How Did The Group Work Together?
Everyone worked together really well. Everyone helped each other when asked, no one was playing or being stupid and wasting time. Our day was very efficient and we all worked as team giving input towards the recording. We managed to solve all of the problems quickly and it didn't shave too much time into our session.
How Did The Persons Involved In The Session Fulfill Their Role?
Performer (Alex Ross); Alex performed really well and efficiently. He was told to come up with his own drum beat as he was an experienced drummer and I (the producer) am not. Although Alex was told to do his own drum beat I was there for supervision and would try to tell him how i want the track to sound. He did an excellent job of adding fills and his own artistic flare to the track. I really like how the drums turned out in terms of play style. Since we did three takes Alex did different variations each time meaning i can easily choose the best bits out of the three takes.
Engineer (Dan Allen); Dan fulfilled his role really well as he setup the control room and pro tools session really quickly with no errors at all. He was really understanding with what we wanted and treated Alex like a person and not a robot. I mean that in terms of, he was nice to him and understood if he made a misstake. Dan handled all the recording and exporting perfectly and constantly asked me for my opinion on everything which made my job easier. Dan managed to handle the task of recording the drum session on a professional level.
Assistant (Dan Burrows); Dan was really helpful in the session. He helped setup the drum kit really quickly and when we were looking for the snare of the drum kit Dan searched everywhere for it and ended up finding it. We also had a few problems with mic clips as we didn't have enough for the amount we needed. Dan was very helpful searching through the cupboard looking for some and ended up finding one but it had the wrong size on it for the mic stand, he then found a pair of pliers meaning we could easily change the size making it fit. Dan was also really handy when it came to adjusting the snare drum mic to get a better tone from it.
Producer (Me, Alex Dudley); I think i did a good job of making sure that Alex was performing to my standards and also telling Dan, the engineer how i wanted the tone of the snare drum to sound different. Overall i don't think i was harsh or mean to anyone while we were working and i remember hearing everybody's opinion on the track while we were working and actually taking them into consideration rather then throwing them out of the window and doing it my way.
Engineer (Dan Allen); Dan fulfilled his role really well as he setup the control room and pro tools session really quickly with no errors at all. He was really understanding with what we wanted and treated Alex like a person and not a robot. I mean that in terms of, he was nice to him and understood if he made a misstake. Dan handled all the recording and exporting perfectly and constantly asked me for my opinion on everything which made my job easier. Dan managed to handle the task of recording the drum session on a professional level.
Assistant (Dan Burrows); Dan was really helpful in the session. He helped setup the drum kit really quickly and when we were looking for the snare of the drum kit Dan searched everywhere for it and ended up finding it. We also had a few problems with mic clips as we didn't have enough for the amount we needed. Dan was very helpful searching through the cupboard looking for some and ended up finding one but it had the wrong size on it for the mic stand, he then found a pair of pliers meaning we could easily change the size making it fit. Dan was also really handy when it came to adjusting the snare drum mic to get a better tone from it.
Producer (Me, Alex Dudley); I think i did a good job of making sure that Alex was performing to my standards and also telling Dan, the engineer how i wanted the tone of the snare drum to sound different. Overall i don't think i was harsh or mean to anyone while we were working and i remember hearing everybody's opinion on the track while we were working and actually taking them into consideration rather then throwing them out of the window and doing it my way.
Did you complete what you set out to do? If not, why not?
Yes. My original goal for the session was to have at least one take of the drums recorded to a good standard which we got pretty quickly. We ended up with three takes all with different variations which is a good move because now i can easily chop up the three takes and put the best bits where i want them to go. We had faced a few problems through out the session, for instance, we didn't have a snare drum for a short period. I asked Harriet about this and she couldn't find the actual snare that came with the drum kit either. In the end we ended up using the new snare as a substitute but that snare actually ended up sounding nicer than the one we were going to use.
