Remote recording due to the blasted Coronavirus??

Hi, I play guitar in a church group, and we’re exploring if we can create some “backing tracks” of some of our songs to be used as part of the live streaming of church services. The loose plan is for us to record individual parts in our homes, all using our own versions of Audacity (which we will all have to instal) and then one of us (with a little more technical / sound expertise!) to collate the individiual recordings and mix it all together. At it’s most simple, the idea is to put words to our songs on PowerPoint, layer the "backing track2 on to the screens, and stream that as part of the service for people to listen to or, I suppose, sing along in their own homes.

So, we have the following instruments:

• Keyboard
• Acoustic guitar
• Flute
• Cello (possibly, but with an “older lady” who is likely to struggle with the software, but we should at least give her chance))
• Bass guitar

Personally, I’m looking at using something like a Behringer UCG102 USB Guitar Link as that seems the simplest way of my recording the guitar part.

I’d really appreciate any views / comments on the viability / practical options of doing this…

Our keyboard player is pretty good at the technical stuff. He has some experience with Audacity and can produce a simple guide for each of us to use to help us do the recording.

We thought we’d be able to record each part, then send the MP3 (??) files to him by email, and he can then mix the whole lot together.

If it helps, we do have access to a Behringer analogue mixing desk that is sitting in my office and I can get that to the keyboard player’s house safely enough! But, of course, there is currently no way in which we can all meet together to record anything! (Indeed, if there was, we wouldn’t be needing to do this anyway!)

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help we get!

Mike

Be sure to buy a genuine one (buy from a reputable vendor). There have been cheap copies sold (mostly via ebay) that frequently have problems. Even the genuine ones are pretty inexpensive.

Perfectly possible.

Some tips for setting up:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/recording.html
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/latency_test.html

Assuming that you are all able to get your computers set up for recording, the “hard part” is playing in time with each other.
My “top tip” for playing in time is to give each person a stereo track recording that has a mix of a rhythm part (possibly the piano) and a “click track”. This track will not be used in the final mix, but is a “guide track” for all of the players. The “click track” must have a clear count-in, and could even have someone saying “one, two, three, four…”

Each player will record their part, and export that one track as a WAV file (don’t use MP3). To export just their track and not the guide track, click the “Solo” button on the new instrument track before exporting. Then send the WAV files (possibly via dropbox or Google Drive) to the “producer” (that may be your piano player) to put the mix together.

Don’t expect it to be perfect. Overly high expectations can make the process miserable. Have fun.

Thanks so much. I’m going to give the Behringer a go - found one on eBay that looks like it comes via a reputable supplier as you suggest. At the very least, I can try a guitar track and then develop it amongst the others.

Really appreciate your help - and totlly get the high expectation thing!

Mike