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Kind of a mixed weekend.
Friday I was in a daze - too many germs, too little sleep, too few vitamins. Bumping into things at work. By the end of the day I was a zombie, so I went home and slept.
Unfortunately, there was supposed to be a mix session with Strikes Again! on Friday. We were going to dive into the Hell Disaster, the perfect ending to the week.
There's nothing I hate more than cancelling a session. I'm usually just as excited as the client to crank up the speakers and see what's happening. The rush when a mix first starts to come together is a good one, not often equaled. So you know I ain't feeling right when I actually postpone a session.
Slept in Saturday, then spent a few hours at the studio trying to make up for lost time. Ted had actually taken a look at "Hell Disaster" the night before, and we got it ready for the actual mix. After a while my head was stuffed and my ears' frequency response was shot (remember, we monitor loud to counteract the equal loudness curve), so I called it a night.
Slept in Sunday (starting to see a pattern here) before walking the dogs (two of them in the house this weekend, Buck and his friend Lola, the 98 pound Rottweiler). Headed to the studio, met Machold, and threw down some quick drums on Ted's tune "Virginia".
I've begun to question the large diaphragm condensors for recording overheads. In the past, when we used small diaphragms (the AT4031's), I felt like the localization of the drums and cymbals was really clear... this cymbal here, that cymbal there. But with the large diaphragm's (the Studio Projects C1's) I'm starting to feel like there are two "clouds" on the left and right that overlap haphazardly. Sometimes the cymbals seem smeared across the whole stereo field...
After we did the "Virginia" drums we moved on to recording drums for one of the last 2 songs on George's upcoming "Robot" record. After making some mic position adjustments, George was happy with the sound of the overheads (go figure) and we got a couple of really good takes. Around 20 songs down, 1 to go, and the drums will be completely recorded. Many of them still need to be editted, and then the real work begins...
Expect that record in a year or two.
4 Comments:
We've been moving the large diaphragms closer and closer to the drums in an attempt to localize the sound, but I don't think it's working. For the small ones, the height didn't ever seem to matter in terms of localization, just the drums/cymbals balance.
The narrowness of the room is probably causing reflections that are bouncing into the mics multiple times, and with the large diaphragms more of this is getting picked up. That's my guess.
The smaller diaphragms are just more forgiving of reflections, since they're so much more directional. Again, that's what I think...
We've gotten some KILLER drums sounds with the small diaphragms over the years. Now, when I go back and listen to some of that stuff vs. the large diaphragm stuff we're doing now, I miss the localization. There's a lot of detail from the large diaphragms but I feel that it's washed out.
Tony, I think you can get those mics (the C1's) pretty damned close to the kit (so your low ceilings aren't so big a deal). You may need to use the -10dB pad (we've been using it; without it we overload our pre's immediately).
More importantly, what is George's take on Buck?
Buck really likes George ("Uncle George") and will happily cuddle up with him on his couch.
Even more, he likes walking around George's room and seeking out little tidbits of meats and cheeses on the floor.
He's rarely disappointed.
Sorry, I guess that was more Buck's take on George.
George likes Buck as well. He likes to try and get Buck to respond to his commands, which of course Buck never does. Nothing more enjoyable than watching George stand there and bark "Buck!! Buck!! Sit, Mr. Buckingtons, sit!!!" while Buck just gazes at him and wags his tail, big goofy smile on his face.
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