fair enough all right let's do the
overheads would you please would you
want help I've done this before I can do
it how about I do this one can I do this
one I love touching microphones make me
feel in in
control all
right this is great what's this for
violin oh
yeah Okay cool
so may is going to keep placing the mic
we're going to discuss overheads a lot
of depending on the music you do
overheads may be all you need for a good
drum sound I know it sounds incredible
but a good pair of overheads is really
what you need in this particular case
because of the very kind of
like textural quality of the the part I
like that and that I'm not going to get
from overhead I'm going to get from
those microphones but check it out once
M places the overheads hide sounds one
second Timmer I know you want to play
drumers can't do with can't do
without all right so
again because Meredith has probably done
300 drum sessions over the last two
years she has a fairly good idea of
where it might work but she's never
worked in this room so maybe the
reflections are different maybe it's not
going to work out
the overheads are designed basically to
capture the whole instrument the drum
set contrary to popular belief is really
one instrument okay and so if you can
make it feel that way for this kind of
music is cool if you're doing a Lady
Gaga record send me a
postcard all right that's good enough
for jazz so let's um and I mean that in
the best possible
way so now we're going to record a few
bars of that you want to do the the end
of the verse into the breakdown so we
can hear the symbols yeah that solo SE
yeah that sounds great
so here we go
thank you thank you very much all right
let's do that let's listen to that
without the direct
sound so the other head being the two
microphones way up there
[Music]
right yuck it's a lot of snare a lot of
snare and a lot of high hat
so we failed miserably so we're going to
learn from my failure and we're going to
move the overhead what are you going to
do we're going to move move it slightly
back um to get more symbols less drum
and then sometimes maybe even angle
them slightly out those little moveis
are great and they're very smooth as you
heard so what we're doing is we taking
advantage of their patterns to um aim at
what we want to hear more you know
fixing it in the mix doesn't exist you
know it just doesn't exist you can you
can kind of hide the misery in the mix
how's that
might as well spend an extra five
minutes here doesn't hurt so let's do
that the the fill in two so the same
same same thing
straight ah see the the high hat is no
long in your face it's amazing right we
moved it this
much
crazy I can stand this I like
it so now we're going to check remember
how the face between the two bom
microphones changed everything well how
about the face between the bom
microphones the other heads the St
microphone the high head microphone the
top
microphone yes you do have to pay
attention to that stuff so how do you
feel about that okay so usually what I
do is I'll solo the kick mhm listen to
that and then I'll just pop on the
overhead so you're listening to the
bottom of the kick she listens to the
kick and she makes sure the Bottom's
there then she turns the overhead on
what happens
let's
see here's with the overheads in yeah
bottom still there nothing happens
because she's
good so what was what might happen what
happens a lot is you have a awesome bom
sound you turn on your overhead and he
goes the B room
goes because the overhead is out of face
with the bassom and
consequently all the bottom goes away
what's the solution to that problem move
the microphone or flip the face but if
you flip the face then what happens with
the snare and what happens with the Tom
moving the microphone is the least
amount of pain for the most amount of
returns promise promise what we're going
to do today is we're going to place
microphones use good quality microphones
good quality preamps good quality
converters and we're going to make a
record with it which I'll be mixing
tomorrow but at the end of this hour and
a half we'll play just a whole track you
tell me what you think there'll be very
little compression very little EQ if any
and that's the key so can you solo the
high hat
because on this last
pass maybe when you that
thing
[Music]
okay I am not super enthused by this yes
I find it a little kind of like a little
kind of
aggressive so in this play that again so
we can put in our
[Music]
ears I I don't know how it feels it it's
just it doesn't sound like it's high hat
can you can you stop can you play that
on your high hat see it his instrument
doesn't
go okay so in this case what did we do
this is our assumption it's a a 100 on
the high hat and that's probably was not
the best choice in this particular case
with this particular drummer with this
kind of particular weather and what we
had for breakfast this morning
consequently we're probably going to
what we have for breakfast this morning
is a disgrace I got to tell
you um so uh especially for a French boy
so what we're going to do is we're going
to switch since we don't have any more
microphones why don't we just switch the
high time Mic for the high hat mic and
see if it makes it difference yeah and
that's totally fine you set everything
up you like it don't let yourself don't
let your laziness take over if the
microphone is not quite there switch it
you may or may not have noticed Timmer
is not especially in love with his high
Tom on this particular part you know I
don't think he hit it once so far so my
hunch is that the high Tom microphone is
not super crucial so why don't we just
use that on the high hat and see if it
sounds better it's always better to
switch a mic than just to say
ah I'll hide the misery in the mix you
just you just can't do that uh the the
signal flow today is as such we have
microphones from Mojave and
Royer uh Mojave tend to be the
condensers as Royer as you know is all
the ribbons uh going through preamps
from universal audio and Great River
which is this rack here in the
middle which we'll describe in a minute
going through uh Avid Pro Tools using
the new uh HDI converters right here and
a protos n rig using HD native so if you
wondering if you could track a record
track a band with HD native I confirmed
that you can it's great very powerful
system going through monitoring and
summing from uh Dangerous Music you'll
see the summing tomorrow because today
we're tracking the the song but tomorrow
I'm mixing it and mastering it and so
monitoring is something from dangerous
and then lastly speakers from
focal and that's those are the sponsors
of the event today and this this is the
chain we have you can't go wrong with
these guys so what we just did right now
is we switched the high hat in the to
microphone to see if we can get a better
tone on the high hat let's do that part
where you
[Music]
go cool let's listen to
that so just that
[Music]
see all the edge is gone now does that
mean that the ma 100 is a bad microphone
no it means that the ma 100 was the
wrong microphone for the job we switch
it with a 101 now you have the right
microphone on the right stuff you don't
have to have that e thing we can move on
to the rest of the micing um I just want
um since you're here and that's
something that you do very well I'd like
you to explain why why is the Hat
microphone placed like this it looks odd
so okay okay what I do with the snare
and the high hat kind of respectively is
um The Snare is position the snare mic
is positioned slightly so that the
rejection is you know it's rejecting the
high hat pretty meaning the back of the
cardioid pattern you know you've seen it
the one that looks like a heart that's
been blown up right uh the back of it is
rejection mean you don't hear As Much
from the back of it and she points it so
that the high hat is not as loud in the
um snare microphone and then so yeah so
usually it'll be you know look something
like like that like that just slight
okay that's great and and then with the
high hat that's an interesting way same
thing with the high hat just you know
obviously not as drastic but just
slightly angled so that uh it's
rejecting the snare a little so if you
have your high hat like this you plays
the M like that with the snare being
here meaning she uses the back of the
pattern to reject as much snare as
possible and as if you hear um that's a
good trick especially if you have not
that you know there's any such thing in
the world anymore but if you have a
drummer who bashes on the high hats
louder than the snare you know that
drummer okay this is a good trick this
only one you know him we all know him uh
it's a good trick to make sure that you
can actually make a record with the
recording so if you look at the if you
solo the high hat and play what you just
did listen to The Snare bleeding the
high
hat that's a
condenser that's a condenser that's this
far away from the From The Snare but you
still get really good rejection how
about the snare mic to hear how much hat
you have in that
see totally acceptable you know what I
mean and that's just by
going and I just angled it more and
we're not talking hypoc cardioids or any
complicated thing we're just talking
about common sense using what the
microphone does to to your best
advantage
uh let's move on to um to the drum
preamps how you choose your preamp do
you have to have a late 60s 1073 with an
la2a and this and that to be able to
make a record uh no you don't so mayor
how do you choose your preamps I mean I
said okay this is what we're doing today
uh these are your available preamps how
do you choose