Recording Drums 8 - Valve / Tube Preamps for Colour!

www.shrunkenheadsstudios.com

Recording Drums, Percussion - & Dealing with People Who Like to Hit Things 8.  

Here at The Coolest Recording Studio in London Town - we like our different mic preamps - & we got a bunch of types & flavours. 

Drums! 

Generally speaking - you want a nice Fast Solid State mic preamp to capture the whip & crack of a drum - & to keep the metalwork (cymbals etc) bright, crisp, shiny & clean. 
Also - you'll be recording the space around the drum - the ambience of the room - so you'll mainly be after some sharp, quick preamp to pick up the nuances of the player. 

So why use a valve / tube preamp? 

kingkrule king krule ghostpoet micachu
rft neumann gefell mic pre 


Yep - tube preamps are Much slower to track audio waves than solid state pre's - but boy do they add personality, warmth & a depth that only tubes can. There's a "thickness" to tube preamps - a kind of golden solidity - so while you may not want them as a stereo pair for your overheads - used in mono in the mix they can really add some sublime weight to your recordings.
The preamp above is made by RFT in the 30's who became Neumann Gefell. They are transformerless so are much clearer than most other transformer fronted tube preamps - beautiful on drums, acoustic instruments & vocals. 
Here at ShStudios we have two pairs - each pair has a different set of tubes. Best jazz pre going. 

The Behemoth!

best south london recording studio classic vintage

The Behemoth is a 4 channel microphone mixer / preamp with huge transformers at the inputs - you can get amazing saturation from drums with this bad ass!

Vortexions!

https://www.facebook.com/pg/analogueaddicts/photos/?tab=album&album_id=683730744970350
vortexion 
 Vortexion preamps - as used by Joe Meek, The Who - & any good sound engineer worth their salt. They cut the mustard like nothing else - great on drum overheads, guitar & acoustic instruments. 

Ampex Tube Preamps 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampex
ampex 601
Superb tube preamps - we use these just about every session - mainly with condenser microphones - they take off any harsh top end & make anything from vocals to zither sound rich & lovely.

So - to recap - tube preamps are great for adding richness, a bit of natural overdrive & mojo to a drum recording. 

Next time - overdriving mixing desks for juiced up drums!

www.shrunkenheadsstudios.com
 

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