In this course, filmed on location in one of the best drum-recording rooms in Los Angeles, EastWest Studios, GRAMMY-winning recording engineer Ryan Hewitt explains his techniques for capturing drum sounds. Ryan brings in the 'Drum Doctor,' Ross Garfield, Los Angeles's premier drum technician, and a handpicked kit from Ross's stash of 400 drum sets. Ryan and Ross work together to set up and mic up the drum kit, getting it ready for A-list drummer Josh Freese (of Devo and A Perfect Circle) to come in the next day to record. Like a virtual studio internship, this course offers the opportunity to watch the pros at work in a real drum-recording session in a top LA studio.
Hi, I'm Ryan Hewitt, and I'm gonna share some tips and techniques for you to make your drums sound great, in a recording studio. As a former drummer myself, I know how baffling it can be to try to tune a drum set, and make it sound great. It's gotta be ready and prepared to go into a recording studio before you can even put a microphone on it. We're here at EastWest Studios, in Hollywood, California, a place I assisted long ago, to get some amazing drum sounds in this room. Good drum sounds for a great record start with an amazing-sounding kit.
We have Ross Garfield, the Drum Doctor, coming down with some really nice drums. He's gonna teach us how to set 'em up, how to make them sound good in the studio, change heads, tune 'em, treat 'em.We're then gonna mic up the drums, we're gonna hear 'em in a control room, with a Neve console, and some great processing gear. After we get the kits sounding good, we're gonna have Josh Freese, one of the most recorded drummers in rock history, come in to play a great song for you. (drum solo and background music) We've got a lot of great mics to place, and some great sounds to get, and I'm really excited to get started. (ambient rock music).
By Mike SeniorWe pass on the hard-won wisdom of fifty top producers in the essential Sound On Sound guide to recording kick and snare drums, the backbone of modern music.When it comes to describing in interview how they record drums, top producers seem to spend more time discussing techniques for snare drum and bass drum than anything else. The reason I know this is that I've recently been combing SOS's interview archive and Howard Massey's book of interviews Behind The Glass, looking for nuggets of wisdom on this very subject. In the process, I've compared the snare- and kick-recording tricks of fifty high-profile producers, who are collectively responsible for hundreds of millions of record sales. My aim in this article is to distil that information for you, to help you on the way to your perfect drum sound.Clearly, different miking methods suit different records, and even the studio greats disagree about which techniques 'sound best', so ultimately it's up to you to decide which works for you. However, drum-miking is long on options, whereas most studio musicians are short on session time and don't have the luxury of comparing lots of setups while the band are breathing down their neck! So I've created audio files to demonstrate dozens of the most commonly used mics and placements for both snare and kick, using the same drum kit, the same drummer, and the same room. This means that you can audition and evaluate them all side by side at your leisure, and decide on the most useful contenders before your next session.I'll be dropping a lot of producers' names in this article, some of which you may not initially be familiar with, even though you've probably heard a lot of their records!
To avoid an avalanche of parentheses, I've listed all of them in separate boxes throughout this article, together with a handful of their most relevant credits for reference.As with recording any instrument, the choice of drum and the manner of its tuning and preparation can make a huge difference to the sound you capture, so this should always be the place to start. Even if you don't play drums yourself, it makes sense to discuss the sound with the drummer, encouraging him or her to make any adjustments that might improve the sound. When discussing his recordings for The Darkness, Roy Thomas Baker also stresses how the type of music dictates the target sound: 'You're going for a sound that's appropriate for the song, not necessarily what's a good sound, and what's appropriate can vary greatly. That's why we had three drum kits and a multitude of different snare drums and tom-toms.' Nile Rodgers takes a similar view, adjusting the kit to suit the song: 'Even if the band uses one drum kit for the whole record, I want it tuned right for each song.
We'll change the heads or tune it differently, all that kind of stuff. Sometimes we change the beaters. It all depends on how those frequencies are responding to the key of the music, to the pulse of the music. Every record is different, every song is different, every tape is different.' That said, Alan Winstanley found that sticking with a particular model of snare drum that suited his sound constituted a useful production shortcut: 'I remember renting a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum from a record company for Madness' The Rise And Fall, and their drummer actually ended up buying one because he liked the sound of it so much.
