Studio Drum day

For my latest Uni assignment, i've been tasked in a group to do a sound a like production. Which basically means i have to record a track and make it sound as close to the original as possible. Which entails getting similar microphones + positioning, using similiar instruments and effects. and finally mixing similar to the original track. The track we picked was Zombie by the Cranberries, and I'm going to be talking about the drum tracking day today and the role i played in the process.

Drum day was smooth and breezy for the most part. We have a fairly big group so everybody's roles were switched up from time to time. For the most part i was just the Engineer, i set up the microphones, did a bit of patching and rode faders most the day. The highlight would of been testing out all the sweet outboard gear on the different drums and finding which compressor for example sounded great with our kick.

I thought we all performed pretty well in our roles. Like i said we had quite a large group so for everyone to stick to just what they were doing wasn't really feasible. There were a few communication issues, especially with what people were meant to do at certain times, but nothing to slow down the workflow and nothing that continued after the first day.

As for what we could of done better, a bit more conversation with our artist just to let him know what was going on while we were getting set up. I'm sure there were a few other things that we could of done better but all in all the day went really smooth, we finished up an hour early with fantastic drum takes + sounds.

I learnt heaps about the process of tracking drums, especially with the workflow through the desk. Microphone placement and choice and the huge part it plays in the overall sound of the drums. I was very grateful to have Clarkey in there giving us tips and teaching us. All in all was an awesome sessions and we all learned heaps.