I'm going to take you through the process of
what happens when producers send me
things and hopefully will be sending
you if you're a budding session drummer.
It's also a very simple process
they send me a stereo file without the drums
and they'll either just send that and
let me get on with making the drum part
or they will send another file which has
got a rough idea of what they want and I
can listen to that and chart the track out.
So yeah, today it's a the James Morrison track
called 'I Need You Tonight' which is
something that I played on
and was a hit last year.
So before we get involved
in the recording I'll just give you a
quick run through of my kit and the
microphones that I use.
If we start around here the bass drum
there's a couple of microphones
this is a Yamaha Subkick
it's an old idea of reversing the polarity on a
speaker which creates a very low,
sub frequency microphone which is
basically what this thing is and you
don't really get ever to see it that
often but that's what it looks like
and that picks up the sub
frequencies of the bass drum.
So inside the kick I'm using
this time I've got I've got a Sennheiser 421
you usually see it on percussion on
congas and tom-toms and stuff like that.
For this kit and the way that I play in
this room this is a great sort of
configuration it's a bit of a...
I'm giving away my secrets
but at the moment I'm
really digging that as a pairing
where this microphone lacks
this microphone makes up for
if you know what I mean.
So that's the kick.
Another Sennhesier 421 on the rack
my beloved Coles 4038 microphones
above the kit as overheads
and also room mic wise
I use a AKG 414s and I can crunch these
I can move them around of course
and make loads more reflection
and move them around the room to get kind of
different sounds but they're the room mics
that I use and in conjunction with my Coles overheads
I interchange these microphones quite a bit
you know sometimes I've got some
Sennheiser's that I might put on the toms
I've got an EV RE20 which is quite a
hefty microphone for a floor tom
Its a big bass responsive microphone.
Regarding the snare drum it's a traditional microphone
for a snare drum the Shure SM57.
So 57s top and bottom,
I change the top one quite often
put a seventies Unidyne III
sometimes I use on top if I'm using a higher snare.
A ribbon mic mic on my hi-hats
this is a Beyerdynamic M160 (not M201)
so that's a ribbon microphone, so quite a
crunchy, soft microphone and it suits my hats
it suits the way that I play
these are ribbon mics too of course.
It's a warmer more sort of organic sound
and I really dig them.
So that's the mics.
I run ProTools on my laptop
the majority of my microphones
go through my Audient ASP880.
The way that I kind of got this
little rig together I emailed and spoke
to producer friends of mine and asked
them if they were in my position
setting up this little place what
would they use and if they can give me
like a wish list of gear and the
Audient came up multiple times with
different producers.
I use a UA Apollo and
I've got some 500 series mic pres as well.
The reason I've got those is
sometimes people like the certain
sound of a Neve on a bass drum and
they'll ask for that so that's why
to accommodate those people
that's why I have those.
But yeah the majority of my
mics go through the Audient.
I've also got a new addition which is the Audient iD22
which I'm using as a very luxurious headphone amp.
It's a beautiful sounding bit of gear
as all the Audient stuff is.
So I use in ear monitors
in the studio to to stop the bleed
into my ears but also out at this
sort of close proximity to the overheads.
So yeah that's that's my very simple little rig
doesn't look very much but
already I've recorded things here that
have been nominated for Grammys
we've had number ones around the world from drums
recorded in this studio on this gear.
I've sent files from here to some of
the greatest mix engineers in the world
and they've given me the thumbs up
so it is totally doable to have a very small
compact little rig like mine and
play on big records.
So the next stage is
is recording the track
I've obviously got a few different drums and
cymbals and sounds and drum kits as well
and I'll arrive at a place that I think
you know sonically my side
what I feel that is right
that also can change, a producer might say
"actually can you use a higher snare drum"
"or a fatter snare drum"
For this track,
it's actually quite a shallow drum but quite
a fat sounding snare drum
so let's crack on
and let's hear what it sounds like.