Really excellent day of tracking drums for Peter Scafidi’s project. We got some terrific sounds and laid down fantasitc tracks overall…
It was quite a long day but really worth it. Peter’s stuff is singer/songwriter-oriented, but I really wanted to bring out some of the energy he exhibits when he plays acoustically. He’s still a rock musician despite the folksy undertones.
We got started around noon after having to make a music store run and began by getting some really amazing drum sounds. Chris’ setup has produced some great sounds previously, but this really went beyond that thanks to the expert tuning of Robbie Parrish. If you have never paid Robbie to tune your drums, do it now. It is worth the money and then some.
The set up for the drums and mics went as follows:
Premier drums – 10, 12 and 14″ toms; 20″ bass drum
Snare drums – Premier 14″ birch, Ayotte 14″, Yamaha Anton Fig model 14″
Heads – Remo coated Ambassadors on toms and snares, Aquarian Kick I on bass drum
Cymbals (2 sets):
Set 1 – 20″ Zildjian K Custom ride, 19″ Zildjian K Custom Dark Crash, 15″ Zildjian hats (old set from the 40’s), 8″ Chinese splash (no idea who made it)
Set 2 – 21″ Zildjian A Custom Ride, 19″ Zildjian A Custom Projection Crash, 17″ Zildjian A Thin Crash, 14″ Zildjian Quick Beat hats
Snares were mic’ed top and bottom with Shure SM57’s. Bass drum had an EV857. Toms were mic’ed with Sennheiser E604’s and the overheads were Octava condensers. An Audio Technica AT33r was used on the hats.
The first couple songs – slower, folksier stuff – were tracked by Robbie. He has such a gift for that type of music and they turned out great. The other five were done by Leesa Squyers Harrington.
Leesa is such a powerful rock drummer but few realize that she is a very funky player who has a tremendous amount of versatility.
We finished up by 7:30pm and really got some great drum tracks. I’ll lay down my bass early next week and then guitar time.