At the same time, it became a staple part of. My drum sound for quite a few years — 'If you haven't got a Ludwig Black Beauty, we're going to rent one in'.' Important as it is to get the sound right at source, the main focus of this article is on how to translate that sound into recorded form. In this context, the predominant studio tool for manipulating snare and kick sounds while recording is the close mic. In the case of the snare drum, although the drum overheads will usually include a great deal of the snare sound already, a carefully selected and placed additional close mic has the potential to significantly remould the sound. For this reason, most engineers have highly developed personal preferences here.To give some idea of the kinds of tonal change that fine positioning can bring about when using a snare-drum close mic, we set up six different Shure SM57s as shown here, generating the 'SnareTopPos' audio files.Miking the snare drum's batter head is an almost universal first choice, either with one mic or two different mics together, but opinions are divided as to whether the drum should be also be miked from below. John Astley, Joe Barresi, Dave Eringa, Chris Thomas and Alan Winstanley are amongst those who regularly mic both sides of the drum, but Steve Churchyard is more circumspect ('I'll put something underneath, but invariably I won't use it'), Alan Parsons is less of a fan ('I try and steer away from using two mics on the snare.
I prefer a good over-the-top snare sound'), and John Leckie avoids it most of the time (I very rarely use an underneath mic — it's very dangerous'). By way of contrast, though, Bruce Botnick regularly used the under-snare position on its own, combining this with just overhead and kick mics to provide a complete drum sound.Even top and bottom snare mics together aren't enough for some people, though.
When I interviewed the Feeling recently, they had also set up a large-diaphragm condenser at the side of the snare drum. They explained why they used it: 'Whenever you get really close to a drum head you get all sorts of strange frequencies you don't hear from a distance, so it sounds really odd. The side mic gets a much more overall view, and captures the top and bottom sounds together, but without the real upfront sound. It's been much more useful having that side mic than even a bottom mic a lot of the time. You get the 'crack' from the top mic, fizziness from the bottom mic, and then this side mic seems to find that 'beef' area.' When Tony Visconti uses an under-snare mic he gates it to keep it carefully under control: 'If I'm not getting brightness, if it's a very dull snare, or something's wrong that day, or it's just not cracking, then I will put an under-mic in, but I will always gate it — I don't like it rattling around all the time.
I want to clean that bugger up before it gets to tape.' He also touches on the importance of the phase relationship between the two snare close-mics: 'Invariably the under-snare mic is out of phase with the top one. I have never ever had the good luck of having both mics in phase naturally, so if you do that trick you must check it. Even though it's being gated, you'll hear a big difference if you just play with the phase button, and you'll find that the low end will disappear if it's out of phase.'
Five classic snare mics were compared over the top of the drum for the 'SnareMics' audio files (left, clockwise from top left): a Neumann KM84, a Shure SM57, an AKG C451EB, a Neumann KM86 and an AKG C414B-ULS. Above, under the snare were a further SM57 and C451EB.When two different over-snare mics are used simultaneously, phase cancellation can also easily make a mess of the instrument's high frequencies if the mic capsules aren't carefully aligned, but phase is even an issue if you opt for just a single snare mic, given its interaction with the overheads and any other close mics. 'I mix a lot of other people's stuff,' says Steve Churchyard, 'and by far the most common problem with drum sounds — particularly when they're multi-miked — is phase. Typically the overheads are out of phase with everything else, because they're hearing things later than the closer mics.
Drum Tracks For Recording Studio
So typically I'll invert the polarity and usually all the sounds kind of come forward. When you've got things out of phase, it sounds like the snare's kind of sucked into the kit and the bottom end is gone; it's a strange thing.'
'Anything and everything should always be checked for phase,' concurs Thom Panunzio. 'I check the bass drum phase with the overheads, I check the snare with the overheads, I check the toms with the bass drum, I check the toms with the snare. All you've got to do is just hit the phase invert button on the console and see if it sounds better in or out of phase. It takes no time — if it took an hour, it would be well worth the trouble it saves you later.'
Most engineers recognise that the exact position and angle of the snare mic are very important considerations. Ian Grimble: 'Another crucial factor is mic positioning.
You have to get the sound right at source and use the right mic in the right position. This results in a much cleaner sound. So I tend to fiddle around with mics a lot, and often spend more time in the live room trying out mic positions than in the control room.' Jon Kelly also recalls Geoff Emerick taking 'immense care positioning the mics' when recording drums.Despite this, however, all the producers I researched remained staunchly noncommittal as to the exact mic positions they use. If you're the kind of person who lines their hat with Baco Foil, then you might suspect an industry-wide conspiracy to closely guard trade secrets, but Craig Leon provides a more down-to-earth explanation: 'How you mic something and how you EQ it — in fact, everything that you do — is actually driven by the way the instrument is being played. So there isn't a standard setup that works; no one thing works all the time.' Steve Albini elaborates a little: 'It's hard to describe where I place the mics and it varies a lot.
