Stinging Nettles – recording drums

The weekend in revue: Well, we managed to get 11 drum tracks done this weekend and even start some guitars. The drums are officially done as we have 3 tracks from a previous recording we’re going to use. Friday night we started by tuning the drums, setting up microphones, and getting sounds and levels. Everything was cut directly to Protools with click tracks and scratch guitar already there. I think my new headphone amp really helped with getting good sounds since Marshall was able to put as much or as little of anything he wanted to hear in his phones. Money well spent. Here’s the set up for the drums:

Overheads: We suspended to Josephson C42′s from the ceiling in a an XY configuration about 4-5 feet above the snare. I ran these through a pair of API 312 preamps into PT. This gave us our overall drum sound.

Bass Drum: We tried a few mics on the bass drum. EV RE20, AKG D112, Sennheiser 421, and a Shure Beta 52. The Beta 52 won by a landslide. I ran this through a preamp on the console, then into a Distressor with a 4:1 ratio a fairy quick attack and medium release. We also used a AT4033 about 3 feet in front of the bass drum and built a little tunnel around the mic and bass drum. Sounds great blended together.

Snare: We used a 57 on the top of the snare running through a Purple Biz pre, then into the FMR RNLA leveling amp with about a 2:1, ratio, a pretty quick attack to give it a nice crack, and a release to match. We also put a modded 57 (minus the transformer) on the bottom snares. We built a little baffle between the bottom snare mic and the high hat to avoid picking too much of that up. This mic went through the console and into PT

Toms: The rack tom had a 421 on it and the floor tom had the D112. Both the toms went through a modded Behringer Tube Preamp. I don’t know what it was, but this was just a magic combination. Sounded great. The toms were tuned pretty well which I think helped.

Room mics: We had two room mics. an AT 4033 and a Fathead Ribbon. Both went through the console preamps. The 4033 went into a FMR RNC Compressor with 1.5:1 ratio with just a few db of reduction. I also cranked the gain on the compressor to get more overall level.

So how does it sound? Really freakin’ good. We’re all pretty pleased with the results. It was nice to have the time to set up and try different mics instead of rushing to get a bunch of songs done. In the end we got everything done we needed to anyway. 

I hope to have some pics of the session to post later on. I don’t have a digital camera but John and Marshall took plenty of photos. 

As a side story, Friday night while getting sounds I blew a driver (I think) on my KRK V8 speakers. The fuse was blown and I thought maybe if I replaced that, it would be ok. Saturday morning I went to Radio Shack, got the fuse and put it in. Still making a terrible noise. The speaker was screwed and I had to do something. So, I went to Guitar Center and bought a new pair of Dynaudio BM5a’s. I’m loving these speakers so far. They are perfect for my room and they sound amazing. Very detailed and not fatiguing at all. These are also shielded (unlike the V8s) so I don’t get any noise or buzz from the computer monitor. I may sell the V8s. We’ll see.