I wanted to make a Biblical reference here about building your house upon the rock, but there’s nothing like a little blasphemy to really work the jinx.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an apt metaphor though, because the more solid your foundation, the more stable everything you pile on top will be.\u00c2\u00a0 In the case of\u00c2\u00a0 most of these songs, the foundation is the drums.<\/p>\n
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve played with some really amazing drummers.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin Lawrence is going to be handling the drums on this album.<\/p>\n
Kevin has been playing drums since he was 3, though I imagine he was beating on the rails of his crib in perfect 4\/4 time prior to that.\u00c2\u00a0 His parents are both musicians, so he grew up in an environment that fostered his gift, and it shows.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve played together for years now, and I’m still amazed at the things he’s able to do, and the relative ease with which he does them.\u00c2\u00a0 I am very glad he’s a part of this project.<\/p>\n
We’ve been practicing the songs live, to get the feel right, and we’ve started tracking drums.\u00c2\u00a0 So far, we’ve just done some preliminary recording tests to see how everything is going to sound.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a little limited in what I’m able to do based on the equipment I have at my disposal, but I’m making do with what I have.\u00c2\u00a0 Frankly, I’m not sure I have the skill to handle much more than what I have anyway.<\/p>\n
The heart of my drum recording setup is a Fostex MR-8HD I’ve borrowed from my friend, James.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m able to record 4 simultaneous tracks with this, and the sound quality is very good, all things considered.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m using a couple of Nady CM90s as overheads, a Nady SCM800 on the snare, and a Realistic dynamic mic on the kick drum.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve experimented the most with the kick.\u00c2\u00a0 I normally put the mic inside the kick drum, pointed towards the beater pad, but I think I like how it’s sounding when I move the mic out of the drum about a foot away, pointed back through the sound hole towards the beater pad.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m getting a little more of the breathy “poom” sound of the kick.\u00c2\u00a0 I was just getting the “thud” with the mic inside the drum.<\/p>\n
Hooray for onomatopoeia!!<\/p>\n
I was a little concerned initially about using a condenser mic on the snare, but I didn’t have a whole lot of choice, as that’s all I have.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to borrow a Shure SM57, but my personal music store, James, had fried his on a previous misadventure with phantom power.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently you plug in dynamic mics *before* you turn on the phantom power.\u00c2\u00a0 The scm800 has performed pretty well, though it still comes close to pegging the meter on the recorder, even with the gain turned all the way down.\u00c2\u00a0 The sound I’m getting is pretty good, so I’m just rolling with it.<\/p>\n
If I had another mic to use on the snare, I’d use the scm800s as overheads, because that seems to be where the bulk of my sound is coming from – the overheads.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m using the kick and snare mics to isolate and shape the sounds of those two drums, so not much else comes from them once I start using the eq after the fact.<\/p>\n
Right now, we haven’t done any “final” takes of any of the songs.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re still testing.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a couple of work in progress test recordings.<\/p>\n
Reliable<\/a> – You can hear me playing guitar in the background – bleeding through the overheads.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, we knew these weren’t going to be usable takes, so I just played along.\u00c2\u00a0 When Kevin is tracking, he does it solo – without a click track even.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s frightening, really.\u00c2\u00a0 This is from our first night of recording with the MR-8HD.<\/p>\n 032305<\/a> – This is a song that’s not yet finished, and we were just looping a couple of parts for practice, and to learn what’s currently there.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, the part Kevin is playing doesn’t actually work with the bass line I’ve got written for this, so it’s going to need to be changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m preserving it here because it’s ridiculous in its awesomeness.\u00c2\u00a0 This is from our second session with the MR-8HD.For a chance to win more Personalised Hoodies from PML<\/font><\/a>, just like this post and share it on your facebook page!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wanted to make a Biblical reference here about building your house upon the rock, but there's nothing like a little blasphemy to really work the jinx. It's an apt metaphor though, because the more solid your foundation, the more stable everything you pile on top will be. In the case of most of these songs, the foundation is the drums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6,8,5,7],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-drums","tag-gadget-wankery","tag-kevin","tag-practice"],"yoast_head":"\n