Drum Tracking Session Suggestions...

[jhazelbaker]

Hey Everyone,

I've been around this forum for some time now and really respect all of your opinions. I couldn't find my original account info so this is my first post under this username. Anyway...I'll try to put this down with some brevity.

I'm going to be producing an album for my group in mid march and will have quite a bit of fairly high-end gear at my disposal for the drum tracking sessions. Still, I'll have a limited time in the space, so I'm trying to pre-plan where I'll start with most of signal flow. Obviously things will change once i'm in the room and start to audition kits, but I'm trying to anticipate which pres and mics I will initially match up. I'm familiar with most of the pieces, aside from maybe the telefunken and wunder as most of it is my own project studio gear. Still any suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to be tracking with little or no compression on most channels with apogee conversion into a 002, and while I'm going to be tracking anywhere from 3 to 16 channels for each kit, I have no intentions of needing them all. Honestly, as an engineer I hate to have options, but I do like to take a lot of pictures with my microhones. Anyway here's what I'm working with...

Pres

Aurora Audio GTQ2
Wunder PEQ1R
Chandler TG Channel MKII
Chandler TG 2
API 512 C (4)
API 3124
Telefunken V72
Focusrite Penta

Mics

Neumann U67 and 87 (2)
Peluso 2247 LE
Peluso CE6 (2)
Royer 121 (2)
Electro Voice RE20
Shure KSM 27 (3)
Shure Beta 91
Shure SM 81 (2)
Shure SM 57 (4)
Shure SM 58 (2)
Shure Beta 58
Shure SM7
Beyerdynamic m201
Sennheiser 421 (3)
Studio Projects C1
Yamaha Subkick

Regardless this is my starting point for Mic to Pre (I'm pretty comfortable with my mic choices, just am question some of my pre matchups, and I know this a rather subtle thing).

1. K-IN RE20 > API 512C
2. K-IN BETA 91 > API 512C
3. K-OUT PELUSO 2247LE > API 512C
4. K-OUT SUBKICK > Wunder PEQ1R > 800 CH4
5. SNARE BEYER M201 > Chandler TG Channel MKII
6. RACK TOM-KSM27 > API 3124
7. FLOOR TOM-KSM27 > API 3124
8. FLOOR TOM-KSM27 > API 3124
9. HAT-BETA 91 > Focusrite Penta
10-11. OH PELUSO CE6 XY > Aurora Audio GTQ2
12-13. ROOM MAIN PAIR MS U87 > Chandler TG2
14-15. ROOM STEREO SPACED PAIR R-121 > TELEFUNKEN V72
16. FAR MONO ROOM U67 > API 512C

Okay that got a little "breathier" than I intended, but does it look like I'm taking advantage of the gear I have at hand? I know how subjective this can get so if it would help if justified some of my starting points or intentions for drum sounds, etc. (kits, perhaps?) just let me know.

Thanks again for making this place such a great community.

[Lawrence]

9. HAT-BETA 91 > Focusrite Penta

Not familiar with that choice but I hardly ever mic HH anymore and if I do I use a mic with a figure 8 pattern like a AT4050.

It looks like you have a very nice collection of mics and pres there. Since this is your group (and you're off the clock) you can experiment quite a bit. Have the drummer come over alone and go for it until you find a sound that you like.

[jhazelbaker]

Lawrence,

I know where you're coming from. Which is why I'm putting my least slutty gear on HH. I do wish I had a multi pattern available but I may opt to not use the channel at all unless it turns out really well. I really need to pick up a 4050 (what is wrong with me?). The only AT mic that I have is a 4033 (the first mic I bought back in high school), but I've always had great experiences with them.

I do have quite a bit of confidence in my hat track because the main pair of hats I'm using for the session are Zildjian's Sweet Hats (as well as some new beats and old Ks). If you haven't tried these, please do! For me they are the only hats that actually sound the way a hi-hat should (they really speak in a very pleasing way, some describe them as sloshy, but I feel that description to be rather misleading).

