Studio Gear

[Chris DiCicco]

I record with some high qual mic system direct from Computer tower incased in a short glass cup ( only for vocals ) and stuffed with a dirty sock, I guess a scientific look at it the glass is made from sand dug from the Earth in or around Italy the Mic is probably made somewhere in Asia ( take yer pick .. Cuzz I don\'t know ) then the Computer tower the same but manufactured in Roseville. So thats that in a nutshell coming from a talking Nut.

I may have missed the train of though but I elbowed my way into this my self gleeem!

Chris

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

Travis, I seriously understand man. I also completely understand about PT being the standard, and being bulletproof. My only point was to illustrate to Spencer, who prolly doesn\'t know about TDM systems that PT isn\'t the ONLY way to go, if you are talking about personal home recordings. I\'m also not a mac hater, just a hater of being forced, or having my options limited. That\'s just to say, I don\'t like it when people say, "you have to use a mac". It\'s just not true. It\'s like when I was in school and everyone was all, you have to be analog, or a digibaby. Well, I love the Neve and SSL, and the 5.1 PT room, so I\'m both, and niether. The truth is, I just can\'t afford mac, or I\'d prolly be a mac guy too.

[Travis]

FF, I know what you mean and your right. There is no "right gear" it\'s just how you apply yourself to what you have.

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

 :)So, in that area, do you ever do any ambient mic-ing of the drums? Eddie Kramer is one of my big heros, he did some of my favorite stuff ever. I know he did a lot of ambient stuff, and I like to tinker with the same. I just wonder if you do, or do you mostly stick to close mic-ing?

[Travis]

Lately I have been interested in very dry in your face drum sounds. I haven\'t been using room mic\'s but I have been using Royer 121\'s on the overheads which are an omni directional mic\'s and my room is fairly large so I get a bit of ambience. I\'ve been recording drums for over 30 years so I\'ve been though a lot of different drum sounds. Last year I did the last Jethro Tull album here, for that record I placed a pair of Sony c-37\'s high and behind the kit and compressed them quite a bit since we were looking for a little more ambient sound. Doane uses a fairly large kit and with all those mic\'s running open you get a nice hum going from all the close miced toms. In the nineties I did a lot of room mic-ing, one of my favorite sounds is to put a U47 about 20 feet out in the room and run it through a Valley People dynamite set as a limiter on stun. You get a great sucking sound as the limiter lets go after each hit, them mix that in with the close mic\'s.
In February Doane Perry and I hope to do a Sample CD of classic drum sounds of the early and late 60\'s, 70\'s, 80\'s, and 90\'s. It should be fun recreating those drum recording technique\'s, I\'m sure we\'ll pull one or two tricks from Eddie Kramer\'s book while were at it.

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

 ;DSweet. I\'m kind of a fan of the knee-high technique thingle. Where you put two large diaphragm condersers out in front of the kit at knee level, and let it ride. I like to mic the kick anyway so I can compress the shizle out of that and bring it up under the stereo image to fatten the kick. Of course, I have only a few years of serious recording, and way less drums than I would like, so I don\'t really know anything. The room makes all the difference. I have a friend down in LA that plays marimba and vibes, I got him to let me record some of his stuff a while back. I used a set of relatively crappy mics, Sure BG4.1s(I know, I\'m poor though and they are the only ones I could afford a set for 5.1 recording), just overhead as if it was a drum kit(3:1). We recorded it in his kitchen, which was tiled, with all wooden walls. It wasn\'t just thin laminate though, it was actual cedar planks. We ended up with a pretty cool sound, all the reflections from the floor, and the wood walls seemed to add a cool type of warmth to the overall tonality. Since I lack experience, I like to experiment, hehe, I just accept what comes out as my art.(unless it totally blows that is)

[Travis]

Yes I always sub-mix a super compressed kick and in fact the entire drum kit back into my drum mix. I use a stereo La2a copy David Royer made for me and aux send a mix of the kit through the compressor hit it hard  and mix it back with my drum mix. There is an infinite number of ways to mic a drum kit. The most important aspect in my experience is always the the quality of the drum kit it\'s tuning and the drummer playing them. I have been so lucky to record some of the best drummers in the world and it never fails to amaze me how an experienced studio drummer can find the sweet spot on the drum head and hit it every time, taylor the part to fit the song choose the right sticks, realize when the heads are slightly out of tune and correct it, play so tight to the click you can\'t hear the click anymore because it\'s perfectly masked by the drumming. No amount of gear can compensate for a lack of those things.

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

Man. I met some cats recently, the drummer\'s kit sounds so good, just sitting there in this little dive bar. Sitting there listening to the snare crack, all I could think was I just wanted a great monaural recording of it, \'cause it sounded so good just like that.
edit* oh yeah, there is no comparison to a tuned kit of drums. I always say, there are lots of skin beaters, but not many real drummers.

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

So, I thought I saw you say you had a Moog, somewhere. I wonder if you are into modular synthesis? I have a Nord Modular, and I just wonder if you have, or have experience with one, and what you think.

[Travis]

I have a mini Moog. never used the Nord, sorry.

[the_fawnky_fangerz]

 :-/That\'s cool. Just curious. Please forgive my inquisitiveness, I\'m somewhat starving for intellectual conversation. I dream of conversations of comb filters and Nyquist frequencies. The Nord is pretty cool, it\'s really flexible, I suppose I\'m not really qualified to comment on the sound quality, but it sounds good to my inexperienced ear. I like the fact that they give you audio inputs, so that you can use the modules to create effects, vocoders, simple audio effect chains, and w/e else you can imagine. It was my first chance to dive into modular synthesis, and it has provided many lessons. I guess Trent R. has been using this huge modular synth for his new album With Teeth. I can\'t wait to hear what kind of sounds he gets from it. Do you know anything about that thing? I think there was a partial picture of it on his site a little while back, it looked massive.