If the drummer plays very lightly, then there's a lot of attack and not a lot of tone, and I want the microphone to look at the contact point of the snare drum. If the drummer is playing very hard and he's exciting the whole drum, I usually have to back the microphone off a little bit so that it's not overloading.' As defensible as these viewpoints might be, it's not much help for those short on drum-recording experience. After all, if you don't really know what differences you can achieve with changes in mic positioning, then following Albini's advice and trying to make adjustments in response to the drummer's playing style will be a bit of a stab in the dark. So to help out I've created a set of audio files to demonstrate the sounds of close mics in a variety of positions. By comparing the audio files, you can get a feel for the sonic options available and thereby speed up the process of finding a great sound in the heat of your next session.
These audio files, like all the others in this article, are available to download from the SOS web site at. SnareTopPos1inchMidway.
SnareTopPos3inchMidway. SnareTopPos8inchMidwayThese recordings were made with Shure SM57s aimed at a point halfway between the centre and edge of the head, at distances above the batter head of one inch, three inches, and eight inches respectively. This great book of interviews is, in my opinion, one of only a handful of truly essential record-production books, and is packed with down-to-earth recording advice as well as discussions of the art of production. In addition to the interviews I've referred to in this article, the book also features such greats as Glen Ballard, Arif Mardin, Brian Wilson, Phil Ramone, Mitchell Froom and George Martin, and one of the strengths of Massey's approach is that he often asks them similar questions, which makes for interesting comparisons.
There are also two interesting panel discussions where several of the featured producers discuss their trade head to head.Behind The Glass by Howard Massey (ISBN ), £16.95 including VAT.If you read my article on recording electric guitars back in SOS August 2007 , you'll know that Shure's SM57 can lay a strong claim to being the king of guitar mics. The audio files (which we've placed on the SOS web site at ) were recorded over two days in the Colin Hill Recital Room at Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge, making use of their Music Technology department's adjoining control room: thanks to the Director of Music, Jonathan Sanders, for making this all possible. Many thanks are also due to Ant Fox, our long-suffering drummer, and to Tom Adams, Matt Coulson and Geoff Smith, who all helped out tremendously with the session logistics. Likewise, I'm grateful to FX Rentals (+44 (0)20 8746 2121) for supplying many of the highly desirable mics we tested. If you fancy using any of them on your own sessions, you can rent them for just a single day if you like. For rates and discounts, see.With an unperforated resonant head in place you tend to get the most resonant sound, and if you mic at the usual frontal position you won't get any real beater definition (because the mic can't see the kick pedal) and you'll pick up quite a bit of spill from the rest of the kit. While the resonance can be reduced if required, by virtue of extra damping inside or outside the drum, John Leckie points out that you can also deal with this simply by miking from a greater distance, about three feet away.
In this position he sometimes uses an RCA 44DX ribbon microphone, a type of mic that is very rarely associated with kick-drum applications on account of the mechanical fragility of ribbon transducers.To increase beater definition, you can simultaneously mic up both drum heads: Robbie Adams favoured a Sennheiser MD421 on the batter head when working on U2's Zooropa, while Steve Albini suggests a small dynamic or condenser mic, such as Shure's cardioid electret SM98. Billy Bush and Eddie Kramer also mention covering the mics and the front of the drum with blankets to cut down on the spill if necessary, a very common studio trick. So even if you can't get inside the drum, there's still a lot you can do to catch a tighter, punchier sound when you need it.The recording of the 'KickHeadOnOutside' audio files placed five AKG D112s at four inches from the kick drum's resonant head, and combined them with a Sennheiser MD421 and a Neumann KM84 miking the batter-head side. You can also see the positions of the two externally positioned U47 FETs recorded alongside all the 'KickHeadOn' and 'KickHeadOff' files, which were there to demonstrate the potential of a number of common dual-miking techniques.Rigging up my five D112s about four inches away from the drum (which had a full resonant head fitted), I recorded some more audio files ('KickHeadOnOutside'), with the usual overheads and snare close-mic, so that you can compare this sound to those produced by the various internal mic positions. In addition, I set up an MD421 and a KM84 over the top of the kick drum pointing down at the batter head's beater-contact point, along the lines suggested by Robbie Adams and Steve Albini.External miking positions aren't just for when the inside of the drum is inaccessible, though; combining the signals from internal and external mics is actually a pretty common pro technique. The concept behind this is very similar to that of Tony Visconti's internal multi-miking techniques — the mics provide contrasting timbres, which can be balanced to get the required composite sound without heavy processing.
