Recording with a microphone on the hi-hat and the ride cymbal is something that is recommended by Chris Sheldon, who produced the three Biffy Clyro tracks in my influences playlist, but is something that I have not really done in my last few drum recording sessions. Given that my first learning outcome is to improve on the quality of my drum recordings compared to previous projects, I feel that this would be a useful thing to try, to bring out each element of the drum kit in a balanced way.

Hi-Hats: According to Cobalt Audio (link at the bottom of this entry), “there isn’t really a huge downside to putting a hi-hat mic up, as you can always choose to not use it if the mix works without it. The big advantage of having a dedicated hi-hat mic is that it gives you much more control over four areas; tone, volume, closeness and localisation.” In previous recordings I’ve done, often the hi-hat hasn’t properly been been picked up by the overheads and so I want the option of having a dedicated hi-hat track there if I need it. In terms of microphone choice, Cobalt maintains that “the tone you get from a close hi-hat mic is likely to have a weightier sound to it compared to the sizzly high-end on the overheads. This can make the hi-hat too overpowering and dominant in the mix, so eq carefully to compensate. The choice of microphone will change the tone too; small diaphragm condensers like the km84 and AKG 451 are studio favourites because of their bright top end response, and for a slightly softer sound then the reliable SM57 works well.” I personally have always had good experiences using SM57s on whatever I use them on and could try using one for the hi-hats on this project. It’s more likely that I’ll use an AKG C1000s for both hi-hat and ride cymbal however, due to their reputation as perfect for those particular cymbals. The C1000 is a condenser mic unlike the SM57 so is perhaps more suited to picking up nuance on cymbals.

In terms of placement, Cobalt notes that “generally you will find that you use the mic to anchor the hi-hat in the stereo image without bringing up the volume much or making it any closer. Placing the mic a little further away than usual will help with this, as it will have a bit more ambience and spill from the drums which makes the hi-hat sound less intrusive. In the region of six to eight inches from the hi-hat is a useful starting place, unless you want a really close, clean and defined sound in which case two inches from the rim and two inches up, aimed straight down at the hat works as a general rule of thumb.”

Ride: Using a dedicated microphone for the ride cymbal is not an especially common practice but I do want to try it when recording YCIALM in order to get as much from the drum kit as I can. I’m probably going to use a C1000 to record the ride as I believe it’s the best mic for the job in this case.

In an Audio-Technica blog (link at the bottom), they claim that the best place to put the ride microphone is “about midway between the edge and the bell on the outside half of the cymbal. Keeping the mic close to the cymbal will minimize the bleed from the rest of the kit, but getting too close can cause excessive low-end to build up. Remember, this mic just augments the overheads, so we need attack and definition more than body. Your overheads are picking up the low-end body already. Moving the mic closer to the bell will add more ping. Moving it to the edge will emphasize the overtones.” I need to make sure the microphone is pointing away from the snare drum, hi-hats, and toms in order to minimize unwanted bleed.
It’s fairly likely I won’t use the ride mic recordings in the final mixes of this project but it’s important for me to have the option. I want to get the absolute best recordings I possibly can and using extra microphones is of no detriment to the project and can only be a positive.

http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Images/hihat.gif

http://www.cobaltaudio.com/recording-the-hi-hat/

http://blog.audio-technica.com/2-drum-mic-tips-recording-ride-cymbal/

While it has been easy to find academic writing about the Pixies’ cult album ‘Doolittle’, it has been difficult to filter it down to finding information about the production of the album and Wave of Mutilation.

On the other hand, finding information about the man who produced it, Gil Norton, has been easier. Gil has worked with Foo Fighters, Feeder and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Some of the information I can find out about Norton regards my 4th learning objective (liaise with the client in a professional and well-communicated manner, to ensure total client satisfaction.) (LO4) He says that the first thing he does when working as the producer on an album is to “try to have a conversation with a band before I meet them. I normally get demos and I like to get the band talking about the songs they’ve got and what they think I can do for them.” “Next, you go through the arrangements of the songs, listening to the demo and the arrangements that might work” (Roland.co.uk). While the band I am recording have arrangement ideas of their own, they will be sending me demos prior to the recording date so that I know exactly what I’ll be recording. I have already had a conversation with YCIALM’s drummer, Alex, to find out exactly what the band wants from the album. They actually want demos of each of their new tracks but he mentioned that they are open to keeping my versions as their own should they be of high quality. This is a really good motivation for myself to make sure I record and mix the EP to the absolute best of my ability. “For me pre-production is the most important part of the recording process. It’s where you pull it all together, talk about the songs and get to know each other. I like to know the dynamic of the band and the sound in pre-production so everyone is relaxed when we go to record. So many bands have never done it – but how can you go into a studio if you don’t already have the songs organised?”
Pre-production is something that I’ve had a chance to do a lot of on this project so that I can go into the studio on recording day knowing exactly how the session should go. I will be adding a production plan to this blog at a later date along with a list of recording techniques that I have researched thus far that I intend to use in the session.

