Major Project: Tracking Drums

So this morning was the first recording session of this project, where we recorded all the drum tracks for the 3 songs, and to my surprise, the session went pretty bloody well and surprisingly smooth. My friend Brook and I booked a large 6 hour session from 8:30am - 3pm and managed to get all the drums recorded and the studio packed up by about 1:40pm. I'd say it was because of the tracks being 2mins and under, as well as the drum tracks being basic looped beats; nothing complex, but still, I say we worked really efficiently and smoothly.

I was worrying about not getting the signal flow of the studio right and that I'd stuff up headphone mixes and things because I haven't visited the Neve in a long time, but we managed to get things going (Big big thanks to the photos I've taken on my phone in previous Neve sessions of certain setups and my written notes).

The night before, to not waste time in the studio, I exported all the stems of all three songs and created 3 new Pro Tools sessions just for the recording sessions; where I imported the stems and created new tracks for the drums well as for bass for Thursday's session in Audient B. I also filled out the booking plan for the session, where I listed all the mics and other equipment, as well as inputs we were going to use on the day.

Micing

Because these tracks are more of a chill-laidback style, I planned to have a simple mic setup for the drums, so that my recordings weren't too clean or so that I wouldn't have to waste time and confusing myself micing up everything and trying to get placement right, etc. Also in my demo tracks, I had already programmed the drums and I'm planning to keep some for the final mix, but mix in live drums with it. This is to make it sound more humanised, especially with the hi-hats and snares as my programmed ones sound too "on-time" and you're able to tell it's looped.

For the kick, I had a AKG D112 placed inside, to get more of a thump sound, which will accompany the programmed kicks I have in my demo tracks.

I had a SM57 on the snare top to get the snap of the snare, and a Fostex MC10 Condenser (Sennheiser E614 unavailable) for the hi-hats on the side to capture the air as well as the hits towards the edge of the cymbals. These will be the main tracks that will be replacing the demo hi-hats and snare as they had more variety in velocity as well as a bit of swing in them, which my demos didn't have.

For the overheads, I used 2x Royer R121 ribbon mics, to capture the crash, toms and a bit of the tail of the snare and hi-hats. I was recommended these microphones as they also have a nice lo-fi sound to them which I thought would definitely suit these tracks. I tried to copy my lecturer's mic placement technique, with the 2 figure 8 diaphragms facing out left and right while being parallel to each other. I couldn't quite remember the measurements so I just placed them at what I thought was an "alright" placement and it turned out well with no phasing issues so yeah it was alright.

I also had a room mic placed in front of the drum kit about 1m away (not entirely sure, I'm really bad at guessing lot of things) and was also recommended to use the Beyerdynamic M88 mic, again, for its lofi sound so I'm keen to hear what it sounds like with the mix. Here's a slideshow of the mic placements:

Monitoring

Monitoring Drums using channels 1-8 Monitoring Stems using channels 17-29 (ps: that isn't a real burrito, just my pencil case)

I had a straightforward monitoring setup with each instrument having the same output number as their input using channels 1-8, same goes for the stems where I used up the right side of the desk using channels 17 through to 29. For the headphone mixes, I was lucky to have the same headphones as the artist so I was able to mix accurately for him in the control room. Because the tracks have a swing sort of beat, the original click wasn't going to do the job for keeping swinging beat going so for his headphone mix, there only the guitar, bass tracks, and no drums except for the hi-hat which had a more accurate representation of the swing-like beat so we relied on that as the click.

The Drummer and his Performance

I gave Ben the demos about 2 weeks beforehand to get a feel of the songs and maybe improvise some fills or breaks for the songs, as my demo drums are looped beats with hardly any fills nor using other drums such as toms, crashes, etc. He has a really nice Yamaha vintage drum kit that suited the tracks well because of how loose it sounded. We also organised to hire a Ludwig snare drum from the tech department as for one fo the songs, he thought the snare's sound would suit it.

For playlists, I planned to have the first couple to replicate the original drum tracks' beat and then 2 or 3 more playlists where I let him go to improvise or to play whatever thinks suits the songs. This way, he won't feel pressured to play a certain rhythm and he can have fun with it. For the 6.4 track when he was replicating the original drum track, I had to instruct him on when certain drums needed to be played and not played, as the kick and snare would duck out in some parts, and he wasn't entirely sure which parts those were. I also asked him if he was happy with performance after most takes and asked if he wanted to redo any of them, which we didn't need to do as much as he and I were both happy with all takes.

He also altered the snare's sound in some songs such as putting a Tom cover on the snare to give ether skin a thicker layer to make it sound fuller, as well as placing a leather wallet to tighten the sound in some songs.

Tom back cover placed on snare for fullness

At the end, each song had about 6-8 playlists, with about half being replicates of the original then the other half being free plays, which won't be too hard to organise, seeing as I used tracking sheets for each track to describe each take and what was good/bad about it.

Tracking Sheets provided by Sonic Tiger (big cheers James)

Because I've only ever used programmed drums for all my tracks, it was an big eye-opener to hear how nice live drums sound with them, as you can really hear the character of the drums come through. When he free played the tracks, it really surprised me to hear different rhythms he made up that still suited my tracks. I know it'll be so hard to choose between the replicates and the free played playlists in the editing process.

I was really happy with the recording session and everyone seemed really laidback and comfortable which was the main thing. We hardly had any problems (except for Pro Tools crashing at one point) and Brook and I co-operated well in the studio as well as in the live room to make sure the drummer wasn't waiting around long, even though he was all good to wait around or help us out if we had problems. It was also really great to work with a drummer (with a bloody great drum kit) that also enjoys this same genre so he understood the kinds of rhythms I was looking for. If I ever get around to make a band, I'll be definitely thinking of recruiting him!

My next session on Thursday night will be a bass session, where we'll be recording a friend (Carter) playing the bass tracks for just 2 of the 3 songs (3AM and Beat) which will be recorded in Audient B. I need to at least get the best drum takes of those two songs so then Carter will be able to play along with them. Anyway yeah that should be another cruisy session, as we're only micing up the amp and DIing the bass and I've already created seperate Pro Tools recording sessions for the bass so I'm pretty much already organised for that. I'm surprised to be on schedule with this project and that nothing has stuffed up Yet. Yeah I'd say things are looking pretty alright so far, shouldn't talk too soon though.