Demo Disks

[Count Bassy]

Inspired by the tread about 'fake' live albums I was wondering what people do for demo disks.

We're only looking to get build up some regular local bookings (mostly pubs I guess), not looking to get get any business/recording interest (too old and realistic to worry about that, and only do covers anyway). So were looking for soemthing to hand out to local landlords etc.

So, with that in mind, what would you put on a demo disk?

My instinct is to put on untouched live recordings made with one or two microphones at the back of a venue, so that the demo reflects as much as possible what an audience will hear on the night. I'll qualify this by saying that I'd select tracks from a series of gigs, excluding any major cock-ups or poor mixes etc.

Our guitarist would prefer to set up a dedicated rehearsal and have a recording channel set up for each instrument, but still recorded simultaneously from a single play through. You could then adjust the mix and do some processing later.
I guess you could do this at a live gig also, and thus get some audience noise as well, but the practicalities of setting it all up might be difficult.


Further, you could go into a proper studio, but I think we are agreed that that is going too far (and expensive).

So what would you do / what have you done, and how well did it work?


While on the subject, what, and how much, content would you actually put on a demo disk?

Our singer want's to put short snippets of various songs on, so that the whole demo is only 5 minutes or so long, on the basis that the landlord won't want want to spend much time listening to a demo.

My instinct is to put whole tracks on, making the demo longer, but allowing the Landord etc to hear a bit more if he wants to.


Again, what are your experiences?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[TimR]

I was thinking the same thing, and we need to do it gain.

We went into a studio and recorded 2 four hour sessions (£90) each. The engineer set the mics up in about an hour then just left the levels and we played while the hard disk recorded everything we played. We only stopped if anyone made a major mistake and, depending how far into the take we were, we either started again or left it and move to the next song. We ended up with about 20 tunes worth selecting from. We chose the best tunes and I went back in and sat while the engineer mixed them. I then cut them down to a verse and a chorus.

Next time we will do the same, but only one 4 hour session, record with electronic drums, re-do all the vocals and sax and overdub any mistakes at a later date.

The problem with recording live is that once the 'tape' starts rolling people clam up and make mistakes that they wouldn't usually make. It can get very tense, its bad enough when you're paying for studio time, when you have to ALL get it right its even harder.

[stingrayfan]

3 well recorded tracks with good clear vocals is all you need. Something that sounds polished rather than raw.

We spent £150 and [url="http://www.wagthedogband.co.uk/Demos.html"]recorded 6 tracks in a day[/url] at a small studio.

Your band will get hired on how good the vocalist sounds, so vocals are top priority, I reckon. Condenser mic in a studio type setting - rather than shouting down an SM58.

Edited September 27, 2009 by stingrayfan

[Happy Jack]

Interesting.

We went with a couple of 4-hour sessions at our usual rehearsal place, with the techiest member of the band mic'ing everything up separately and recording into Cubase on an "as live" basis but with subsequent overdubs as necessary. He then tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and the result is the tracks we currently have both on MySpace (see my sig) and on our demo CDs.

The overall result sounds a lot like we do live on stage, only better in terms of sound quality and no cock-ups, and much worse in terms of spontaneity.

Track separation turned out to be poor, with loads of bleed into the mics. Bass and keyboards came out well because they were properly DI-ed.

Having been through that whole (very painful) process, next time I'd just set us up as a live band on-stage, only in the studio, and then record the whole thing into a couple of overheads.

I really don't like this idea of putting 30-second or 60-second snippets onto a CD. Put the complete tracks on IMO. If the landlord sets your CD running and then goes off to pull a pint for another customer, is he really going to want his pub's music system jerking onto the next track every 30 seconds? If he wants 30-second snippets there's all sorts of buttons he can press on his CD player to make that happen.

[Count Bassy]

Thanks for your thoughts so far chaps (this also acts as a bit of a bump to get it back on the first page) - anyone else got anything to add?

[mike257]

Can't comment too much on the content, as I'm not to clued up on how the covers scene works, but make sure every last bit of material you hand over to the landlord/agent/whoever has your contact details on. The front, the back, the disc itself. That way, when the landlord throws the disc on in his car and manages to lose the case somewhere, he can still book you when he realises how utterly badass you are - result!