'I use a three-microphone technique on bass drum,' says Eddie Kramer of his variant on this approach: 'A Shure SM52 and SM91 inside the bass drum and a U47 FET outside the bass drum. By playing games with the various qualities of each, I get the sound I'm after. I'm a great believer in the sound quality of each microphone, and you don't have to use a lot of radical EQ to get great sounds if you choose microphones for their particular qualities and put them in the right place.' Steve Churchyard and Steve Marcantonio independently describe almost identical techniques, pairing a D12 or D112 inside the drum with a U47 FET outside. Marcantonio makes it clear that he positions the internal mic right next to the beater skin, and the resultant hard, clicky sound balances well with the U47 which, remarks Churchyard, 'adds a lot more fullness and roundness to the sound.' Billy Bush went for a fairly similar technique in his work with Butch Vig's band Garbage, but selecting an Audio Technica ATM25 for the inside mic, and occasionally substituting a Blue Mouse for the U47.Joe Barresi, on the other hand, prefers the MD421 or Shure Beta 52 inside, and although he lists the U47 as one option for the external mic, the alternatives he offers (a Beyerdynamic M160 ribbon mic or the old studio trick of using a Yamaha NS10 speaker cone as a mic) imply that he's looking to it more for a unique character than for general-purpose warmth.
Another different approach comes courtesy of Ian Little, who turns the typical 'dynamic inside, condenser outside' idea on its head, putting a C414B ULS inside and an SM57 outside. And there's no need to abandon this kind of dual-mic technique just because you can't get a mic inside the drum, either. Ian Grimble used a combination of a D12 close to the drum and a Sennheiser MKH20 small-diaphragm condenser further away when recording the Manic Street Preachers This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours with Mike Hedges.A final question to answer is: how far from the drum should an outside mic be placed?
Steve Churchyard and Steve Marcantonio are pretty much on the same page again with 'just outside' and 'four to 10 inches away from the hole' respectively, whereas Robbie Adams went out to about 18 inches for U2's Zooropa. Joe Barresi and Ian Grimble constitute the 'three feet away' camp, presumably roughly in line with Al Stone's unusual three-mic setup for Jamiroquai's Travelling Without Moving: ' Travelling Without Moving was a three-mic job, not even close-miked — one mic a few feet in front of the bass drum, one over the drummer's shoulder covering the hi-hat and snare, and another to the side to cover the cymbals.' To give you the option to experiment with the sounds of these kinds of multi-mic techniques I took the opportunity to add in a few extra mics while recording the 'KickHeadOn' and 'KickHeadOff' sets of audio files. Alongside all these file sets, you'll also find files for two different U47 FETs, one placed 12 inches from the drum, and the other at three feet.
This means that you can freely substitute different internal mic positions to see how they combine with either of the external mic positions. Inspired by the dual-mic approaches of Steve Churchyard, Joe Barresi and Ian Little, I also slung up additional D12, MD421 and C414B-ULS alongside the D112s while recording the 'KickHeadOffMid' files, to give an impression of the different flavours imparted by those specific mics when they're used inside the kick.The tone of the kick drum changes dramatically as you move away from the batter head, so we recorded five AKG D112s at different distances to demonstrate this, generating the 'KickDistance' file sets. The amount of spill from other instruments also increases with distance, and many producers baffle the mic stands and kick drum with blankets to reduce this, so we created the 'KickDistanceBlankets' files to show how much of a difference this can make. In these photos you can see the final baffled setup and how the mics were positioned inside.In the light of the range of opinions as regards the best miking distance, I've also created a separate set of audio files ('KickDistance') to illustrate what kinds of sounds are on offer here. Fitting a resonant head with a hole in it to the kick drum, I re-used the same five D112s in a line, roughly one in front of the other: mic one was inside the kick drum, about 12 inches from the batter head; mic two was directly in the hole in the resonant head; and mics three, four, and five were 10 inches, 18 inches, and three feet away from the resonant head's hole respectively. The usual overheads and snare close mic were recorded alongside.One of the things you'll notice, of course, in these files is that there's quite a lot of spill from the other instruments in the kit at larger miking distances.
Recording Drum Tracks Names 2017
This means that they aren't necessarily very representative of those techniques where the kick mics have been baffled with blankets to reduce spill, so I also re-recorded the same set of microphones for the 'KickDistanceBlankets' files, using a few spare mic stands to support a closed tunnel of blankets and foam suspended around all the mics and gaffered to the drum itself.For the 'KickDistanceTunnel' audio files, we set up a technique described by the producer Butch Vig, where the kick-drum mics are protected from spill using a six-foot-long tunnel constructed from kick-drum shells. The mics inside the tunnel are the same as those used for the other 'KickDistance' files, but are also joined by an AKG D12 three feet from the drum, and a Neumann U47 FET at the end of the tunnel.
