A Music Radar article online entitled “Butch Vig’s drum recording secrets” sheds some light on the ways that Butch Vig tends to record and mix drums on records that he produces.

Regarding the famous drum sound on Nevermind, Vig says that “drum sounds can be defined by a certain era and then frequently they sound dated when a style or fad moves into fashion. Just the way I recorded those drums was pretty standard. Miking kick and snare, overheads, toms and some room mics. Having said that the room we recorded that in at Sound City was amazing and part of it was that Dave Grohl is an incredible drummer. I think that helps it all sound fresh. I think it’s a great sounding rock record and his drumming is incredible.” This is a contrast to how Chris Sheldon mics up a kit, using several microphones on toms and sparing no expense in terms of tracks recorded.

Vig also notes the importance of the room that you record in. “It depends on the kind of vibe you’re going for. Drums really give the listener a sense of where a song has been recorded and where it’s taking place. If you have guitars, bass and drums and put on a huge room-y drum sound with lots of reverb it’s going to sound like it was recorded in an arena. If you mute those and just put in a tiny kick and snare that’s very dry with no reverb it’s going to sound like it was recorded in your bedroom.” The Multitrack at the uni has quite a dead room sound and so I will keep in mind when I record the other instruments that I should try to match that lack of ambience in order to make it sound consistent. Butch Vig goes further with this, claiming that “”the decision making process of how you record the drums and how much equalisation and ambience and compression and whatever you put on them defines the space of where the listener perceives the song is. It’s powerful when you realise you can radically change how a listener is going to perceive a song.”

“Sometimes I’ll use a 57 on a snare, sometimes I’ll use a condenser, an AKG41, I might use a ribbon mic on a snare especially if there’s a lot of hi hat bleed.” Here, Vig notes that like Chris Sheldon, he too has a tendency to record drums predominantly with condenser mics. I will definitely be experimenting with this at the recording stage. “I have a tendency to like condenser mics on drummers that don’t hit the cymbals real loud, and if they do hit them loud I like to use ribbon mics because they’re softer in the top end.” Again, Vig agrees here with Sheldon, stating that he often records with one room mic, and favours heavy compression as a stylistic choice. “Sometimes I’ll record with stereo ambient mics, sometimes I’ll just put up one and try to compress it out of a preamp really hard or run it through an effects pedal to give it a vibe. I’ll run the drums to some sort of stereo compression and then really hammer it.” This contradicts some of what I have previously read about Butch Vig’s drum techniques earlier in this project.

In terms of mixing, when choosing where to position each drum track in the mix, Vig notes “with room mics I’ll try to move them around so when you bring them up in the mix you can see the space the drums are in. With toms I usually pan left and right. I don’t usually pan them hard left and hard right. I like to get it so it make sense as if you’ve got a drummer playing ten feet in front of you.” I’ll take this into account when recording drums.

In terms of mixing I am certain at this point that I will be adding compression and EQ after recording, as this is the way I have always done it and I believe it is what works best. I also think it is more practical this way and allows for greater choice. My recording session with the band on April 1st is going to be very tight in terms of having enough time to do everything and so I will do everything I can post-recording.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/drums/butch-vigs-drum-recording-secrets-586463