This came as a PM, but I thought it might be a good topic as well, so:
bigbone wrote on Sat, 19 February 2005 08:46 |
Hi sorry to disturb you like that, i'm [.....] a drummer from montreal , canada, and i [read] in one of the threads, that you did a session for the shakira album with abe jr, i got this album and the drum sound [is] amasing, here my question,,,,, Can you remember the mic and the preamp that you use to record the drums, and a couple of tips,,(only if it's possible) of howy tou did the tracking,,,,
I realy appreciate the time that you will spend to answer,,,,,,
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Hello Jean,
Thanks for the question.
Abe Jr. was an amazing drummer to work with. His time is impeccable, and he controls the dynamics extremely well.
The drums were tracked on a Neve 80xx series console, so the pre's would have been the good old Neve discrete ones. Once again, no outboard pre's, just a great console!
The mics were all old Neumann valves. There was very minimal mic'ing. I used an M-49 in cardiod higher than normal over the snare. This was the snare, high hat, drummer's-left crash, and rack tom mic. I then used another cardiod M-49 positioned between the ride and right-side crash, over the floor tom. This mic picked up the drummer's-right side of the kit. The 49's were not placed for any x/y or m/s stereo, but were moved for every song to pick up the best balance of tom-to-cymbal or snare-to-tom-to-hat-to-cymbal ratio. For example, when ride was heavy, and floor tom was important, the mic was placed accordingly.
The only other mic was a Neumann U47 on the bass drum. This again was moved for each song, to the best position for that track. Sometimes it was placed on the beater side of the bass drum. Sometimes it was placed on the front head side. At other times, a second, resonant bass drum was placed in front of the 'regular' bass drum, for extra ring or extra bottom resonance. The 47 was placed in between these at most times, occasionally in omni, occasionally in cardiod, whatever fit the track best. (IMPORTANT: Care was always taken that excess air movement did not hit the capsule directly!)
Three mics, three tracks, one great drummer.
All of this was recorded onto 499 analogue tape, along with the bass guitar, before moving it all into Protools.
Thanks for your interest!
Terry