instrument Cable

This will provide the simplest means to what you want to achieve, and gear that should last him a decade or two.

Also take comfort in knowing that you can recoup ~65% on resale fairly easily.
 
I recently was asked to find a simple way to record a 7 piece band over the lockdown.. this might work for you. There's a free site called Bandlab.com that acts as a multi-track recorder - although we ended it up using it as a mixer due to latency issues... you can try recording directly but we found lags in the real-time 'over the network' recording approach.
So..
1. each member records their part while listening on headphones to the basic audio track - using their computer laptop or desktop..
2. the recording is done while listening to the track in a silent room using a cell phone - so in your case it just records the drums. The advantage of this is - you can shoot video at the same time if you wish PLUS it's an easy way to get the sound digitized without buying a separate audio interface to get your recording into the computer. If you have a decent smartphone the recording quality is surprizingly good.
3. the final step is to put the 2 tracks together.. we used Bandlab as an easy way for the 7 band members to easily post the tracks and revise and mix them as needed.. in bandlab you can upload the 2 tracks into a project and align them (sync them ) with a bit of manual dragging around in the editor... and save the mix as an MP3 or wav file to wherever..
But as you are just recording one person - you could also just mix it on your computer using the awesome free download - Audacity. (It saves as .wav files but download the plugin if you want to save as MP3.

- and of course, the barebones simplest approach is - if you just want to capture the moment :
- put your music through a louder stereo system (with real speakers) so the drums and audio are balanced and just video it on your smartphone... but don't move it around much or the audio will vary.
 
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First off - props to you for supporting his drumming!

Even enough to track down this forum and ask us!!

That's REALLLLLLY cool of you!

Unfortunately the above folks are right - there's not a super cheap way of doing this.

If you have a laptop that's decent you could do something like this:

Digital Reference 4 piece mic kit- $100
10 pack of XLR cables on Ebay- $37
Zoom H2n as overhead or room mic- $100
Behringer u-phoria umc audio interface- $100
stands- $0 (clamps come with mic kit)
Cubase- $0 (it comes with the zoom)

Multi-track drum recording for a 4 piece kit with only $337 - but you or he will need some skills to work all that equipment (Which might be fun for him anyways if he's really into music).


Another option that could work that I love is called the Yamaha EAD10. Just note that it costs about $500 - but I found a nearly brand new one for $350 on ebay (or you can look at reverb.com too for used gear).

It's a recording setup that clips the bass drum that you could put together in like 1 minute haha - it's the easiest thing.

It has an amazing app on the phone that allows you import songs and play along to them and record them - it's super easy to use. It also has a metronome and tons of cool stuff like effects that he can put on his drums.

For uploading videos to YouTube, the Yamaha EAD10 is a good option. However, you won't be able to hear both drums and music going at the same time until after the video has been created. For $500, it's the simplest and best option, assuming you have a capable iPhone or Android.

Here's a good video on how it works. But there are multiple shots going on here. You would only have 1 camera angle in your videos.

For $500, you can also purchase an entire day of recording studio time (assuming you don't live in NYC or LA). So $500 for the ability to create videos whenever is a very good price.
 
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