Small Town Sleeper - Day 4 & 5 Drum Tracking.....
Its Midnight on Day 5, as i sit here, Troy, Will and Derek are cutting scratch tracks to a click for three songs. Tomorrow Dann will come in round noon and bash out keeper drum parts for these three songs. But i digress, let me start at Day 4.
Day 4. First day of actual drum tracking. We tackled keeper drums on 4 songs today. It was awesome to finally get to record music after many days of choosing drums, putting on new drum heads, tuning & tweeking, doing mic shootouts and mic pre shootouts, lots of listening to music, and now finally Dann gets to hit things with a purpose. We took several takes for each song. Basically all the parts have been worked out down to the stick stroke in pre-production and rehearsals, now is the time for Dann to play these songs better than he's ever played them, and its time for me as the producer to know when he's given me that performance, or if he needs to do it again. Its always one of the challenges of being a producer, knowing when you've captured "it", and even more difficult, knowing when you havent yet. Kind of like a beatmaker knowing the beat is perfect just the way it is and it doesnt need anything else. I'm sure alot of you inexperienced beatmakers find it hard to know when a beat is done, and when your a year or two down the road, you listen back to your older work and often say "Wow, i was adding the kitchen sink to that beat, it didnt need it" or "wow, i thought THAT was all i could do to that?". There's usually nothing that can replace experience.
One of my challenges with these songs is picking the right drums for the right song. One thing i personally dont like about alot of records i hear is when i feel like the whole record was recorded with the same exact drum kit, same mics, same room, same cymbals. Once you've heard the same drum sound several times in a row, dont you wanna change things up a bit? I do. So far, 4 songs, 4 different snare drums used, 3 different cymbal configurations, 2 different hi hat configurations. Same Kick and toms. I dont see changing those, however, i might treat the kick radically different in different songs as i mix, or maybe not. I always try to pick a snare drum that works musically with the song. Here are some questions i ask myself.....
1. Do i want a deep snare or higher snare?
2. How bout a ringy snare, or something tighter with more attack?
3. does the tone or color of the drum make sense with this song?
4. Am i going to have the drummer hit the center of the drumhead or slightly off center? Hitting the center gives more attack and less ring, hitting half way to the edge will give a little less attack but alot more ring, and in a loud rock song, sometimes having the snare hit last for that extra split second can help it hang in a mix without turning it up really loud.
Anyway, there are probably a ton of other subtle things that cross my mind as i try to pick cymbals, hats, snares, what kind of tuning i want on the toms, tom sizes. All of it gets considered at length. Also, typically for cymbals i like dark fast decaying cymbals. i HATE bright cymbals in the studio. they usually sound like breaking glass. (.......side note...... the guys are cutting scratch tracks to the probable first single right now, this song sounds like a juggernaut of a hit to me.......end side note.....back to day 4)
So, Day 4 ended very late. After drums were done (around 10:30pm), i brought Troy, Will and Derek back in to cut scratch tracks on three more songs that i cut drums to on Day 5. The guys left the studio at 3:30am, i stayed up and worked til 4:30am and called it a night.
DAY 5. More drums!!! Dann and I cut drums to three more songs today. One more snare drum got added to the mix, that makes 5 different snare drums on 7 songs, one more cymbal got added to the fold, and i moved a bunch of mics around a bit, and changed one mic. There are a million and one styles of recording drums. Here's my personal philosophy. I like as much audio separation between close mics as i can get. Conversely, i like to get as little bleed between mics as possible, with the exception of toms. I also like my overhead mics to focus on cymbals instead of trying to capture an overall picture of the kit. If i'm listening to a playback of a drum take, and i mute the hi hat, i want the hi hat to go away. If i solo the snare drum mics, i want to hear as little hi hat bleed into the snare mics as possible. Often i'll get songs in to mix where the hi hat bleed into the snare mics is as loud as the snare itself. This presents many problems, first if i brighten the snare, the hi hat gets brightened along with it, and hi hats are usually bright enough. Second, if i want to compress the snare, it will by default bring up the level of the hi hat. If the hats are too loud in the snare mics, often i cant compress the snare, or i have to trigger a new snare on top of it and blend it in (which i do alot of anyway if i get in songs with weak drum sounds).