The thing I love about Sweet Hats is that you can actually eq them! (mind you I'm an equalization minimalist/purist) but the fact that you can add some top end really helps. In my opinion, most hats already have a bunch of white garbage piling up in the rest of the channels. But, with the sweet hats, being able to adjust their timbre just a little bit helps pull them out as wide in the stereo image as possible. That's really what I'm going for...

Thanks for your thoughts...does anyone know where I can rent another Apogee converter in the Cleveland area (lets not turn this into a converter debate, eh? )

[absrec]

I hope you have some eqs at your disposal. You're gonna need some if you're planning to use 4 mics on the kick and 5 mics on the room. Maybe you were going to use one or the other? What compression do you have available for the room?

All of the mic/pre choices seem like they would work. You're not working with chump gear. I've just always found that putting that many mics on tape without eq can tend to result in a big pile of mud that turns into a science project come mix time.

Just my 2 pennies,
-Aaron

[jhazelbaker]

I hear what you're saying Aaron, but I'm definitely a purist and will only have a few channels open at a time, only one room, and maybe a couple of kick mics at the most. The mics I've chosen for kick really run the gamut as far as varied kick sounds and depending on the intended aesthetic, work really well for me. I don't have many eqs available, but if I do decide to use multiple mic channels on kick at a time, I tend to use their combinations to "eq" my sound. As long as I maintain phase coherence, I don't think i'll run into too many problems. If I do run into trouble though, I'll probably move the Wunder and Chandler around to address eq issues. As far as compressors, I'll have the basics, LA2A, 1176, and distressor. Still I may just opt to compress ITB (go ahead and flame away).

The room I'm recording in is really kinda unique. It's a 150 tower with 4 really great rooms, but the 5th floor really has a great woody sound (beautiful, controllable decay, 25' ceiling). Nice, big sound. Needless to say we're pretty fortunate to have it to ourselves. I did some audition tests this week and the room sound really blends nicely, in a way it naturally already sounds "crushed". Very bonham 'esqe'.

That said, maybe I will try to get a hold of a few more eqs ...believe me I've had enough of my fair share of science experiments come mix time.

Thanks again for your thoughts Aaron...I'll definitely be thinking about it in the next couple of weeks.

Best,

Jayson Hazelbaker

[studjo]

hey man just didn't see a snare under mic - you don't plan to use one? I'd prefer to have that option - perhaps would skip one of the room mics or one of the kick mics. I didn't use a snare under mic for ages, but re-discovered it again. Now I wouldn't skip that one anymore - YMMV


Jo

[DavidKakon]

do yourself a favor... try 100 mics if you want, but give yourself the option to fold down to these 2 + kik + snare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

[RoundBadge]

Originally Posted by DavidKakon

do yourself a favor... try 100 mics if you want, but give yourself the option to fold down to these 2 + kik + snare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

I'll second that..thumbsup thumbsup
Watch the video
less is more
a really well tuned kit in a nice room with a good player.
5 mics with everything in phase can have a much bigger impact than a gazzilion mics
and if you do it right, easier come mix time

[Musiclab]

you might want to see if you can lay your hands on a few ibp's with all those kick mics,which instead of 4 on the kick I'd do one over and under each tom. If you're going to have that many room mics I would absolutely do, not snare under, but snare shell in addition. Other than that you have some nice stuff to work with, take it all on its own track.

[Greg Curtis]

Nice video! Simplicity is good! I can hear a big ball of phasing issues with the 16-mic route.

Placing 4 mics on the kick and then having only one on the snare is an oversight if you are going the full-scale mic-every inch route.

But, at the end of that vid, the front overhead boom stand is wildly wobbling back and forth 2-4 inches with every bass drum kick! This after carefully measuring down to the fraction of an inch for phase coherence. I wonder if there is any wind noise? Dude needs a Starbird or at least a stiffer floor.

