With my recording sessions with the band on the 31st of March and 1st of April approaching, I’m going to bullet point a few key techniques I’ve discovered in my research that I’m going to try in the sessions. They regard the recording of drums and vocals.

Drums:

• Recording with a microphone on the hi-hat and ride cymbal. This is mentioned in my previous blog post and is something I want to try, in order to get a rounded sound of the whole drum kit.
• Record toms with a condenser mic. I will try using a a C414 on the rack tom(s) during the session which is something that both Butch Vig and Chris Sheldon do. I will, however use an AKG D112 for the floor tom, as I prefer to have a lot of low end in that particular drum.
• Record snare with SM57s. Again, both Vig and Sheldon prefer this mic for snares, and it’s what I personally have always used. The top mic will be 1 inch from the head, as Sheldon recommends.
• D112 on the kick drum. Fairly standard, and this is what Sheldon recommends.
• Use a lot of C414s. Flood, who produced 1979, used a lot of C414s to get an ‘up front and aggressive’ sound. I’ve booked 6 of these mics.

Vocals

• Record vocals with a Shure SM58. While there are higher quality and more expensive microphones that I could use, I’ve found that both Gil Norton and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins favour them for recording vocals. If I decide the sound isn’t quite what I want in the session I’ll use a different mic.
• Double track lead vocal parts. As done by Butch Vig on Nevermind. Should time constraints allow me, I’d like to try this technique to add power to the vocals.
• Multiple backing vocal takes. As done on 1979. This is to add space to the tracks and I personally think backing vocals are one of the most important aspects of any track.