Beginner Audio post question - stereo music recording

Question

In a normal recording session, each instrument is recorded separately. So, i imagine all the effects and processes are designed for single-instrument tracks. How do you handle it when an entire band is recorded onto a single stereo track? Are any of the effects made for that purpose? What typical operations and rules apply? Is there some guide available and is it possible to, for example, boost certain instruments leaving the others alone?

Answer 1

This is getting slightly away from Audition but...
Mic placement depends quite a lot on the style of music and location....and, of course, the types of mics available to you.  Without knowing what you're doing exactly it's hard to be specific, but I'd suggest you Google "coincident pair" and "spaced omni".  Between those two (and variations you'll find when Googling) you'll cover a lot of options!
Then you put the mics in one pair and a mixer feed in the other and combine them later.
You mention the "house board" so it's likely safe to assume that we're talking something amplified.  Being frank, this is difficult to do a good job on with a simple stereo technique.
I'm often the guy running the "house board" (well, theatre board in my case) and I can sort of explain why the feeds you get don't sound right when recorded.  The mix being done for Front of House is designed to be heard in situ.  Instruments that are loud by themselves (drums for example, or guitar if the guy has a big amp and multi speaker cabinet) are generally kept very low in the mix.  Quieter things (vocals, electronic keyboards, etc.) are turned up in the mix to do battle with the drums and electric guitar.  This can sound okay live, but gives a very uneven sound when you hear JUST the recording.
Depending how cooperative the FOH guy is, there might be things you can play with, even with your limited tracks.  If he has spare aux outputs (and everything is run through the board) it's possible to do a passable mix using pre-fade auxes.  This lets you tweak things to a rough balance even if you can't ride levels constantly through the set.  If there are even more auxes available, I'd think of splitting things up a bit:  maybe vocals in one track, drum kit (mixed) in another, guitars in the third and keyboards in the last  That's obviously just an example since I don't know what you're recording!  Obviously, this takes a lot of cooperation from the guy mixing--so if you get a lazy grumpy old git like me, you're in trouble!.
Having said all that, you have to manage your expectations a bit.  A quick and dirty recording using any of the techniques above is never going to sound like (or give you the mix options of) recording 30 or 40 totally separate tracks and spending days on the mix later.  However, some okay results are possible.
Bob