Originally Posted by DavidKakon

do yourself a favor... try 100 mics if you want, but give yourself the option to fold down to these 2 + kik + snare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

[studjo]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

But, at the end of that vid, the front overhead boom stand is wildly wobbling back and forth 2-4 inches with every bass drum kick! This after carefully measuring down to the fraction of an inch for phase coherence. I wonder if there is any wind noise? Dude needs a Starbird or at least a stiffer floor.

an oldie but goldie

Jo

[djui5]

Wow that's a lot of mic's. You only need 2 on the kick (Beta 91 and subkick or 2247), and a single pair of room mic's with maybe a single one for mono (verses). You could place the stereo pair further away to drop the drums back some in the choruses. Also I'd recommend an SM81 on HH and 421's on toms.

Post pictures please

[jhazelbaker]

Wow...thanks for all of your thoughts everyone. I guess that my intentions are getting lost, considering my gear list.

Just so it's clear, I have no intentions of 16 channels at once (or even half of them for that matter). Especially, considering the phase issues that would be inherent in similar distance room and kick mics. But I will have to pick up some IBPs for kick just in case. While I love the sound of beta 91 and the re20 individually on kick, their sound characteristics are miles away from each other and I have little intentions of using them in combination (but maybe, you never know).

As far as the 421s on toms, I'm may swap them out for a couple of songs, but I do love fast transient response of an LDC on toms, hence the KSM 27s (great mic!). That said, I tend to use as little tom mic as possible, obtaining as much of my sound from the OH as possible.

What I'm looking for are options (which can be an engineers nightmare, I know). Say for example I want to solo down to the Royers being slammed for the middle eight of one song only. Those type of things, almost as an effect. In pre-production we decided that we wanted to allow for many options with a varied kit sound from song to song. Our main kit will most likely be a big C&C kit, but we will also be tracking my Yamaha Beech Custom kit, a Pearl Masters kit, and a vintage Ludwig kit with Fiberskyns (for the jazzier stuff).

I completely agree with the less is more model, my focus has always been on mic technique, our drummer is top-notch, and we will accept nothing less than well-tuned drums with great performances. That said, this is in many ways my first big challenge in producing an album in a room that I've never recorded in (aside from a few quick auditions I did this week). I have really high expectations for it and hope it will be personally satisfying for my group.

While I love and appreciate the Glyn Johns setup, I'm much more of an XY or ORTF type guy. But seriously, that video is pretty poor, with the mics bouncing around and everything. More of a phase-variant technique than phase-coherent, imho . Still, the theory is there and that has to be commended. Also, while I appreciate the recommendation for an under snare mic, I can almost guarantee that I won't find any use for it, though I may revisit it. I really like to get most of my snare sound from the overheads and personally find little use for the sound of snare side micing. We'll really be working hard to find the right snare and get the drum sounding great in the room for that particular channel and song. I've got a great Tama Starclassic 7X14 that has just a massive woody sound and great cross stick response, one of the newer DW edge snares for a modern sound, an Yamaha Elvin Jones snare for the jazzier stuff, and old slingerland that I just love for more vintage type stuff.

I think I'm really on the same page as most of you, but I understand my gear list is really excessive and misleading. But I'm taking everything you've all mentioned into high consideration while we're finishing up pre-production for the album. Keep em coming! Just know that I have no intention in using even half of the channels at once!

Here are a couple of pics we tooking while checking out the place, needless to say we're pretty stoked. We'll have 3 rooms in the tower to choose from, but we're really hoping we can make some stuff happen in the top of the tower (shown in the pic). In a way we're kinda going for a unique vibe for the sound, much in the vein of something like My Morning Jackets recordings (not sound-wise, but in having a unique sonic character). Thanks again guys!

[lpkyer]

Nice C&C kit dude !!
The mics and pre choice is excellent...
What band are you playing for?

[RoundBadge]

Looks like a fun space to track in.thumbsup
Do you have an extra guy helping with the engineering aspects,or are you doing it all yourself?
I only ask because I hate doing all the engineering on projects I'm also playing on.
Invariably,I find the bigger projects suffer either/both soundwise and performance wise when i'm wearing both hats at once..no fun.
In that scenario,I always try to get an extra set of experienced ears/hands involved so i can concetrate on the performance aspects of the gig.

