couple of condensor mics in a room playing acoustically worked well enough a couple of times. Said room was preferably not a recording studio, as the sound is extremely flat in the studio rooms, as they should be for their intended purpose. I think for what you're going for 4 condensors and a little tweeking in pro tools ought do you well for farmers market cds. I like using these little audio technica condensors
they're pretty versatile, you can hang em, put em on stands, etc. they work really well, even the lower end model, which I have several of. I've used for acoustic gigs, bals des maisons, live gigs, and recording.
I like a room with wood floors and not more than 1 or two windows. the sound just fills the room, especially with accordion. Make sure you keep that washboard player a good distance from the mics though itll cut through hard and overpower the recordings.
On a side note, I used the Tipitina's music co-op in Baton Rouge. $15 month membership and I had access to top of the line recording equipment, and they even brought a guy in from New Orleans to show me how to use pro-tools! I dont know if they have something like that in your area Dwight, but it might be worth looking into. It'll save you alot of money and headache for sure.
I agree that you can keep it simple and get a good recording. My wife and I made a cd with fiddle, accordion and vocals using two Behringer condenser mics in an x pattern, into a mixer and then into an interface and a laptop. We used Audacity which is free shareware. Big room with high ceilings which helped.
If I did it again I would put an SM58 on the vocals to make sure that had enough presence.
used the same setup minus the behringers and audacity (used the audio technicas) and it worked really good. We used garage band! it sounded pretty darn good.
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
