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Nigel Van Buskirk
Doug sent out an email to all of his students to come practice tracking drums on Saturday. There we learned how and why to place microphones where they needed to be for a successful tracking session. After that we went to the Think-Tank and got Pro-Tools ready by creating 7 mono and 2 stereo audio tracks.
We placed a AKG D12 VR dynamic mic inside the kick drum to pick up the initial "thump" of the kick. We placed a Yamaha Sub right outside the kick to pickup the kick's thump after it had vibrated the drum. Those two recordings paired together gave us the Kick's complete frequency spectrum while having more control of the lowest Hz with the Yamaha Sub.
The snare was tracked by using two Shure SM57's. The top microphone was placed slightly above the rim of the snare and aimed at its center. This gave us a print of the initial strike of the snare. The second microphone was pointing towards the snare's chain on the bottom. The chain is what gives a snare's transient its "rattle." After fine tuning the snare's chain we managed to get a tone we liked.
Tom (Rack) one was tracked with a Shure SM58, tom two had a Senheiser 421, and the floor tom used a Shure SM7B. The mic placement for toms one and two were very similar to the snare's top microphone. The floor tom, however, was aimed closer towards the rim as opposed to the center. Doug explained that by pointing it closer to the rim we would pick up less of the floor tom's low end "boom-iness."
The overhead microphones were placed a few feet above the drum kit with the stereo's center aimed at the kick and snare. We used a matched pair of Neumann KM 184's. The room (A Pair of Manley Reference Mics!) microphones were placed about 3-4 feet further back and closer towards the corners of the room to pick up to catch the relections of the drummer's performance.
After connecting the mics to the right wall inputs we headed over to the Think-Tank and started setting levels. Doug gave us a crash course into the Neve Genesys and how to properly set the right levels before recording. After we got a take Doug routed the snare's top recording to the Hammer 2EQ through the patch bay. That EQ is a thing of magic! When you make cuts and boosts with it it really feels natural and transparent. Most EQs I've messed with will sound really bad after too obvious of a cut/boost, but not this one! I feel like I would be using that monster every day if I could.
Doug then gave us the remaining free time to do whatever we wanted. Alberto, Annie and I decided to get another take and also route the room recordings to the Hammer as well. This was mainly just for practice and also to give the room recordings extra "shine." Of course all great things must eventually come to an end. Jesse had some tracks to edit in the Think-Tank and we had to finish our expirementing ;) After that we put everything away and mopped.