“Recording anything is always a challenge, it’s a leap of faith for everybody. That’s why pre-production is so important.”

Norton notes the importance of keeping your client happy when recording by using the example of Black Francis while recording Doolittle; “He was difficult, yeah! It’s not that he won’t do anything more than once, but he would find it boring playing the same chords over. I had to try and convince him to repeat sections, or change things around a bit to keep him happy.”

“I believe anyone can learn how to mic up or understand what a compressor does, but in a closed environment you have to get on with people. They have to like you and want to spend time with you. Some people don’t make bands comfortable and from those engineers, I learned you have to know when to push people and when to back off and let them make their own mistakes. You also have to be able to push without it being confrontational. I’m still learning, like in life, how to get the best out of people.”

In terms of microphone choice, when asked which mic he would choose if he was only allowed to have one and he said, “An SM58”. That’s genius as it’s totally the only mic you would need. “Realistically, you can do nearly anything with a [Shure] SM58. It’s such a great workhorse. It sounds great in front of a guitar cab, on snare drums, for vocals… It’s got a great top end and doesn’t feedback. They’re fairly inexpensive, great quality, capture most sounds you might want to capture and, if you’re young and wanting to learn about recording, you can drop them and they still work.” An SM58 is a microphone I have been thinking about using to record vocals so for him to back this up makes that choice easier. The SM58, as mentioned in my post “1979 – Vocals”, was also used to capture the vocals on 1979, one of the tracks in my influences playlist.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/gil-norton-lists-his-favourite-studio-gear-586433

http://www.roland.co.uk/blog/gil-norton-interview-adventures-in-production/

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

Chris Sheldon is a producer and mix engineer who has worked with the likes of Foo Fighters, Feeder, Radiohead and Pixies.

He also worked on Biffy Clyro’s first three albums, each of which has a song featured in my influences playlist. The tracks can be found at the bottom of this entry.

I added the three Biffy Clyro tracks to my playlist because I thought YCIALM sounded similar to some of their early material. Having listened to YCIALM’s previous recordings, they are produced in a similar style to the early work of Biffy Clyro, so I wanted to try to recreate some of the techniques used.

Finding information on how Blackened Sky, The Vertigo of Bliss and Infinity Land were produced has proved problematic because of the less popular nature of Biffy Clyro’s earlier material however there is information on the techniques that the producer of these albums, Chris Sheldon uses. “I worked on Biffy Clyro’s first three albums and even though those albums weren’t particularly commercially successful, they’re still getting me work.” (Speakhertz)

An article on ‘The Audio Hunt’ called ‘Want Your Drums To Pop? Learn the ‘Chris Sheldon Method’ displays several techniques used by Sheldon when recording and mixing drums.

The first step, according to the article is to fully ensure the kit sounds good before you record. This is pretty standard but easy to forget.

• “Bass Drum would be a Neumann FET 47 and an AKG D112 – one inside halfway between the heads and one just outside the outer head. These can take a lot of pressure which makes them ideally suited for this purpose.”
• “Snare Drum. I am a sucker for a Shure 57 (or 58 with the pop shield unscrewed). It generally gives me what I want and can deal with the high pressure from the drum, plus it can a take beating from an inaccurate player! I normally have the mic around 1 inch or so from the head, and I would also mic up the underneath to pick up some of the rattle. This will help bring out some of the high end on the snare too.”
• “On Toms, I would generally use Sennheiser MD421 mics on the batter skin and AKG 414’s underneath to bring out the tone. It’s important to also flip the phase between these two mics.”
• “Hi-Hats would be a Neumann KM84 and probably the same on the Ride cymbal. It amazes me how many people do not spot-mic the ride, but for me it’s a must. You can filter out a fair amount of bottom on both these mics, it’s not really useful and can cloud things up.”
• “Cymbal or Overhead mic-ing would be a pair of Neumann 87s or equivalent.”
• “For the Ambience, I will always use two Room mics maybe 15 feet back from the kit and 15’ between them, in addition to a Centre mic placed a little bit closer. For the pair, I would ideally use Coles ribbon mics or something similar.” (TheAudioHunt)

