11/09/2025
Drummers really do exist! 😜
Yesterday I had the first drummer in my studio since before the pandemic! It was a lot of work getting ready for it, but also a lot of fun -- for a studio nerd. Friday I spent the day treating a part of the ceiling for isolation. I would have preferred floating a spare acoustical panel from the ceiling, but that would have made my lower basement ceiling even lower!
Yesterday I spent the day planning channel configurations, then setting up the mics and cabling into the snake so they would be immediately ready for placement when the drummer arrived at 5:45pm.
Mics used:
Kick in - Behringer BA 19A
Kick out - Blue Kickball
Kick ambient condenser - AT4040
Snare top - e609
Snare btm - EV Cobalt C04
HH -- C1000S with hypercardioid filter
Rack Tom - CAD TSM411
Floor Tom - Heil PR40 (BOOM!)
OHs - Blue Spark pair
2 Room mics -- UT Twin87 & AKG C4000B
Preamps used:
Golden Age Pre73
Alctron MP73EQ V2
Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (2 Liquid Channels set to Neve 73 Preamp emulation)
Presonus Digimax LT (the inputs sound great by themselves!)
A kick tunnel was built with 2 chairs and a moving blanket for isolation.
Both Tom mics were amazing in that there was NO BLEED from surrounding drums or cymbals.
Drum adjustments:
An unused rack tom mount above the kick drum had a loose fastener, was rattling. Fixed, and lugs were tightened to be safe.
On playback of a test recording, the snare had an odd fizzle to it. Drummer flipped the snare drum over to check the snare wires. Turned out one wire was bent out of alignment and couldn't be repaired, so a wire cutter was brought in to snip and remove. Problem solved! 😊
A room mic was placed far across the room near a stairwell. Another one was placed closer to the kit. Both were set to an omnidirectional pattern.
