Week one. I’m in group C for the Multitrack sessions as the vocalist. In the sessions we was supposed to do a cover of a song, we all agreed to do Michael jackson – Beat it, however personally I was more seeking to do Dirty Diana but beat it was just as good!
In our first recording session of week 1 we was recording the drums. The drummer for the group was George …. Whilst the drummer was setting up the drum kit how he liked it the other members of the group was setting up the equipment needed and also setting up a Pro Tools session for the recording. Ben was in charge of handling Pro Tools and Charlie was on the mixer setting up the appropriate channels and levels on the mixer, the channels used was from 17 to 24, these were the channels for the drum room. While Ben and Charlie was sorting out things in the control room and George configuring the drums to his liking everyone else was setting up the microphones needed for the recording of the drums. There was eight microphones used to recored the drums, these included;
Audix ADX 51
- This was used as a Room Mic
Audix D2
- This was used for the Floor and Rack Tom
Audix I5
- This was used for the Bottom of the Snare Drum
AKG C414B
- This was used as Overheads
AKG D112
- This was used for the Kick Drum
Shure SM57
- This was used for the Top of the Snare Drum
The ADX 51 is a small diaphragm condenser mic. Condenser microphones are very useful, they are more sensitive than other microphones so they receive more sound from the any piece of equipment and for this session the equipment is the drum kit. So the 51 microphone was put at the back of George so it can pick up all the sound frequencies within the drummers room. It picked up all the sounds excellently.
The Audix D2 mic is a small dynamic mic so this microphone can handle a high SPL or Sound Pressure Level. SPL is measured in decibels and it’s usually either the Threshold of Hearing, or the lowest intensity sound that can be heard by most people but thats a different discussion. The D2’s clip on tot he drums using clips, this is a great thing because they don’t take up room as they won’t need a microphone stand and with the size of the drum room with the drum inside, space is a real issue. Another great reason being that if the D2’s are pointed directly at the sound course they pick up that direct sound as the D2’s are a Hyper-Cardioid polar pattern.
The I5 is also another small diaphragm dynamic microphone which we all know they are well capable of withstanding high SPL.
The 414 is a large diaphragm condenser just like the 51. The 414 is a excellent and unique microphone as it has many different polar pattern settings that the people ca use. we used the 414 as a cardioid polar pattern setting as we’re not really trying to pick up the sounds from the room but just the overheads.
The 112 is a large diaphragm dynamic mic. It is good at reviving very low frequencies and also very important as it can withstand high SPL which is needed when recording a kick drum, the force of a kick drum can bust a humans ear drum sky high. It’s a cardioid polar patten so it picks up where it’s pointed at.
Finally the SM57, The SM57 is a small diaphragm dynamic microphone, the SM57 is different from the I5 when it comes to frequency response, the I5 has a better frequency response so that why it was put on the bottom of the snare drum, as the sound of a snare drum originates from he bottom of it so to get the best of the wonderful sound emitted from he snare drum the I5 was placed on the bottom but however a microphone still needed to placed on the top so the SM57 was places on top.
Unfortunately the drummer George couldn’t really play the drums for beat it without some guidance which is understandable as the song is very unconventional in many ways so a guide vocalist and guitarist was added in the main recording room never to the drummers room where George was. The microphones used was SM57 for the guide guitar, it was put right close to the amp directly int he centre of the amp so it can pick up frequencies high and low. While for the Vocals the sE X1 microphone was used, and yes I laughed at the name. it’s a laugh condenser microphone which was a good microphone to use for the guide vocals. I was the Vocalist while Daniel (Danny) was the Guitarist. It took just a few takes till we got the drum recording from all the microphones used.