[Jules]

I wonder if you will want to make it dead around the kit? (with hanging blankets etc) only putting up mic's will give you an idea... depends how much room ambiance you get coming in on the overheads & any close mic's you use..

I knew a band that recorded on stage on a large concert hall.. to get a 'big sound' (it sounded dead / terrible actually!) but at least the room LOOKS like it has fantastic potential..!

My best ever drum sounds seem to have dry up front sounds coming into the close mic's and a huge room sound picked up by the room mic's. I like this combination as it gives great control between in your face punch and distant ambiance tone.

Too much ambient room tone coming into my close mic's and overheads.. and I usually become unhappy / worried.. and move to control it with movable acoustic baffles / blankets / sofas etc... I want that dry punch, and I want it to survive to the end of the project (I dont want a load of ambience to be revealed at mixdown time when I heavily compress the my close mic's)

Please keep us posted! That has got to be one of the wildest looking drum spaces we've had on GS so far!

[tamasdragon]

Do an ortf overhead, with that in mind the centre is the snare. It looks wierd (as the technique above), but sound very good. Place it from the back of the drummer, as high as she/he cannot hit the mics, and there you go, beautifull sound. Check the centre with goniometer.

Tamas Dragon

[jhazelbaker]

The C&C kit is really sick and the dimensions are to die for. The kit that we are using in the photo is actually our friend Brian Pennicks. It was originally a Get Up Kids kit, but it sounds really great aside from the snare (I've never been that impressed with C&C's snares, but maybe they'll prove me wrong).

It's kinda funny that as of yesterday, Chris (our drummer) received an endorsement from C&C. They're building his kit soon, but I can't imagine it will be ready in time for tracking, so we'll be sticking with the one in the photo.

Sadly, yes we tend to engineer and produce our own records. We're very DIY and recording sessions always tend to follow suit. We will have a few friends on site helping the production process though (great ears and opinions). But I will make sure that the performance aesthetic takes precedence over the technical issues. This will be our first serious pressing (we've release a couple other discs, but most of them in all honesty we're pretty much demos and no where near the caliber of recording that we're looking at doing for this one.

Oh yeah, our band is rock group based out of Cincinnati called Junior Revolution. Here are the links (we're really starting to come on board slowly but surely, but most of the material is really out of date and while I'm proud of the songs, the production was fairly limited.)

www.juniorrevolution.com
www.myspace.com/juniorrevolution
www.purevolume.com/juniorrevolution

Add us on myspace while it's still around!

Thanks again guys...

~J

[Jules]

Originally Posted by jhazelbaker

This will be our first serious pressing (we've release a couple other discs, but most of them in all honesty we're pretty much demos and no where near the caliber of recording that we're looking at doing for this one.

Spend more time / Sneak a little auto tune on those backing vocals for this one..they are a little 'grating'
& sour pitch-wise on the tunes you have up on MySpace . Love the real sounding drums though..

[jhazelbaker]

Tamas, I'm definitely leaning towards a pseudo ORTF for the overheads, basically aiming for the corners of the kits and centered over snare. I always tend to favor coincident and near coincident pairs over spaced for overheads, simply for phase-accuracy, but the wider coverage helps spread the stereo image quite a bit. I just looked up goniometer (why have I never heard that term before?) I'm assuming it's like the stuff used in the Waves analyzers?

Jules, your concerns are definitely at the forefront of mine as well. We'll be doing some more testing to make sure everything is going to be acceptable during the first day of recording. So far I've only gotten a chance to record the room with a snare and ambient mic. But of the 3 usable rooms in the tower the top is definitely the most appealing. Like I've said before it has great woody decay that while big, is in many ways ideal. I believe it will be controllable, but we will be bringing up quite a few blankets and gobos to isolate the kit as much as necessary. If we do run into trouble, we will still have a few other smaller rooms to fall back on. Crossing our fingers...

Hey Jules (or anyone for that matter) can you recommend any places to pickup big packing blankets or gobos (I have a few decent sized ones and couple of gobos, but I think we'll need some stands and rather big blankets to address any problems that might creep up.)