It seems to me that Chris Sheldon’s mic’ing techniques for drums are directly opposed to those used by Butch Vig. Where Vig focuses on simplicity and performance to get a great capture of the drum kit, Sheldon uses a large selection of mics to ensure a high-quality recording. The microphones he chooses to use are mostly expensive and difficult to get hold of so I may need to substitute them for other mics when booking equipment. The D112 is a microphone that I have always used for kick drum and I’ll do so again. Using C414s on the toms lines up with how Butch Vig recorded drums on Siamese Dream so I will also do this. This will mean that my microphone setup will be condenser microphone-heavy, which hopefully will capture a range of different tones from the drum kit. I have always used an SM57 or two on the snare drum and will do so again, as Sheldon does. I have never mic’d the bottom of a tom, which is something that Sheldon seems to do and I think this contradicts Vig’s idea of simplicity when recording. I could also run into some phasing issues. For these reasons I’ll only be mic’ing the top skin of the toms. The use of condenser mics on hi-hats and ride cymbals is something that, while I’ve done before, I have not done in my more recent projects. I aim to do this in order to capture as much of the kit as I can, to better my own drum recordings. A pair of condenser mics as overheads goes without saying though I will not be able to use Neumann 87s, and will make alternate arrangements. Using three room mics again seems a little extravagant for my own personal tastes but I could potentially experiment with this, while I will likely settle for one in the centre of the kit or two either side. While Vig and Sheldon have contrasting methods for recording drums, I will aim to use techniques employed by both to record my drums.

Mixing drums

Again, Sheldon shows a fondness for using compression to bring out dynamism on the drum kit. I’ll experiment with the following techniques in the mixing stage.

“Mixing the kit will most likely require you to EQ again to make the kit fit with the bass and guitars, but this is where you can also use compression to really make the kit thump.”

“Don’t go crazy! An over-compressed kit will sound smaller than one with none”

“Room mics can benefit from a touch of compression to give you a bigger sound when they’re trying to compete with raging guitars. It’s also worth compressing the kick and snare drum, but again, don’t overdo it.”

One trick I always use is to run the recorded snare drum back through a mic amp and overload it to distort the signal, then record this back to another track. This has the side effect of bringing out harmonics and tones that can be very useful for infusing some life back into the kit when the other instruments are taking up room in the mix. You won’t need much (just a few dB’s), but it will really help.”  (TheAudioHunt)

Mixing Vocals

On mixing vocals and adding a lot of compression, Sheldon notes that “well, I think it brings character. ” I decided to experiment with that and have ended up doing some of that too. Kate Bush used to have tons of it on her vocals. It’s all about how you set it up. You might start with slow compressor, to let the consonants ring through and follow it up with a hard brick-wall limiter at the end, to push everything. If you’re careful with it, it gives you the ability to set the vocal where you want it in the mix. Of course, I’m mainly talking about noisy ass rock music. If its a ballad or a quieter song, it won’t be suitable for that. In full on rock songs, you don’t want a huge dynamic range on vocals, the vocal needs sit firmly in the middle of everything. So by limiting the dynamic range, you can make sure that it’s neither overbearing, nor hidden, although this does mean that you bring out a lot of sibilance and the consonants become very hard, but this is very easily dealt with.” I will pay close attention to these notes while mixing the vocals on the EP. When I’ve mixed vocals in the past I’ve treated processing and effects as necessities rather than creative choices, so I will attempt to try something a little different to what I have previously done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvOA9M-Vqs4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3lTkGgZig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0xnhVzW_tI

https://www.theaudiohunt.com/blog/want-your-drums-to-pop-learn-the-chris-sheldon-method

After months of contact with the band, we have recording sessions organised on the 31st of March and the 1st of April. While communication has not been entirely easily I have managed to extract all of the information I need. The playlist was approved by Alex, the drummer and the band have set time constraints for the session. It may be that they are only available on the 1st of April and the evening before, which makes the need for strong timekeeping absolutely essential in order to record everything in time. The session the evening before where we will set up drums and hopefully also do some recording are there to ensure that there will be no problems when recording on April the 1st. The band have also indicated that they would like to record drums at the same time as bass, which will save a lot of time in the long run, but will also require us to set up the bass recording the night before.

In conclusion, communication between myself and the band is good though I would ideally like it to be better, and the time restraints for the recording sessions will shape the way in which they are executed.