Began the session by setting up microphones for the drum kit and placing them into channels 17-24 in the drum booth using XLR leads, to feed back to the main desk and set levels. The microphones used were:
Kick Drum – AKG D112 – placed in shell of Kick Drum so as to gain the impact hit sound.
Snare Top & Rack Tom – Audix D2 – clipped onto the rim of respective drums, used for good mid-range frequency response with hypercardioid pickup pattern.
Snare Bottom – Shure SM57 – positioned as close as possible to snare wires, decreasing effect of sound spill.
Floor Tom – Audix D4 – clipped onto drum rim, extenuating the lower frequencies.
Hi-Hat & Overheads – Audix ADX51 – Placed around and over the drum kit, but closer to the Hi-Hats for better quality of this recording.
Learned about the fold-back systems in place in the studio. We were informed of the foldback A and B systems which allowed musicians to hear the track through their headphones, so that they could play along for their recording session, as well as hear the control room when talkback was enabled so that they could converse back through another microphone. The drum isolation booth and live room used foldback A (despite B being available in the drum booth) and foldback B being available in the dead room.
Once we started recording the drums, two guitars and vocals were used as a basic guide track so as to keep the drums in time whilst they were captured through the desk into Pro Tools.