Thanks again guys...

[tamasdragon]

Originally Posted by jhazelbaker

Tamas, I'm definitely leaning towards a pseudo ORTF for the overheads, basically aiming for the corners of the kits and centered over snare. I always tend to favor coincident and near coincident pairs over spaced for overheads, simply for phase-accuracy, but the wider coverage helps spread the stereo image quite a bit. I just looked up goniometer (why have I never heard that term before?) I'm assuming it's like the stuff used in the Waves analyzers?

Kind of. As you can find in the rme digicheck.

[mtstudios@charter]

I agree with other posts. Why no btm snare mic? You say because you want a modern sound, yet over doing it on room mics, which is kind of dated. I believe you also said the space was small, another reason maybe just to have a mono room only. A bottom snare can give you a crack, top boost with less EQ.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[jhazelbaker]

Originally Posted by mtstudi@pacbell

I agree with other posts. Why no btm snare mic? You say because you want a modern sound, yet over doing it on room mics, which is kind of dated. I believe you also said the space was small, another reason maybe just to have a mono room only. A bottom snare can give you a crack, top boost with less EQ.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

It has nothing to do with a modern sound. We're not going for a particular sound in terms of modern versus vintage. How modern or vintage the aesthetic of the production becomes will directly correspond to the kits recorded (which vary quite a bit in timbre.)

Let me explain my intentions for the far mono room mic and give some dimensions on the room. The far mono mic (if used, will be at least a floor (maybe 2) up or down in the tower), probably squashed to death and only used for effect by itself. The top room (our first choice) is about a 20 ft octagon with about a 25 ft ceiling, not too big but definitely has some depth, mainly due to the ceiling height. The other room is about 13x15 and another is quite a bit larger than the top of the tower (there's just something about this room that rubs me wrong acoustically, it's just a little too in your face.)

Let's put it this way, this will probably be the first recording in a long time that I've decided not to include a snare side mic. Simply because I've never found a use for it. And I'd much rather be able to have a varied room sound for effect. Still, I guess I'll appease you all by including one. What would you all recommend, based on the mics at my disposal? I tend to use an LDC on snare side, maybe that's why I never favor it?

Great, now I'm really considering the snare side mic...

[mtstudios@charter]

Originally Posted by jhazelbaker

It has nothing to do with a modern sound. We're not going for a particular sound in terms of modern versus vintage. How modern or vintage the aesthetic of the production becomes will directly correspond to the kits recorded (which vary quite a bit in timbre.)

Let me explain my intentions for the far mono room mic and give some dimensions on the room. The far mono mic (if used, will be at least a floor (maybe 2) up or down in the tower), probably squashed to death and only used for effect by itself. The top room (our first choice) is about a 20 ft octagon with about a 25 ft ceiling, not too big but definitely has some depth, mainly due to the ceiling height. The other room is about 13x15 and another is quite a bit larger than the top of the tower (there's just something about this room that rubs me wrong acoustically, it's just a little too in your face.)

Let's put it this way, this will probably be the first recording in a long time that I've decided not to include a snare side mic. Simply because I've never found a use for it. And I'd much rather be able to have a varied room sound for effect. Still, I guess I'll appease you all by including one. What would you all recommend, based on the mics at my disposal? I tend to use an LDC on snare side, maybe that's why I never favor it?

Great, now I'm really considering the snare side mic...

I would just use one of those extra 57's. As you say you don't have to use it. To get that room sound I think you are going for (the over compressed thing), you might want to consider renting an 1176LN.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[Tom H]

Wow, very nice place and some nice gear too!

Just one question; how and where will you be monitoring what you are recording?

[Jules]

I found the perfect assistant for you, he wont mind swapping out mic's while the drummer is playing either!

[drmmrboy]

Originally Posted by Jules

Please keep us posted! That has got to be one of the wildest looking drum spaces we've had on GS so far!

Nothing to add, just wanted to say... Wild space!!

[redddog]

Originally Posted by Jules

I found the perfect assistant for you, he wont mind swapping out mic's while the drummer is playing either!

Perfect.