You asked so here's my story. I bought a new laptop and a Roland Studio Capture when the motherboard of my trusty home build desktop fried. My rock solid emu 1820 PCI card, which I have been using for over a decade, probably 2, came with sonar 6, or earlier. I have upgraded sonar through the years and have been merrily making home recordings on my own with occasional sit ins with friends and band mates in my basement at friendly volume levels with a reasonably good room. No real issues. No one on the forums probably knew I existed.
I play bass in a 70's classic rock cover band that likes to play anything from Bread, Derrick and Dominos, and Van Morrison to Deep Purple and Bad Company. When practicing at my buddy's house, we just run the vocals through a simple pa head and wail. Lots of fun but ears are ringing by the end of the rehearsal.
Now with the new equipment and its portability, I take the new equipment to practice, I plug it all in and nothing but feedback. Most likely I didn't realize the echo input monitoring was on. However, if that is the immediate problem, I can just turn the input monitoring off and not send signal back into the room via sonar. I'll listen in on headphones myself, and I can at least get something recorded.
Now all of the other advice comes into play to get a good or if I am capable of engineering it, a great recording.
I want to record the rehearsals for learning purposes and I want to record our gigs to make demos to give to new venues to land new gigs.
The goal for recording the rehearsals is to tighten up the band and improve vocals. More importantly to bring the sound level down. Right now sloppy timing and unbalanced, sometimes off key vocals are being masked by playing too loud during rehearsal. Sound familiar? The room is a basement setting with 70's era wood paneled walls. I want to record the rehearsals in a less than optimal room with a bunch of players that I need to reign in.
The band uses the following gear:
Rhythm Guitar: Fender Roadmaster 50 watts.
Lead: Marhshall 50 watt combo. Direct emulated out on this.
Bass: 100 watt Peavey.
Keyboard 50 watt Roland amp.
Tama acoustic drums.
I have available:
Roland Studio Capture: 12 combo XLR inputs and the ability to output to mains and four independent monitor mixes.
Five DI inputs via one a Behringer DI red box, and a Behringer Ultra DI Pro which provides the other 4 DI's.
A four channel headphone amp (Behringer Power play Pro- XL)
A Crate 24 track analog board
A Behringer 1832FX Pro analog board.
2 Yamaha 12" wedge monitors
2 Yamaha 15" main speakers
A full set of drum mics with 2 condenser overheads
A bunch of Shure SM 58's for vocals and micing amps.
The goal for recording live gigs is to use sonar make demos to land other gigs. Ideally, I want to record the gig by routing everything through the Roland Studio Capture. Record all the instruments and vocals live realizing there are foldback issues with the vocals and drums. Then send the vocals out to the live pa. The amps for guitars, bass and keys are more than enough to fill any room we play. I'd like to send the snare and kick out through the pa as well.
First I'll make the boys ante up and get headphones. This is the easiest way to get things going in the studio/basement. I'll mic the amps with sm 58's and put baffles around as described. mic the drums. Send nothing from the amps or drums (never do) through the PA and send only vocals to the pa until I can get the boys to buy some headphones. Funny how a bunch of successful middle age guys balk at coughing up fifty bucks or so to improve.
I also appreciate the tip of not letting anyone hear the product as no one is going to like the raw product from the rehearsal recording.
Playing out at small venues and making a killer recording of same using the equipment at hand is the goal.
This forum is a great space for those who want to go further using sonar to make music and enjoy themselves. All the advice is greatly appreciated. I know many of you have years of experience which I truly value. I'm not that savvy when it comes to this and reducing my learning curve with the input of everyone's valuable time really makes takes the experience to another level. Thanks!