a couple days ago i got back from chicago. i'd been there for about a week and a half recording and producing a project for a worship band named Before Morning. I knew some of the guys from back when i used to live there. in addition to playing at their own churches, they travel around to conferences, youth camps and other church sunday services pretty consistently.
after a few days of pre production, we started with drums at my old stomping ground, chicago recording company (www.chicagorecording.com). we were in studio 4 on the Neve VR72 console. there have been a ridiculous amount of records and major artists recorded here. so much that i'm not gonna even try to list them. they have them on the website if you wanna check.
that big box in the foreground and under the console is a mackie powered sub....a sub usually used for live sound. and you can't see it, but there's an identical one on the other side of the room. this is in addition to the two 18" subs behind the console. when we came in a hip hop session had just ended and apparently two 18's weren't enough bass so they had to hook up these two babies to really bump.
and check this out:
that right there my friend, is a toothpick. why do we stick toothpicks into consoles that cost six figures? well, these Neve VRs get really hot. and they don't have the same cooling fan systems that other consoles do. back at CRC we have a saying that a session is going good when the "neve is cooking". it literally means that after you've been working a while, you could feel the heat coming off the console. anyway, these analog monsters burn through caps like my attention span burns through things to pay attention...what was i saying?? oh ya, the heat also over the years has melted some of the plastic that holds the buttons down and so the assistance of a toothpick is needed.
the drummer, stevie harmantas, was using a vintage ludwig kit that sounded amazing. and what's great about stevie is that he really knows how to tune a kit. he also brought along a ludwig black beauty, a maple snare, a copper snare, and some other snare that didn't sound good so i didn't even bother remembering it's name. here's a pic of the drum setup:
if you can't tell from the pictures, here's what we used:
Overheads - vintage Neumann U67s
Hat, Ride - AKG 451
Toms - AKG 414
Snare top and bottom - Shure 57
on the kick we used three different mics:
here we have a Shure Beta 52 on the inside, a Neumann FET 47 on the outside and a Yamaha Sub Kick also on the outside. i know the D112 is kinda the standard that people use for inside kick, but i just like the 52. i don't know, i guess i'm weird. the FET 47 is like a great sounding U47, but it can handle the level better than the tube mic.
and here's the thing about the sub kick. i've tried sub kicks before. or so i thought i had. on two different occasions i've been at studios here in nashville and asked if they had one. their answer was yes. then they came back with a handmade sub kick which is basically a yamaha NS-10 woofer wired up in reverse as a mic that looks something like this:
i was skeptical but decided it was the same thing. and ya know what? it didn't sound great. after this happening two times, i decided i didn't like it. but this time stevie brought his own sub kick - but the real sub kick, not some cobbled together facsimile of the original. anyway, this thing sounds great. it accurately captures the low sub kick frequencies around 60 - 80 hz without the accompanying muddiness from the low mids. i don't know if the casing makes a difference or what, but the real sub kick sounds better.
and for rooms mics:
vintage Neumann M249s in X-Y pattern
and...
B&K 4011's in X-Y pattern
after the tracking day, we spent the rest of the week at a smaller studio out in the suburbs closer to where the band lives.
we used a geddy lee jazz bass for all of the bass parts. i love jazz bass's. joel from tfk plays them except he switches out the stock pickups. they're one of my favorite jazz basses.
for guitars we had a decent little setup.
in there we had a few tele's, an '89 les paul (it's hard to think '89 is more than 20 years ago), a brian moor guitar and a PRS.
and here's amps and cabs:
we primarily used the Divided by 13 head, as well as the marshall Plexi and that tiny little head on top of the rack is a new offering from mesa that actually sounds pretty good. my scribe skills are lacking because i don't remember the model numbers of the mesa or the divided by 13.
as for Pre's, we used the avalon 737 and the API with distressor.
here we have two different divided by 13 cabs - one closed back 2x12 and an open back 2x12. the third cab had been refinished so i don't know who made it. again, my note taking is unacceptable.
and for vocals, it's the tried and true Neumann U87
well, that's all i've got for now. hope you enjoy. if you have any gear questions about details i forgot, just hit up the comments and i'll try to answer them all.
2 comments:
Is the sub kick that thing on the bass drum that looks like a snare drum? Never heard of it before
have you ever plugged headphones into a microphone input of a console or a computer? if you talk into it and turn the volume up, you can actually hear yourself. the speaker from the headphones is acting as a microphone. this is exactly what's going on with the sub kick.
microphones and speakers are the exact same thing. just working in reverse of each other. the vibrating air from sound moves the diaphragm of a mic which induces a current. a speaker takes the variances in current to turn an electromagnet on and off which moves the speaker cone.
lower frequency waves take up more physical space than higher frequencies, therefore, the larger the diaphragm on a mic, the better it will pick up extreme low end. so by wiring up a speaker in reverse, you're essentially making the entire speaker cone the diaphragm of a microphone.
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