Sessions plan

So i've decided that i want to incorporate live drums into my track as the electronic drums i have used seemed to be boring and they don't sound natural at all. The sessions will be Wednesday 7th of may from 9 - 12. For my sessions i'm going to need an assistant to help out as i wouldn't be able to set up the drum kit and mics myself as i am the producer for this session. I will also need an engineer to handle all of the desk and recording side. I need someone to actually play the drums so my friend Alex Ross will be performing this session.  Alex has to leave early to get his car M.O.T'd so he said he will leave around 11:30 which will still give us 2 and a half hours to get everything done. We will probably spend half an hour setting up so we have a two hour time limit to get everything recorded to a good standard. We aim to get done within an hour after set up because in previous sessions it has taken around an hour or so to completely record everything. This will also give us lots of time incase any problems occur.

Mic placement
I have chosen to have a typical drum mic set up. I will be using a mic on every main drum and then a set of overheads.

The snare is something I want to get right as I am very picky when it comes to my drum sounds and the snare is one of the most used drums in the track so I don't want to get a rubbish snare sound. I want a nice thick snare with lots of the fundamental frequency. I would do this by pointing it more towards the centre of the snare rather than edge. I want to place the mic around 2 inches above the skin of the drum and only about 2-3 inches of the mic over the drum. I would then use a 75-80 degree angle to point it towards the centre of the drum. I will use one of the shure mic stands that comes with the microphone I am choosing because they are easy to set up and take up less room then a traditional mic stand.

The kick drum is also something that I want to get right. I didn't want a muddy kick like I have previously experienced when using the Shure Beta52A so I'm going to use the AKG D112 because from previous experience it's better at capturing a less muddy kick. I also want to get some high end slap from the drums skin, to do this I won't have the kick drum in the sound hole as much as we have before. I will probably have about3 inches of the microphone inside the sound hole. Hopefully this will give me more treble when recording.

For the high tom I want a nice thick sounding tom, I don't want much of the horrible skin sound you get with certain toms. I want to point the microphone towards the centre again making sure I get some nice bass in the sound as well as some high end but not too much. I want the mic pointing inwards at a 85degree angle and about 2 inches in the drum. Hopefully then I wont get much treble but more of the bassy frequencies.

For the low tom I want about the same set up as I had for the high time, 85 degrees pointing towards the centre of the drum,about two inches high of the face of the drum and about two inches in depth. This should again get a nice rich bassy sound from the drum and not muddy. The treble becomes a problem with the low tom and the floor tom so I think getting as little as possible with it still sounding like a tom is essential in order to get a nice sounding useable tom.

Again I don't want much high end when it comes to the floor tom because I don't want a muddy sounding tom to ruin the drums. I want a nice sounding thick, bassy sounding tom with not to much treble so it doesn't make it sound wet and nasty. To do this I'm going to point the microphone towards the centre of the drum at a 65 degree angle to make sure I get all the nice rich bass frequencies and little treble. I do want treble but I've noticed that if there is lots the drum begins to sound nasty and muddy so I want to try and reduce that as much as possible.

 Since the overheads are stereo they will be plugged into the patch bay in inputs 7-8.  The overheads will be hung at around 6ft high and will be at around a 60 degree angle pointing towards the drum kit. This would mean that the mics are around 3 foot high from the drums and would be pointing down towards them. I would hope this would get some great high end from the cymbals and wont cause any phasing to appear. Phasing is bad because it can literally change how well the drums sound and is almost impossible to remove. It's caused by one mic being placed further away than the other so the actual audio waves will be reaching one microphone quicker than the other and when they are placed together the wave will fall in and out of sync, this is exactly how a phaser works. Luckily, with a bit of clever ableton knowledge I should be able to remove any phasing by using two mono tracks and manually matching them up together. Hopefully with the mic placement I have, I wont have any phasing occur.

Equipment List

Drum Kit x 1

XLR x 9 (one for spare)

Shure SM57 x3

Shure SM58 x1

AKG D112 x1

AKG C1000 x2

Microphone stands x8

Microphone clips x8

Headphones x1

Microphone Choices.

I have chosen these microphone because I think they are most suitable for the jobs I want to use them for. Their frequency responses match what drums I want to record and the SPL work well with the loud sounds of the drum.

I have chosen the Shure SM57 because the frequency response of the microphone is good for what I am using it for. I want to be able to cover all the spectrum with this microphone and the SM57 does that. The frequency response of the bass for the microphone is perfect for the snare because the bass response is peaking where the fundamental of a snare usually sits, this is where you get the really throaty snare sound from. It's also perfect for the toms too as it covers all the frequencies I need. Yes it has slightly more high end than bass which I talked about not wanting with the toms but the placement I have chosen should fix that problem. The Shure SM57 is a cardioid microphone meaning that all of the sound comes from the front end of the microphone so that I would need to point the microphones towards what I want to record and this is what I have already planned to do.


I have also chosen the Shure Beta57 because they are pretty much identical when it comes to the frequency response. I have reason to believe that the Beta57 is actually just an SM57 with a mesh shield fitted on it. We didn't have 4 SM57's so i will have to use the closest possible match which is actually a Beta57.

I have chosen the AKG D112 over the Shure Beta 52a because as I stated before, the Shure mic was muddy and I didn't want that when recording my kick. I know this from personal experience but when I looked at the frequency response of both microphones I can see why the Beta 52a was making the kick sound muddy. Ignoring the first microphone on the image you can see the huge difference.

The AKG has lots of bass where it is needed and is flat in the mid range witch a spike in the mid highs, this is perfect for recording a nice clean kick where as the Shure has no bass what so ever and lots of treble which would cause the kick to sound really muddy and nasty.  I think the Shure would be better at getting at getting more of a metal style kick, lots of high end and little bass which isn't what i want.

I chose the C1000s' for my overheads because they are sensitive and are good at picking up sound at a distance. If i were to use these microphones for something like a snare there is a high chance that it would actually damage or break the microphone because of the SPL from the drums. The C1000s have an almost flat frequency response so i'll be able to pick up a nice layer for my drums that are already mic'd but also be able to pick up all of the high end cymbals. Since the C1000s' are a condenser microphone they are much more sensitive than normal dynamic microphones. If i were to use a dynamic microphone like SM57 then you wouldn't really hear much because dynamic microphones needs to either have lots of gain or be really close to the sound source.

Studio roles

Producer

I will be the producer for the day as it is my track that Alex will be drumming for my track. MY job will be to give Alex directions of what i want to hear from him and i will also advise the engineer on what to do but i will not be actually giving orders per say. I will also be open to ideas and advise from assistants or anyone else helping with the track.

Engineer

The studio engineer for my session will be Dan Allen. His role will be making sure we get a nice sound out of the drum kit. Make sure we get a good take and to level all of the mics to make sure that there is no clipping.

Performer

Alex will be performing. He will be playing the drums and it's his job to play in time. I have told Alex to improvise most of his performance as the drum beat is pretty much the same through out and i want to keep it fresh. I have ran through the track with Alex and we agreed on what we both will sound good. 

Assistant

Dan Burrows will be the assistant for this session. His job will be to set up the drum kit for Alex and set up the mics on the drum kit. I will oversee them to make sure health and safety is all ok. It will also be his job to do any tasks like adjust a mic and or run a few errands for the performer e.g. if they need a drink.

Cost