We actually had a bit of a problem in the beginning of the sessions as i had lost my USB stick in the morning so i had to upload the backing track to google drive and get it from there. I then found my USB stick but the problem was that the studio computer didn't have an internet connection. To get around this we ended up going to the LRC and downloading it there and put the track on the USB stick and ran back down to the studio. While we were doing this Dan Burrows was still setting up the drums so it didn't actually shave into the time limit we had.
I think the mic placement could of been a lot better in my honest opinion. I should of gone back and changed some of the microphone placements to get better sounds but overall there were some really amazing sounds. I think that the snare position was great and I got a nice punchy snare that was also made quite snappy from the over heads. The overheads were placed as I wanted them too and they sounded pretty good too, I got loads of high end from all the drums but I didn't want to pick up the kick as much as I did so if I were to do this again I think I would try and think of a way to remove the kick from the overheads. I did this as much as I could with a high pass filter but you can still hear the high end of the kick in after the processing. The high tom came out really nice sounding which is what I wanted from all of the other toms too but they came out pretty muddy. From a couple of images that I haven't put on the blog I can see that the microphones were not placed as I planned earlier so this is something I should of been on top of. I could of easily informed Dan I wanted the toms so that would be something I would like to take in to consideration with future recordings.
Overall i think the day went really well and we got some really nice useable takes as well as some interesting an unique fills that i really like. I think everyone worked well together and we managed to get the work done pretty quickly. Since we finished so early, we actually managed to finish an hour earlier than schedule which is always a bonus.
We actually had a bit of a problem in the beginning of the sessions as i had lost my USB stick in the morning so i had to upload the backing track to google drive and get it from there. I then found my USB stick but the problem was that the studio computer didn't have an internet connection. To get around this we ended up going to the LRC and downloading it there and put the track on the USB stick and ran back down to the studio. While we were doing this Dan Burrows was still setting up the drums so it didn't actually shave into the time limit we had.
I think the mic placement could of been a lot better in my honest opinion. I should of gone back and changed some of the microphone placements to get better sounds but overall there were some really amazing sounds. I think that the snare position was great and I got a nice punchy snare that was also made quite snappy from the over heads. The overheads were placed as I wanted them too and they sounded pretty good too, I got loads of high end from all the drums but I didn't want to pick up the kick as much as I did so if I were to do this again I think I would try and think of a way to remove the kick from the overheads. I did this as much as I could with a high pass filter but you can still hear the high end of the kick in after the processing. The high tom came out really nice sounding which is what I wanted from all of the other toms too but they came out pretty muddy. From a couple of images that I haven't put on the blog I can see that the microphones were not placed as I planned earlier so this is something I should of been on top of. I could of easily informed Dan I wanted the toms so that would be something I would like to take in to consideration with future recordings.
Overall i think the day went really well and we got some really nice useable takes as well as some interesting an unique fills that i really like. I think everyone worked well together and we managed to get the work done pretty quickly. Since we finished so early, we actually managed to finish an hour earlier than schedule which is always a bonus.
Where health and safety rules met at all times?
Yes, when setting up the drum kit everyone made sure to do it the correct way and didn't mess around. We made sure that all of the cables in the live room were either wrapped around the mic stand or were wrapped up under the mic stand, this will stop tripping hazards as they are probably the most common cause of accidents in this area of work. I also made sure that no one had any food or drink in the live or control room at any give time. I didn't want gear and expensive equipment being ruined by someones drink being spilled. I also made sure that Alex was wearing headphones while drumming as the loudness of the drums could cause long term hearing damage and that's something i want to avoid at all costs.
What were the main strengths of the session?
I think the mains strength of the entire sessions came from Alex's ability to come up with a really well fitting drum beat in little time. We had discussed what sort of a beat would suit the track and Alex did practice before hand but he mentioned to me that most of the fills were actually just made up on the spot. I think if it wasn't for Alex's drumming we wouldn't of had such a quick and successful session. I also think that everyone being able to work together really well helped loads with the sessions and was a huge strength for the entire team.
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