Hello there. I’m William Dutton and I’m writing here to record what has happened and what I have learned during the recording sessions that take place in my Multitrack Recording and Music Production module.
Last week, my group had their first recording session within the multitrack studio. The first instrument we had to record was the drum kit.
Microphone Setup
The bass drum was recorded using a dynamic mic with a large diaphragm (AKG D112) that was placed inside the drum. With the large diaphram, this mic was able to pick up frequencies as low as 35hz. A condensor mic could have also been placed about a meter or two away from the drum kit to record the sound of the drum and the acoustics of the room that the drum is placed in. This would have been pointless since we were recording the drums within the isolation room.
The rack tom was recording using an Audix D2. The floor tom was recorded using an Audix D4. The floor tom produces a lower sound than the rack tom. The Audix D4 was used on the floor tom as it could record lower frequencies than the D2.
Two microphones where used to record the snare drum since it gives off two different sounds from each head. Sound produced by the bottom head were slightly deeper than sound from the top head. An Audix D2 was used to record the top head and a ShureSM57 was used to record the bottom head.
Finally, we used three ADX51 microphones. One was used to record the high hat and the other two were used as overheads. These mics have a high frequency range of 40Hz to 18KHz. They can capture really high frequencies, hence why they were used on the high hat.
The Recording Process
Our original plan was to have the dummer play alongside a guitarist and singer so that he’d be able to keep track of where he was within the song. The drummer would have been playing in the isolation booth while the others where playing in the dead room. The sound of the other band members would reach the drummer’s headphones via te foldback system. The foldback system takes sounds that are picked up from one room into the mixing desk and directs them to outputs within other rooms. However, our band was underprepared and no one knew how to play the guitar parts.
Because of this, we decided to have the drummer play alongside the official song. The song was sent from a phone, through the mixing desk and into the isolation booth using the foldback system.
Before we started recording, we had to setup the levels and the foldback system. We made sure that the drummer was comfortable with the volume of the song and we also made sure that he could hear our voices through the talkback function. It’s important to have a way of communication between the producer and the instrumentalists as the producers may often need to ask to re-record parts of songs.
Next, we asked that the dummer play each drum separately so that we could set the level of each drum channel. Now we were able to begin recording.