Recording Drums

best recording studio drums london audio music producer king krule



Recording Drums, Percussion - & Dealing with People Who Like to Hit Things 1

 Here at The Coolest Recording Studio in London Town - we get a whole bunch of differing types of musicians - from rock steady session peeps - to those folks just trying to put forth their art the best way they know how. These are the folks that need a bit of groundwork - even before you start putting mics up, you need to sit 'em down - & have a little talk - be nice! 

They need to know. 

1. It's not a gig - there's no one to impress here - so Do Not smash the shit out of your drums - & most importantly - your cymbals! If you do - you'll lose drum tone - & badly/harshly hit cymbals will make any ambient mics or overheads useless - you're looking to capture the whole kit with All the ambient mics - session drummers know this - so play the kit in a balanced & musical way. Put some work in - get it right - don't be the weak link that lets the band down. 

Star bars - or anything with chocolate & peanuts in will keep a drummer going through the day. Stock up - & keep the coffee on. 

If they can't play to a click - don't go there - leave it - they'll just end up 10 takes in getting angry & feeling stupid. The producer will just have to deal with it.  

Let them set up first and tune the kit - get them comfortable & leave them to play for 10 minutes - then bring them in to discuss recording protocol for the session. 

What Style of Music do you Play 

You should have already asked for links or mp3's of the band / project so you know what their producer will need.  

Think about the recording environment - do you need your walls bright (Rock/Pop/Metal) or curtained / non reflective (Jazz, Funk, Reggae). 
best recording studio drums london live room king krule ghostpoet micachu

s south london recording studio drums guitar bass vocals live band
Initail close mic setups. 

Kick / Bass Drum 

For Rock, Metal, Punk, & for general good recording practice - use a dynamic mic inside the kick drum - about a third of the way in from the front soundhole pointing to one side of the beater spot. You may well need a blanket or towel inside the drum to keep down resonance - some drummers fill a 5 litre paint tin with cement & sit that in the middle of the drum before putting the front head back on. You really don't want some woofy resonance haunting your kick sound ...... & you may like the tone of the drum with the front head removed.

recording producing best drum percussion sound room london
internal mic


 You'll need a mic outside the kick drum sound hole - this is also generally a dynamic mic - & at this position you'll get more body & Phoom - with a bit less Shmack than the internal mic - it's a go to position & usually yields great results. 

vintage akg d25 bass microphone mic


 A condenser mic between 6 inches & a foot away from the front skin gives a very rich & full bodied tone - but you'll need at least one of the close mics too for focus at mixtime. 

best music audio producer production london cheap
A directional small diaphragm condenser mic pointed towards the floor or skin to the right of the kick beater same side as the drummer's sitting - it'll pick up all sorts of odd gnurks & squeaks as the player shifts in their seat - you'll find some absolutely funky, unique loops that will add interesting energies to the music as you add them - or they'll inspire a whole new song - it's live rhythm baby - it's gonna be full of some kinda magic eh!

funkiest coolest best recording studio south london


best music audio producer south london shrunkenheadsstudios.com

Next Time - Snares & Toms!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rudimentary Electric Bass Recording - Puttin' the Big into Booty!

Image
Here at the Coolest Recording Studio in London Town - we do like a big fat bootifull low end - as much as we like melodic mids & tingling highs - & while there are a gazillion mixing / production tricks to make the bass sit nice, pop out or groove summore - you always gotta start out with the basics - & get the badass tracked. First thing's first - get your bass player settled - doesn't matter if they're sitting or standing - they're gonna want to see the drummer - or at least the control room. Plug the bass into a DI ( Direct Injection ) box before any pedals or fx units they may be using - you want a good clean signal going to your recorder - you can use this as is to mix in with the mic'd up amp - you may want to process it with effects or software amp emulations - or indeed you may want to run it into a different amplifier and re record a different tone later down the line. Here's a pretty good quality di: You just plug into t...
Read more

Mic Pre's - Putting Flavour In The Mix!

Image
Here at The Coolest Recording Space in London Town - we got all kinds of studio shazzle - mixers / compressors / eq's - but for audio capture, the most important thing aside for the mics - are mic preamplifiers. They come in all shapes & forms - from lovely vintage tube pre's that warm up the sound of an instrument or space to super fast solid state units that capture transient material (like metal drums or fast picked acoustic guitar) to transformer based pre's that you can distort at the input to add bloom & energy to an audio source. This is a Vortexion tube preamp as used by Joe Meek & the Who back in the 50's & 60's - beautiful for recording drums, guitars, vocals & ambient spaces with ribbon microphones. They were broadcast quality units that add a rich, fullness to the mic chain. You can also use them to pleasantly saturate vocals etc in post production. vortexion   These Ampex 602 units came out of an old tape recorder...
Read more

Microphone Making - The 3 Capsule Mid Side Recording Studio Mic

Image
south london recording studio London Recording Studio Life !!   Here at The Coolest recording Studio in South London - we got the creation craving! We just Have to make new, interesting & exciting recording & mixing devices for our excellent clients . Our most recent research has led us to develop a set of microphones (Coppermics - made out of copper!) the formats of which do not appear to be readily available on the market. You can of course get mics spec built - but boy does this cost a ton of moolah & takes ages - so .... we put our heads together & came up with This beauty - the Coppermic King ! Microphone - The King - for vocals - guitar - drums Coppermic The King All three capsules are identical in tone & volume - the centre mic picks up the centre image of the audio you're recording, and the left & right capsules pick up the stereo information. You should always eq the centre mic with a slight (1-3 db) boost at the fundament...
Read more