2 acoustic guitars, vocal and cajon (ac. drum)

[StefanKokalj]

Hey guys,
I'm new user of Reaper (have it for 2 days) and have figured out mostly all of the things (main and advanced features of the program). So I have this band Sweet Overrated (acoustic band) and we intend to record our own acoustic record with some good mics and interface. So I was wondering if any of you guys did that kind of thing before and could tell me a bit about how to mix vocals and guitars that I'll get the most of them? And maby how far should the instrumental mic be from cajon when recording?

Thanks

[bigwoody]

Hey welcome to Reaper. We used to use a Cajon in our Celtic band. A lot will depend on your interface and how many tracks you can record simultaneously. I have a Delta 1010LT soundcard with a mixer for the pre-amps. This gives me 8 tracks of input. When we recorded our last CD, we mostly did the back tracks first. 2 mic's on the Cajon. A kick mic at the hole in the back and a Sure SM57 on the front (about a foot away). These went to separate tracks and when I mixed it I tried to get a kick like sound off the back and more snare from the front (be careful of phasing). Then we ran the bass in directly and I mic'ed my acoustic. Plus we had a room mic. (5 mic's total). After we got a good take of these we went back and added the violin, vocals, lead's and had percussion separately (for most of the songs).
That said, we did do a few with everyone playing and singing (mic for violin and 2 vocals). I really like this too as it gives it a real live feel.
Lots of ways to skin the cat, so try things a couple of different ways and see what works best for your style and playing ability.

[oneindelijk]

Hi,

We are currently recording as well. Our setup is two acoustic guitars, bass-player (normally also acoustic, but for the recording wev'e been using an electric bass guitar) and two singers, male and female.

For the cajon I used two prodipe A1's, one very close from the side to the front plate, the other about 40 cm (I don't know inches) pointing to the front plate (to the position where the 'slap' comes from)
The I use a large-condensor (a hansen CRI-78) just outside the hole in the back or sometimes on a pillow inside the cajon.
Both the A1's I cut a lot of low-end and I pan them hard right and left to get a wide 'slap' and the Hansen I mix in to get a nice balance between the hi's and lows.

These are really cheap micro's, the A1 cost less than 100 € for two, but they have very low self-noise, much lower than a couple others I have which are almost 10 times more expensive.

By the way Bigwoody, do you have an idea which song/band you would use as a reference ?