[Music]
please welcome Fab
Dupont thank you guys so what we're
going to do today is we're gonna track a
band we're going to pretend this is an
actual recording studio so basically
we're doing in the worst possible
conditions which is great is
um I will be playing the role of the
clueless producer who's supposed to hang
out on the couch with the girls and the
cigars but there's no couch no girls and
no cigars and Meredith mendas is going
to be playing the role of the engineer
who quietly makes things happen so this
is Meredith
[Music]
mendas Meredith is the first engineer at
flux which is my studio in New York City
and uh we've done this a couple times
before together uh but what we're going
to do is we're going to do it for real
meaning that that over there for those
of you who just saw some lighning came
in is called a drum set and um the black
things in front are called microphones
and we're going to put the microphones
onto the drum set to show you how we do
the reason why we're doing this is
because I get a lot of email like a lot
of email saying how does it how do you
guys do it like why I have the same
microphones you have why is it that your
stuff sounds better than my stuff what's
the process how does it work well maybe
I do it more often that some of you do
it and experience you know helps and
also we have some tips and tricks we're
going to show you and then uh we have
the joy of working with really great
musicians so today uh the source is the
key today we're going to work with a
band called The will KNX band um and uh
you're going to see they're pretty
fantastic first thing I want to show you
is the way it usually works at the
beginning of a session I say mayor today
we're going to have 150 people in the
studio and uh they're all going to play
different
instruments um I'll see you
tomorrow now the reality is the first
thing mayor does uh when as a producer I
tell her hey the session starting this
is the lineup she she puts together a
some she puts together a very highly
technical um sheet of paper that has the
number of lines the instrument uh the
microphone and the preamp so what she
does is she makes the best guess of
what's going to work how do you make the
best guess well first you got to make a
guess and then you have to
fail a certain number of times and then
once you failed enough times you say
that may not be a good idea and then you
try something else and at one point if
you're lucky you'll succeed the next
time you'll do that all right so that's
what we've been doing so the first thing
we're going to do and this is fictitious
I don't know if it's still valid or not
but that's really how we do it it's
still valid yeah fantastic so we write
the name of the instrument uh and then
she writes the microphone she wants
there's no preamps on this one so that's
just we said okay these are the
microphones we have these are the
instruments we have what should we do so
let's go look at the B drum after you
dear so this is a the band is a folk
modern folk band and usually the Bas
room has two heads and no hole in the
back head because it goes boom better if
there's no hole in the backend in this
case we have a basum with hole in it so
might as well just take advantage of the
situation um if you want Dylan to show
us the bass drum so go ahead do your
thing all
right um all right so we've got two mics
on the Bas drum one for the beater and
one for the outside resonant head um so
we've chosen the ma 100 uh move audio uh
for the beater that's a condenser
usually we put um Dynamic inside but why
not if we're not going to break the
microphone I don't care put it
in do you think it's going to break I
don't know we'll see and then what did
you put on the outside this is the
Mojave uh 2011 okay on outside kick
large diaphragm very nice so are you
just like um I just I mean how do you
know where to put them are you just like
throwing them there um usually a more
focused mic on the inside beater um they
can hand the SPL uh obviously we're
using a small diaphragm condenser our
choices were limited but this is a great
great option um it sounds good uh and
then the large diaphragm for the outside
resident to really get the the low end
okay so the idea is if you use a small
diaphragm condenser inside also the
beautiful beautiful thing about a small
diaphragm condenser for those of you who
are hairdressers and lost at Sweet Water
right now small diaphragm cancer is the
small mic that look like a pencil and
the large diaphragm condenser is the one
that look like big lollipops okay so the
small diaphragm condenser tend to have
better off-axis rejection meaning that
the bleed from other instruments in that
mic tend to not be as offensive sounding
as the bleed of other instruments in a
large diaphragm condenser mic and that
will actually influence your choice
that's why a lot of people put a small
diaph Can dancer inside the Bas drom
because well there's a lot of stuff
going on there right so you want to make
sure that the other instruments in that
microphone don't sound too bad because
otherwise what happen happens you put
your bass drum up and it sounds fine
then you put your snare drum up and it's
garbage right so you want a balance of
everything that's the difficult part
actually what we should do right now is
um we need to bring up uh a drummer to
play these things it's a special can
human being who's able to play that
stuff well I'd love to have you there
but um I would like to have more of a
British drummer with a dry sense of
humor which rolls out a lot of people
here anybody from
England all right coming
over this is timy
[Music]
YF this man can play the bass drum like
no
other all right so are you on y input
jack it up a little bit here so bear in
mind that there's a reason why they put
a piece of glass between the engineer
and the musicians in a studio
right enough
said whenever you taste your drum sound
all right if you're going to record a
heartfelt ballad do not let the drummer
play his heaviest you know death metal
Groove it's not going to help you the
drummer will want to play his heavy as
death metal Groove but that's not
constructed for your environment what
you want to do hey would you be kind
enough to play The Groove from the
actual song we actually going to record
please thank
you
[Music]
okay so we're going to record a few bars
of this so we can figure out if we like
the tone or
[Music]
not okay can you play that again
[Music]
mhm I feel there's a little funniness in
the middle there's a little something
that's just not not quite right can you
not play that can you play can you hit
the basum
once see that thing it's not there I
don't hear in the recording so my hunch
is
that like in most situation there may be
a phase problem between the two
microphones because as you saw Merith
just used her best judgment and just put
it in and now there is no real unless
nobody ever told me about it but if
there's a rule about if you know about
the rule send me a postcard till then
you just put the stuff in record it
listen and then you have to use your
judgment in your taste to decide whether
or not it's a good idea to keep it that
way in my in this particular case I
don't think it's a good idea how about
we do uh we flip the face on the outside
microphone so actually flip the polarity
meaning my hunch is the reason why I'm
not getting the super super bottom is
because the two microphones are not
properly in Phase so if we flip the
polarity on the second one we'll be able
to hear it without um that potential
problem so let's
record and do it
[Music]
again thank you let's hear
that aha check it out do you hear that
okay so what did we do what we did all
we did is flip the polarity on the the
preamp meaning the inside mic stayed the
same and the outside mic flip polarity
180 180° okay are they in Phase how hell
I don't know
uh if you do if you do send me a
postcard
um they're in Phase enough for me to
hear so let's move on so you got to be
careful because there's no there's no
real hardcore solution to this problem
you have to listen
and if you don't know for example if you
don't like to hang out with drummers I
make acception for Timmer but in general
i t stay away from drummers um if you
don't want to hang out with with
drummers and you don't want to go to the
live room to listen to the actual sound
of the actual instruments you probably
will not notice that the Bottom's not
there so I recommend that you force your
drummers to take showers before you work
with them so that you can go hang out
with them in the live room and you
listen to the actual instrument and then
you can when you come back to your
control tell yourself oh this a what I'm
hearing over there and then start moving
stuff around it's not in Phase it
doesn't exist it's in Phase enough for
what we want to do today fair enough all
right let's do the
overheads