So, we've finally decided to buckle down and make a record. Or a CD. Or an album. Whatever you want to call it, we have 9 songs ready to go. You may have heard demo versions of a handful of them. At any rate, they are now being properly recorded. And the first step with that is drums.
We had originally kicked around the idea of heading down to the Twin Cities to spend some quality studio time tracking drums, but as is often the case, it came down to budget and time constraints. What did happen is that we wound up renting a shop to rehearse in for a few months. What it lacked in atmosphere and weatherproofing, it made up for by having a surprisingly good drum sound.
So, with that idea in mind, we quickly got things sorted out and started drum tracking last week. The real work in drum tracking, especially with songs that we've been performing for years at this point, is figuring out the type of sound that you want and how you're going to get it.
Warning: Gear Talk
As I mentioned before, our budget wasn't huge, so it pretty much boiled down to using what we had, rent a few other bits, and make up the difference with time. The limitations? 8 total channels, limited mic selection, no room treatment.
Since this is a metal album, I wanted to get a decent spread on the overhead mics. I measured from an imaginary line running through the batter head of the kick and the center of the snare head, just for the purpose of phase coherence. The right overhead wound up covering the ride, china, crash, and floor toms. The left overhead wound up covering the hat, other crash, snare, and rack toms.
I spent some time working on the overheads until there was a good balance of the kit while maintaining that equal alignment so that the snare and kick would remain in phase once the close mics were brought in. For you gearheads, the overhead mics wound up being Shure pg81s. Yes, they are not the world's greatest small diaphragm condenser mics, but I'm not in the world's greatest room, and I'm not the world's greatest engineer. They sound good for what they are, and well-placed less expensive mics can still do a decent job. The end result wound up being an overhead sound that I'm much happier with than any other time I've ever mic'd a drum kit.
From there, it was time for close mics. I wound up with an SM58 on the snare, PG52 on the kick, and Beta 56's on the toms. I spent a good deal of time working on the close mics as well, to ensure that I was getting what we needed from the snare and kick, as well as trying to get the toms in the ballpark.
Why in the ballpark? Because I was whacking the drums. I'm not Chris Fritz, and I have the recorded clips to prove it. The following night, Chris came in and we worked more on the close mics. I had worried a bit about the kick, which was a little too "bouncing basketball" for my taste. Sounded completely different with Chris whacking it. We tuned everything up, got the mics pointed where they sounded best, and got things ready.
Part of getting things ready included having appropriate accessories, like a beanie to help keep the headphones on and proper drummer fuel.
Granted, the combination of the "drummer fuel" and the hat resulted in something like this:
The actual recording took place in 5 hour sessions on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night was definitely more work. In that way, it's a lot like gigging. You're tired from the day of work, kind of worn out, and not quite as ready for another few hours of work. I think there might have been some sort of mold thing in there too, because after a few hours each night, my voice would drop an octave.
With the proper application of a bit different "drummer fuel", we got 5 of the 9 songs tracked on Friday. Chris drummed, I played guitar. Troy stopped by to take a quick listen, and we all headed home to hit the rack. We had taken care of Act of Defiance, In the Wake of Fear, Beyond, and Awake.
Saturday night was set up to be more of the same, but seemed that it would be a lot more work. Our two newest songs, Inversion and Shadow were on the docket, as well as Waste Away, which probably has more time changes than anything else we do.
Shadow was a one-take wonder. We hit a couple of things with it, but that first take was the one to go with. Once we got a few cues sorted out for Inversion, that was handled in similar fashion. We touched up a few things on In the Wake of Fear from the night before, and then hit Another Life. Another Life is far and away the simplest tune we do. That said, it was probably the hardest to track. That's not so much because it's hard to play, but because upon entering the final chorus, Chris' beanie (see the top photo) fell off, right in front of his face. The headphones followed soon after. That didn't really affect his performance at all, so that's the take we kept. It has that "Hatless" vibe.
So, with some time dedicated to sorting through the drum tracks, picking out the best versions, and throwing in the odd scratch guitar track (for cues), it looks like Troy and I will be ready to start tracking guitars in the next couple of weeks.
