Another great article today from Word Magazine on the state of making records and all the issues involved, from sound quality to making hits. This article was written by Tom Whitwell who also maintains the awesome Music Thing blog.
Why records DO all sound the same | Word Magazine
“Why does most music sound the same these days? Because record companies are scared, they don’t want to take risks, and they’re doing the best they can to generate mainstream radio hits. That is their job, after all. And as the skies continue to darken over the poor benighted business of selling music, labels are going to cling to what they know more fiercely than ever.”
(Via Music Thing.)
Picture of Jack Joseph Puig in his studio.
America is a recording studio.
Hear the president talk on fiscal policy, foreign relations, business, health, global warming, trade, defense, infrastructure, technology.
When the president brings everyone together under a common cause great things happen.
Are you ready to do business with America?
Tracking drums at Audrey Studios today for All India Radio. Recording drums seems to be the holy grail for lots of audio types and it’s a fair call. Lots of mics in a small area equals trouble, and it takes some time to figure out how to make it work for you. One of the things that is hard to get around is a good sounding drum kit. You must have this or else all your labour will come to naught. You can make any kit sound OK if you know what you’re doing as far as tuning, re-skinning and general maintenance go. But if that’s not your bag, you got to hire yourself a fine sounding kit.
Enter Travis Demsey. Aside from being a renaissance man (…he’s a busy guy), Travis has racked up a mighty collection of drums in his time. I think he told me once that when he was on tour instead of partying on, he’d get an early night after playing a show so that the next day he and his drum tech could head out into whatever town they were in to track down another set of vintage drums. That’s how you end up with 80+ odd kits I guess…! Travis puts his large collection to good use by hiring them and himself out to recording sessions. Travis appears with whatever kit you need, a few snare options and hangs about to set them and tune them to taste for your session.
Anyhow, Travis has this a’67 blue sparkle Ludwig set that is similar to this, - it’s a great sounding set of drums. I’ve used it once before with All India Radio. You can hear the (low resolution) results here on a track called ‘Four Three’. It has a great big old bass drum that sounds larger than it looks and has this great bottom octave - by bottom octave, I’m talking about the low down sub frequencies that you feel as much as hear. When you’ve got all the mics in place and have messed about with the options, it’s always a good feeling when you sit down to start doing the first bunch of takes and the kit sounds great. It makes the drummer happy to play and the band happy that their music is going to have a good solid foundation.
I get to hear and work on lots of records where people will track their own drum-kits themselves at home (or wherever they can). Usually the reason for doing this is money. Hiring a big room in a decent studio is not cheap if you’re an independent musician/band, and the idea of hiring a drum-kit on top of this (when the drummer usually has one) seems outlandish. At the same time however most everybody wants their records to sound as good as they can. There is a false economy here, because when you hear a lot of these self recorded drums they don’t sound so great. Usually the money saved on the DIY approach goes to paying a guy to sit down in front of a computer and replace all the sounds to get a better, but still not great result.
I think that it is possible to get a good drum recording with the equipment and resources that most people at home have access to. One important factor is the amount of experience the person recording has at recording generally (experience is a subject that I like to bang on about at length, but won’t here), and the other is the sound of the kit and the room it’s being played in. Instead of paying a studio nerd save yourself some money, and either get a guy to make your kit sound good (new skins, a good tune and all that) or hire a top sounding kit in for your session. This will get you much closer to a good drum recording than any amount of expensive mics and fancy recorders will.
So, when in doubt, reach for ‘67 Ludwig.