Toms. I dont usually mind bleed with toms, because i always go thru and digitally remove all the sound on the tom tracks when the toms arent playing, and i have some super secret tricks i do with the toms to reduce cymbal bleed. Maybe someday i'll tell you how. Maybe not. Maybe. So, my goal with micing toms is only to get the best tom sounds possible, which has as much to do with tuning as it does anything else, but as i discovered more than i realized, it also has alot to do with which mics you use. I personally think alot of the "standard" tom mics sound like crap on toms. and with cymbals i found out that some of the mics i have been using (and liking) for years, like the Royer R122's didnt sound to my ears nearly as good as the Shure KSM 137's i recently aquired for a small fraction of the price of my Royers. I do love my Royers for other things.
Anyway, Day 5 is ending right now with Derek, Will and Troy cutting scratch guitars, bass and vocals to three more songs that i'll cut keeper drums to tomorrow. This may seem a bit piecemeal in that you might be asking "Why arent you trying to cut keeper guitars, bass, and drums all at the same time. Well there are a few good reasons. Usually, i have to do so many edits and timing fixes with a drummer that once the drums are cleaned up, not much else lines up with them anymore and i find myself doing a ton more editing of guitars and bass to realign them. On this record so far, Dann has been so rock solid on the click and so rock solid with his feel, that i dont think i'm going to be doing much editing. the other reason is that i find i want to take my time with each piece and make sure i'm focusing as a producer on getting each really amazing. I spent 2 full days just getting drum sounds worked out. Imagine the low moral if i had the whole band waiting around expecting to play that whole time. i'll spend a ton of time getting guitar sounds too i'm sure when that time comes, which will probably be Tuesday on Day 7. I'll probably do a bit more cleaning up and rough mixing tonight, and some prep for tomorrow before i call it a night, but for now, this has been a LONG blog. If you made it all the way to the end, i hope you enjoyed the ride.
-Ken Lewis
Day 4. First day of actual drum tracking. We tackled keeper drums on 4 songs today. It was awesome to finally get to record music after many days of choosing drums, putting on new drum heads, tuning & tweeking, doing mic shootouts and mic pre shootouts, lots of listening to music, and now finally Dann gets to hit things with a purpose. We took several takes for each song. Basically all the parts have been worked out down to the stick stroke in pre-production and rehearsals, now is the time for Dann to play these songs better than he's ever played them, and its time for me as the producer to know when he's given me that performance, or if he needs to do it again. Its always one of the challenges of being a producer, knowing when you've captured "it", and even more difficult, knowing when you havent yet. Kind of like a beatmaker knowing the beat is perfect just the way it is and it doesnt need anything else. I'm sure alot of you inexperienced beatmakers find it hard to know when a beat is done, and when your a year or two down the road, you listen back to your older work and often say "Wow, i was adding the kitchen sink to that beat, it didnt need it" or "wow, i thought THAT was all i could do to that?". There's usually nothing that can replace experience.
One of my challenges with these songs is picking the right drums for the right song. One thing i personally dont like about alot of records i hear is when i feel like the whole record was recorded with the same exact drum kit, same mics, same room, same cymbals. Once you've heard the same drum sound several times in a row, dont you wanna change things up a bit? I do. So far, 4 songs, 4 different snare drums used, 3 different cymbal configurations, 2 different hi hat configurations. Same Kick and toms. I dont see changing those, however, i might treat the kick radically different in different songs as i mix, or maybe not. I always try to pick a snare drum that works musically with the song. Here are some questions i ask myself.....
1. Do i want a deep snare or higher snare?
2. How bout a ringy snare, or something tighter with more attack?
3. does the tone or color of the drum make sense with this song?
4. Am i going to have the drummer hit the center of the drumhead or slightly off center? Hitting the center gives more attack and less ring, hitting half way to the edge will give a little less attack but alot more ring, and in a loud rock song, sometimes having the snare hit last for that extra split second can help it hang in a mix without turning it up really loud.
