Pro Tools Drum Recording Workshop
RECORDING ANALOG SOUNDING DRUMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
DAY 1 9am-12pm
Drum sounds
- What affects the sound of a drum?
- Types of wood
- Shell Sizes
- Hoop sizes
- Depth
- Head type
- Lugs
- Choose an ideal room for drums
- Placement in the room
- Leakage vs Ambience
- Technique for finding the correct place to place drums:
- Tune the drum set
- Tuning check list
- Snare
- Kick
- Toms
DAY 1 12pm-4pm
Working With Drum Sounds (Mic techniques)
Deciding on microphones for the job
- Listen to the guitar and rate it’s sound aggression factor
- Listen to the mic and rate it’s sound aggression factor
- Microphone designs
- Dynamic mics:
- Ribbon mics:
- Condenser mics
- Overheads
- Microphone placement techniques
- Stereo miking techniques
- Spaced or (a/b)
- X/y
- M/S
- Blumlein
- M/s pro tools / mixer trick:
- Orchestral decca tree
- Single distant miking techniques
- Close miking
- Distant miking
- Accent miking
- Ambient miking
- Reamping the drums for ambient effect
- Suggested models for drum applications
DAY 2 9am-12pm
Testing the mic techniques to match the project
- Testing stereo miking techniques
- Spaced or (a/b)
- X/y
- M/S
- Blumlein
- M/s pro tools / mixer trick:
- Orchestral decca tree
- Single distant miking techniques
- Close miking
- Distant miking
- Accent miking
- Ambient miking
- Reamping drums for effect
DAY 2 1pm-4pm
Getting Analog Drum Behavior Out of Digital Equipment(Part 1)
- Analog vs digital placement approach
- The mechanical side of the Analog Tape Recorder and the recording chain
- Pro tools recording of the kick drum
- Choose an ideal room for the drums
- Choose drum placement in the room
- Tune the drum set
- How to listen to the resonance of the snare and toms
- Listen to the front and back of the drum set
- Listen to the overheads from above
- Where to place the room mics
- Mic the overheads
- Decide on microphones for the job
- Mic the kick drum
- Mic the hi hat
- Mic the snare
DAY 3 9am-12pm
Getting Analog Drum Behavior Out of Digital Equipment(Part 2)
- Mic the rack toms
- Mic the floor tom
- Set up room mics
- Create tracks
- Create click track
- Setting the click track for feel
- Making the click track audible for the drummer
- Pro Tools Monitor modes
- Establish tempo or tempo map
- Drive tempo from an audio loop
- Establish meter or meter change
- Set input levels on the meters
- Set up auxs for headphones
DAY 3 1pm-4pm
Drum Recording Activities
- Single mic technique
- Stereo mic technique
- Three point system
- Four point system
- Individual miking
- Individual miking with digital recording in mind
Processing drums while recording
- LA-2A Compression
- 1176 Limiting
- FatSo Compression on Snare and Toms
- Fairchild 670 Compression on overheads
- Expansion
- Gating
Sample Creation
- Using quick punch and track punch for drums
- Clip Grouping for looping
- Using Pre Roll and Post Roll settings for drums
- Loop Record and Multiple Playlist Settings for comp tracks and emotional decisions later
- Setting quick punch and track punch crossfade preferences
- Working in Dynamic Transport Mode