My church band finally got to have our first live session in the studio!! We aren't so good at all if not because we were struggling against hardware, software, and what I'll refer to as Human Resources. I have a couple of questions regarding how my room is set up though...
 

1. Is it okay for my monitors to be directed AT (~1.5 - 2ft AWAY from) a wall? If not, what about if the BACK are about 0.5 - to 1ft away from a wall? Is there any way to remove existing pads that have been glued on WITHOUT damaging the pad/wall?
2. The walls are built to be acoustically insulated, but is it okay to just "slap" the foam pads directly to the wall? That doesn't seem like it gives a tight, dry, versatile result - especially not for louder instruments like drums that cause a lot of their own reverb inside the room. 
3. My drums are in a corner for space concerns. I might be able to center them against a wall- but center of the room is out of the question. What is the best placement between these two options.
4. In line with the previous, I'm also not against any info about proper drum micing (although I wrote about it a short while ago here too). This time the sound was pretty bad... the kit is very poorly tuned, but the stereo overheads were also picking up a lot of reverb from the back corner.
5. There we have Logic Pro - I have SONAR at the home studio... what can I do to learn LP without paying $600? Switch my key bindings in SONAR to LP? Perhaps try a demo for my MacBook?

 
 
Lots of questions arise when you go in with an experitmental mindset... Hopefully the collective community here is more than knowledgeable enough to give me some tips on what can be done to get the very best out of this setup - equipment-wise, it IS actually a near-pro studio.

You got your first live session in the studio, so... I don't follow. You're in someone else's studio? Or do you mean you guys are going to record yourself.

ooblecaboodle
You got your first live session in the studio, so... I don't follow. You're in someone else's studio? Or do you mean you guys are going to record yourself.

Yup, figured there was more than enough info in that first post to extrapolate the conclusion that we're in our own studio recording ourselves. I'm playing bass and running the system, which would work marvellously if I were a bit more well-versed in the use of Logic Pro.

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Recording is up next and Eli examines the Drummer Track, setting up clicks and count offs, MIDI, AutoPunch, Loop Recording, using Take Folders and a loads more stuff! Editing in LPX is then covered, and Eli goes deep into working in the Tracks Area, Region Editing, the different Editors, MIDI Draw, Score Editor, Flex Pitch, using the Groove Track and more.
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davdud101

ooblecaboodle
You got your first live session in the studio, so... I don't follow. You're in someone else's studio? Or do you mean you guys are going to record yourself.

Yup, figured there was more than enough info in that first post to extrapolate the conclusion that we're in our own studio recording ourselves. I'm playing bass and running the system, which would work marvellously if I were a bit more well-versed in the use of Logic Pro.

You have a room, that you aren't sure about how to set up for recording, aren't very versed about how to record. 
That's not "getting your first live session in the studio", that's just "mucking about". Which is fine.
 
I suggest you look up the various individual topics, rather than just asking the all-encompassing "how do I best record myself and my band".
This stuff has been covered here, and elsewhere, in great detail.
 
EDIT: also, this isn't a Logic forum.

ooblecaboodle
 
EDIT: also, this isn't a Logic forum.

Chill, bro!  This ain't the 'Sonar Techniques' forum either. 

There is also Logic training available on Udemy. Here:
 
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=Logic%20pro%20x&src=ukw
 
There are also a bunch of free Logic courses if all you want to do is setup Logic for recording which I had to do recently. The free courses got me going and that is all I needed. I then moved it all to a drive and mixed in Studio One.
 
Free Logic Stuff on Udemy:
 
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=Logic%20pro%20x&src=ukw&price=price-free
 
I think Udemy are the Logic training experts not so much Groove 3. That Groove 3 video is also on Logic 10.0 which is fine but it now it is along at 10.3 and now very recently 10.4 which has added a lot.
 
But like me you may only want to know how to set Logic up to an interface and track a session and I was able to do that from the free Udemy courses quite easily.

I think the quality of Udemy courses is pretty high quality in general, if you can find what you need.  Plus the course developers seem to keep up to date with the latest versions of programs.  I have registered for several free and paid courses there and the ones they have are quite good, and once on the mailing list they periodically will run $10 specials to enroll, with like a 90% discount or so.  
 