Anyway, there are probably a ton of other subtle things that cross my mind as i try to pick cymbals, hats, snares, what kind of tuning i want on the toms, tom sizes. All of it gets considered at length. Also, typically for cymbals i like dark fast decaying cymbals. i HATE bright cymbals in the studio. they usually sound like breaking glass. (.......side note...... the guys are cutting scratch tracks to the probable first single right now, this song sounds like a juggernaut of a hit to me.......end side note.....back to day 4)
So, Day 4 ended very late. After drums were done (around 10:30pm), i brought Troy, Will and Derek back in to cut scratch tracks on three more songs that i cut drums to on Day 5. The guys left the studio at 3:30am, i stayed up and worked til 4:30am and called it a night.
DAY 5. More drums!!! Dann and I cut drums to three more songs today. One more snare drum got added to the mix, that makes 5 different snare drums on 7 songs, one more cymbal got added to the fold, and i moved a bunch of mics around a bit, and changed one mic. There are a million and one styles of recording drums. Here's my personal philosophy. I like as much audio separation between close mics as i can get. Conversely, i like to get as little bleed between mics as possible, with the exception of toms. I also like my overhead mics to focus on cymbals instead of trying to capture an overall picture of the kit. If i'm listening to a playback of a drum take, and i mute the hi hat, i want the hi hat to go away. If i solo the snare drum mics, i want to hear as little hi hat bleed into the snare mics as possible. Often i'll get songs in to mix where the hi hat bleed into the snare mics is as loud as the snare itself. This presents many problems, first if i brighten the snare, the hi hat gets brightened along with it, and hi hats are usually bright enough. Second, if i want to compress the snare, it will by default bring up the level of the hi hat. If the hats are too loud in the snare mics, often i cant compress the snare, or i have to trigger a new snare on top of it and blend it in (which i do alot of anyway if i get in songs with weak drum sounds).
Toms. I dont usually mind bleed with toms, because i always go thru and digitally remove all the sound on the tom tracks when the toms arent playing, and i have some super secret tricks i do with the toms to reduce cymbal bleed. Maybe someday i'll tell you how. Maybe not. Maybe. So, my goal with micing toms is only to get the best tom sounds possible, which has as much to do with tuning as it does anything else, but as i discovered more than i realized, it also has alot to do with which mics you use. I personally think alot of the "standard" tom mics sound like crap on toms. and with cymbals i found out that some of the mics i have been using (and liking) for years, like the Royer R122's didnt sound to my ears nearly as good as the Shure KSM 137's i recently aquired for a small fraction of the price of my Royers. I do love my Royers for other things.
Anyway, Day 5 is ending right now with Derek, Will and Troy cutting scratch guitars, bass and vocals to three more songs that i'll cut keeper drums to tomorrow. This may seem a bit piecemeal in that you might be asking "Why arent you trying to cut keeper guitars, bass, and drums all at the same time. Well there are a few good reasons. Usually, i have to do so many edits and timing fixes with a drummer that once the drums are cleaned up, not much else lines up with them anymore and i find myself doing a ton more editing of guitars and bass to realign them. On this record so far, Dann has been so rock solid on the click and so rock solid with his feel, that i dont think i'm going to be doing much editing. the other reason is that i find i want to take my time with each piece and make sure i'm focusing as a producer on getting each really amazing. I spent 2 full days just getting drum sounds worked out. Imagine the low moral if i had the whole band waiting around expecting to play that whole time. i'll spend a ton of time getting guitar sounds too i'm sure when that time comes, which will probably be Tuesday on Day 7. I'll probably do a bit more cleaning up and rough mixing tonight, and some prep for tomorrow before i call it a night, but for now, this has been a LONG blog. If you made it all the way to the end, i hope you enjoyed the ride.
-Ken Lewis
posted by Protools Mixing at 11:10 PM
1 Comments:
man ur blog is my bible
satya
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