Stay tuned...
We had originally kicked around the idea of heading down to the Twin Cities to spend some quality studio time tracking drums, but as is often the case, it came down to budget and time constraints. What did happen is that we wound up renting a shop to rehearse in for a few months. What it lacked in atmosphere and weatherproofing, it made up for by having a surprisingly good drum sound.
So, with that idea in mind, we quickly got things sorted out and started drum tracking last week. The real work in drum tracking, especially with songs that we've been performing for years at this point, is figuring out the type of sound that you want and how you're going to get it.
Warning: Gear Talk
As I mentioned before, our budget wasn't huge, so it pretty much boiled down to using what we had, rent a few other bits, and make up the difference with time. The limitations? 8 total channels, limited mic selection, no room treatment.
Since this is a metal album, I wanted to get a decent spread on the overhead mics. I measured from an imaginary line running through the batter head of the kick and the center of the snare head, just for the purpose of phase coherence. The right overhead wound up covering the ride, china, crash, and floor toms. The left overhead wound up covering the hat, other crash, snare, and rack toms.
I spent some time working on the overheads until there was a good balance of the kit while maintaining that equal alignment so that the snare and kick would remain in phase once the close mics were brought in. For you gearheads, the overhead mics wound up being Shure pg81s. Yes, they are not the world's greatest small diaphragm condenser mics, but I'm not in the world's greatest room, and I'm not the world's greatest engineer. They sound good for what they are, and well-placed less expensive mics can still do a decent job. The end result wound up being an overhead sound that I'm much happier with than any other time I've ever mic'd a drum kit.
From there, it was time for close mics. I wound up with an SM58 on the snare, PG52 on the kick, and Beta 56's on the toms. I spent a good deal of time working on the close mics as well, to ensure that I was getting what we needed from the snare and kick, as well as trying to get the toms in the ballpark.
Why in the ballpark? Because I was whacking the drums. I'm not Chris Fritz, and I have the recorded clips to prove it. The following night, Chris came in and we worked more on the close mics. I had worried a bit about the kick, which was a little too "bouncing basketball" for my taste. Sounded completely different with Chris whacking it. We tuned everything up, got the mics pointed where they sounded best, and got things ready.
Part of getting things ready included having appropriate accessories, like a beanie to help keep the headphones on and proper drummer fuel.
Granted, the combination of the "drummer fuel" and the hat resulted in something like this:
The actual recording took place in 5 hour sessions on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night was definitely more work. In that way, it's a lot like gigging. You're tired from the day of work, kind of worn out, and not quite as ready for another few hours of work. I think there might have been some sort of mold thing in there too, because after a few hours each night, my voice would drop an octave.
With the proper application of a bit different "drummer fuel", we got 5 of the 9 songs tracked on Friday. Chris drummed, I played guitar. Troy stopped by to take a quick listen, and we all headed home to hit the rack. We had taken care of Act of Defiance, In the Wake of Fear, Beyond, and Awake.
Saturday night was set up to be more of the same, but seemed that it would be a lot more work. Our two newest songs, Inversion and Shadow were on the docket, as well as Waste Away, which probably has more time changes than anything else we do.
Shadow was a one-take wonder. We hit a couple of things with it, but that first take was the one to go with. Once we got a few cues sorted out for Inversion, that was handled in similar fashion. We touched up a few things on In the Wake of Fear from the night before, and then hit Another Life. Another Life is far and away the simplest tune we do. That said, it was probably the hardest to track. That's not so much because it's hard to play, but because upon entering the final chorus, Chris' beanie (see the top photo) fell off, right in front of his face. The headphones followed soon after. That didn't really affect his performance at all, so that's the take we kept. It has that "Hatless" vibe.
So, with some time dedicated to sorting through the drum tracks, picking out the best versions, and throwing in the odd scratch guitar track (for cues), it looks like Troy and I will be ready to start tracking guitars in the next couple of weeks.
Stay tuned...