The only downside with Udemy is that they carry more general subject matter, not so much in music software specifically, but it's definitely worth a look!  Lots of coverage for music theory, songwriting, and production.
 
I also use Groove3, as they do specialize in music software, but I have noticed that they seem to have a lot of older content, and are not always current with the latest versions.  They do seem to produce short overviews of what's new in the latest version of popular programs, but don't seem to redevelop the entire course curriculum often.  But you can watch an older course, and then play catch up with the new features.

Hi DD:
I don't know how to answer all your questions but in relation to #1, if your referring to your playback monitors, as a GENERAL rule they should be about 30% of the total length of your room from the back wall.  So if you're in a room that is 20 feet long then your monitors should be about 7 feet from the wall.  The .5 to 1 foot distance you mention is probably going to give you bass boost and create the illusion that your recordings more bass heavy than they really are.  Ergo, your mixes won't sound great outside of that room.
 
In relation to question #2, if foam is all the acoustic treatment in the room, then it's probably not doing much good if you're recording bass and drums live.  You probably need to upgrade that.  There are some good articles on the web about building bass traps that would be worth a read. 
 
Lastly, it sounds like you're in a fairly small room (which most of us are) and the truth is, it's hard to get a decent sound in one.  You asked about micing drums in question #3 and how to develop better technique.  Good technique will always help, but you have to remember if your room sounds bad then you're still going to end up with a good recording of a bad sounding room. 
 
I guess here's my bottom line (for whatever it's worth): work hard to fix your room, otherwise you will always be struggling with your recordings.
 
Good luck with your music!

davdud101

Is it okay for my monitors to be directed AT (~1.5 - 2ft AWAY from) a wall? If not, what about if the BACK are about 0.5 - to 1ft away from a wall?

The close the back is to a wall the more bass ramping you get, which may well not be a good thing. I can not imagine why you might want to point monitors at a wall 2ft away.

davdud101

The walls are built to be acoustically insulated, but is it okay to just "slap" the foam pads directly to the wall? That doesn't seem like it gives a tight, dry, versatile result - especially not for louder instruments like drums that cause a lot of their own reverb inside the room. 

Most/many acoustic tiles on the market aren’t very good at creating a “tight, dry” result. Or at least they may do so at higher frequencies but low mids and bass require a serious weight of very high-density foam or rockwool to begin to lower their reflected volumes. And the acoustic treatment often needs to be a distance away from the wall as well so the sound passes through it twice.

davdud101

My drums are in a corner for space concerns. I might be able to center them against a wall- but center of the room is out of the question. What is the best placement between these two options.

Neither is good, but the corner is worst. Probably much worse.

davdud101

In line with the previous, I'm also not against any info about proper drum micing (although I wrote about it a short while ago here too). This time the sound was pretty bad... the kit is very poorly tuned, but the stereo overheads were also picking up a lot of reverb from the back corner.

davdud101

There we have Logic Pro - I have SONAR at the home studio... what can I do to learn LP without paying $600? Switch my key bindings in SONAR to LP? Perhaps try a demo for my MacBook?

If you have a decent Intel MacBook Logic Pro costs a lot less than $600 doesn’t it? UK price is £200, US $200 if I remember right. There’s no Logic Pro X demo as far as I’m aware.

On the audio side it’s not so different from Sonar or any other DAW. Off the top of my head the main things I found to be awkward learning the audio side of Logic is that it handles track folders differently, mono tracks can’t be panned, they have to be run into a stereo bus to allow panning, the effects on average maybe aren’t as good as the ones with Platinum (though the recent update to Logic has improved things a bit there) and the mixer view can be a bit confusing till you understand how the different view options work.

The MIDI side has some substantial differences both in minor workflow ways and major ones, some things are better, others worse.

Logic’s manuals are free and pretty good, except where the MIDI Environment is concerned.

If the recording has to be done in Logic then it’s pretty much the same as recording in Sonar. Create tracks with the required inputs, record enable them and record. Input echo works as you’d expect if needed, just Command-click (aka right click on mouse, two finger tap on trackpad) the track to pull up the track contents menu if the button with an “I” in it is missing. If you want to mix in Sonar later just export each track as a broadcast wave file so Sonar puts it in the right place along the time-line automatically.