I began a recording project this weekend with a band called DOLOR. I've known these guys for a while now and we've been discussing doing a project together for almost a year. Our discussions began with the idea that I might mix down some songs they had already recorded at a small studio in Brooklyn. I listened to the tracks and agreed that they needed a proper mix. Unfortunately the raw tracks were not accessible due to some contractual agreements. After months of negotiations they finally received the masters, but by this time they had decided they would prefer to start fresh, since they had some new material and were not completely happy with the tracks they had done in Brooklyn. So we tossed around dates and locations for another few months before finally deciding to begin the project with a drum tracking session at APPLEHEAD. The weekend session there yielded fantastic results, and we tracked the drums for six songs.
We arrived at APPLEHEAD with some pre-production scratch and click tracks, which Mike Hamel, the lead vocalist and bass player, had pre-recorded at home. Drummer Russ Scavelli set up his drums in the main tracking room, which is a glorious acoustic space, and his kit sounded great in that room. Engineer Chris Bittner and I set up mics around the kit and room. As usual I focused first on getting a good room sound and after experimenting with some mic placements I decided to go with my standard "X-Y" in the center of the room. At Chris's recommendation we used 2 of the studio's Geffel UM70s, which I set to the cardioids pattern. I have found that this type of placement always gives me a really nice live stereo image of the recording space. We also placed a FET-47 in the hallway outside the main tracking room as an extra ambient mic and ran that through a Tube-Tech CL1A compressor. All these were pre-amped with the studio's API console.
Next we set up a Royer R121 Ribbon mic as a center overhead above the kit. I had borrowed it from ALTO MUSIC for evaluation and so far I am quite impressed with it's sound. The R121 has a very full sound without seeming muddy. Though somewhat dark as ribbon mics usually are it maintains an excellent clarity and even responce, and it has considerably more output gain than any ribbon I have ever worked with. The true test of this mic will be on guitar cabs, but that will come later. As a center overhead it worked great. For stereo overheads Chris sugjested these crazy looking russian tube microphones called "Lomo"s. These gave a great presence to the cymbals without sounding harsh in the high frequencies. They were very smooth and pleasent. The rest of the drums sounded great through them too. We used NEVE pre-amps for the LOMO overheads as well as all the rest of the close mics on the kit.
In the kick drum I placed my new Electrovoice ND-868, off-axis, just inside the front head. This gave me a punchy sound with plenty of attack. I had to aggressively EQ it on the NEVE to get the sound I wanted but that EQ section made it pretty easy to dial up the sound. For the snare we used the studio's Beyer Dynamic 201 on top and a B&K 4011 condenser underneath, EQ'd and summed at the NEVE. Both kick and snare went to disc compressed through EL8 Distressors. Hat and ride cymbals were both mic'd with Shure SM-81s but we didn't end up using the ride mic because Russ' ride cymbal was plenty loud enough through all the other mics. On all four toms we used Sennheiser MD-421s. For the additional "popcorn" snare a good old SM-57 was just the thing. Russ wore AKG headphones, which are open-back and let a lot of room sound in. He's a really hard-hitting drummer so he also wore earplugs underneath the headphones because it was so loud.
Guitarist Todd Mihan played live scratch tracks through a Line6 pod, which we patched through APPLEHEAD's new (vintage) TRIDENT console. This helped give Russ a more "live feel" even though he was playing along to pre-recorded bass, vocal and click tracks. The sound of that TRIDENT is very aggressive. I'd live to track a punk band through it. On the first day of tracking Russ tracked four of the six songs we set out to do. On day two he finished out the set and by early afternoon Chris began to tackle the digital editing, using ProTools' Beat Detective to smooth out the few small tempo fluctuations that had slipped by us during tracking. Having Chris Bittner there to handle the lion’s share of engineering left me free to focus on parts, performance issues and shaping the sonic character of the recording. Beyond all the great gear he's my number one reason for bringing projects to APPLEHEAD.
To finish out our Sunday session I zeroed out all the monitor faders and did a fresh rough mix of the drums, which we bounced down to a stereo track for the purpose of using during our upcoming guitar, bass and vocal overdub sessions. I mixed the drums on the API console and compressed the 2-track mix with an API 2500 compressor. We listened back a low volume through Yamaha NS-10s and at high volume through the studio mains. Everyone seemed pleased. I was elated. I think this is one of the best drum tracking sessions I have ever done. From here the plan is to overdub using our personal rigs at the band's rehearsal spot. I have no reason to doubt that it will go well there too, despite the change in venue. I've got some great mics, Todd has a Vintech Neve 1272, mic pre-amp which I'm quite fond of for guitar, and I've still got that Royer R121 to play with. Besides, tone isn't in the gear; it's in the player! Thanks to all! More to come!
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