Rain Dance
They squinted and danced through the rain as they crossed the studio parking lot. Then they clambered up the steps to the door, balancing drums, cymbals, and hardware, all wrapped in towels and blankets to keep them dry. Scott Clark had brought the good drum kit, the one he doesn’t have cases for. Grace Clark brought her guitar, food for an army, and charts for all the tunes we were planning on cutting.
I had asked them to arrive an hour to an hour and a half before the bass player, so we’d have time by ourselves to load in the drums, get them set up, get mics positioned and plugged in, and then check preamps and set recording levels. All this work is much easier when it’s just the drummer and me in the studio.
We closed the studio’s front door and shut out the cold wet wind. Scott set up his kit on the thick rug I’d laid out. That rug dulls the high frequency reflections from the floor when I’m recording drums, so we can get a tighter sound with small acoustic ensembles. (I roll the rug up and keep it in a closet when not tracking drums.) I flipped all the room’s wall diffusors to their absorptive position, helping to tame the sound of the kit even more.
Well prepared makes for an easy day
The night before, I’d set up and plugged in all the mics and stands I was planning to use for the basics session. Grace’s rhythm section for these tunes consisted of upright bass with drums and acoustic rhythm guitar. For kick drum mic, I decided on a Shure SM57, a common and simple cardioid dynamic mic that provides a bright tone, helpful in this acoustic group. If I needed more bottom end from the drum, I figured I’d switch to a more traditional bass mic — but I liked the bright sound that resulted after placing the mic inside the drum, close to the point where the beater hits the head.
For snare, I used another SM57, aimed down towards the upper head at about 45-degrees and placed just inside the rim, across from the drummer. This kept the mic out of the reach of errant drumsticks while rejecting the sounds of the cymbals and hi-hat. In keeping with the small, intimate sound of the ensemble, Scott and I opted for hot rods instead of regular drumsticks for many of the tunes. Hot rods resemble a batch of spaghetti sticks, all held together by a moveable ring of plastic. This ring can be slid out near the striking end, which keeps all the spaghetti sticks tightly together so they act like a single, thick stick; or, the ring can be slid closer to the hand grip, so that the ends can move more loosely and give a more splayed, textured
attack. I like that kind of sound when mixing snare drum with many acoustic ensembles. Brushes can work well here, too, and Scott brought his. They provide a deeper, “thunky” sound, which keeps the snare out of the range of the vocal and the high harmonics of the guitar, allowing those brighter sounds to come out more easily in the mix. It’s wise to check and adjust the mic preamp settings whenever the drummer changes from one type of stick to another.
Scott brought an older set of Zildjian hi-hats, his favorites when playing with Grace’s band. I miked them with an AKG C-451 E, which is a cardioid condenser mic with a narrow pick-up pattern and a bright sound. It complemented the sound of the hats nicely while rejecting the sounds of the rest of the kit. I placed it about six inches above the hat, facing down vertically and about an inch in from the edge of the cymbal. I checked that it wasn’t picking up the blast of air that escapes when the two cymbals close.
To capture the ambience of the kit, and to pick up the cymbals, I put up an xy pair of cardioid mics. I used Neumann M-582s, older tube condenser mics which add an airy brightness; this complements cymbals and acoustic guitar. I suspended the xy pair about six feet above the floor, and centered over the kit.
I had previously set up all Grace’s Pro Tools documents for recording the drums and bass, so it was easy to pop into the control room, open our first tune in Pro Tools, and bring each mic up on the system while Scott provided appropriate hits, playing one drum at a time. I checked that all the mic preamps were getting good levels without peaking, and sending a good level into Pro Tools. I normally like to leave extra volume headroom when setting up drums, as experience has taught me that as the day moves into tracking, many drummers raise their energy level when working with the other live musicians.
Who’s on bass?
Bay Area bassist Lisa Burns showed up right on schedule as we were nearing the end of level checks, and Grace and Scott carried in Lisa’s 1850 Tyrolean bass, a thing of beauty. I like to record bass with condenser mics, as they best capture the initial explosion of sound, and also get the brightness and upper mid-range frequencies that are often masked by the other instruments in the ensemble. Lisa played her bass in the control room, so that the bass and the drums would be on separate tracks without any bleed; she and Scott could see each other through the glass, and they could hear each other over the headphones, but their audio would be clean. For the upper bass mic, placed near the fingerboard and about six inches out from the upper bout, I used a Neumann TLM-49, a large diaphragm cardioid condenser mic. About six inches out from the top of the tailpiece, I used a Neumann KM-184, a small diaphragm cardioid condenser. I also recorded Lisa’s bass pick-up to a separate channel, so that I could blend some of that sound into the mix later if needed.
In the “sink”
We used Grace’s previously recorded rhythm guitar tracks as “synch” tracks for the drums and bass to play with. A traditional click track got the ensemble up and running at the start of each take, but I turned it down once the tunes got under way. Both Lisa and Scott had charts for each tune. The chord charts included cues for the drums and specific bass notes where required by the arrangement. Endings and rhythmic stops were notated, and the musicians were successful at getting complete takes just about every time. We wrapped up tracking as it was getting dark outside, and began listening happily to the day’s work. I ran off quick rough mixes so that Grace could listen to them once she got home. All in all, it was a good day in the studio, and Grace now has well-played basic tracks, which will serve as great foundations for her over-dubbers (electric guitar, steel, and fiddle) and vocals.
Copyright © 2019 by Joe Weed