For the recordings, we also covered the whole assembly with blankets to damp the drum shells and further reduce spill.In addition to this 'blanket tunnel', I also set up a different tunnel technique which Butch Vig described when talking about recording Nirvana's influential album Nevermind. 'In the case of Dave Grohl's kit, I used an AKG D12 and a FET 47 on the kit, and then we built a drum tunnel consisting of old drum shells attached to the bass drum and extended out about six feet. That way you can move the mic back three to four feet, and the U47 was a little farther away from where the front head would have been. By having the drum tunnel, you isolate the room, so you don't get all the cymbal bleed.' Finding four extra kick-drum shells is by no means the easiest thing in the world to do, but once I'd tracked them down I removed the blanket tunnel I'd used for the 'KickDistanceBlankets' files and slotted the shells in place instead, gaffering them together before covering them in all the blankets again for good measure.
In the light of Butch Vig's stated mic choices, I then added in a D12 next to mic number five (three feet from the drum) and put up a U47 FET right at the end of the tunnel.Was it all really worth the trouble? Well, the resonant qualities of the tubular structure certainly impart a unique character to the sound, and what particularly impressed me was the way in which a U47 six feet from the drum could be made to sound as punchy as a mic sitting right in the hole in the resonant head. But don't trust my ears — take a listen to the 'KickDistanceTunnel' files and decide for yourself!In addition to the various close-miking techniques I've looked at so far, room ambience is regularly used specifically to support the kick and snare sounds, giving them an extra impression of power and size.
However, you'd be forgiven for wondering how it's possible to do this, given that ambient mic positions will pick up a mix of the whole kit, rather than just kick or snare.Ambience mics are often used by producers to bolster the sound of both snare and kick close-mics, so we recorded some extra ambience mics for the 'Amb' files, to let you experiment with the possibilities they afford. A pair of Earthworks TC20 omni mics are suspended high above the kit on the tall stand; a Sennheiser MKH416 rifle mic is also above the kit, angled to emphasise snare ambience; and a pair of Crown PZM mics are on the wall behind the kit. The PA used for the 'AmbPA' files was mounted on the wall opposite the PZMs.Even if you've somehow managed to avoid Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight' you'll doubtless have heard one of the most common tactics professional engineers use, namely gating the ambient mic tracks and then keying the gate side-chains from the kick and/or snare mics.
Before you write off this technique as something only fit for '80s throwbacks, though, bear in mind that it has been used more subtly on a much wider range of records than you might initially imagine. You can hear something of this nature on the snare in AC/DCs 'Back In Black', for example, and Bill Price has divulged that keyed ambience was used all over the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks.' Various strategic ambience mics that suited the task were placed around the room,' Price recalls. 'A couple of old BBC ribbons were literally at floor level behind the drums to try to pick up the ambience of the bass drum and the bottom skins of the tom-toms, and a couple of Neumann KM84s were slung above the kit to pick up the ambience of the cymbals.
The drum sound involved me keying different ambience mics off the drums as they were being hit, using the old-fashioned Kepexes. These were the earliest American gates available, and using them was pretty much an integral part of the sound. The producer, Chris Thomas's suggestion that we could shorten the ambience with gates, providing more without it sounding too distant, all made total sense to me.' Which close-mic channels you feed to the gate's side-chain and how the gating parameters are set up both make a big difference to the final sound. So rather than trying to demonstrate some 'ready-made' gated-ambience drum sound (for which you might as well just put on one of the records listed above) I've just recorded a basic kit setup alongside a few different ambience mics to create the 'Amb' set of audio files.
This allows you to import the files into your MIDI + Audio sequencer and try out different gating strategies for yourself. The kit was miked with the usual stereo overheads: an SM57 and a KM84 over the snare; an SM57 under the snare; a D112 inside the kick drum, poked through the hole in the resonant head; and a U47 FET placed 18 inches outside the hole in the resonant head. Based on Bill Price's mic positions (and a very similar setup used by Ian Little), I miked in stereo both from above and behind the kit. A spaced pair of Earthworks TC20 mics occupied the high positions, their omni polar patterns emphasising the room ambience, and a pair of Crown PZM boundary mics were placed about a meter up the wall behind the drummer. Boundary mics (usually referred to as PZMs or Pressure Zone Microphones, although both terms are trademarks of one manufacturer), are a common choice for ambience miking, counting Joe Barresi, Dave Eringa, Ken Nelson, Ian Little and Tony Visconti amongst their fans.An alternative strategy for supporting the kick and snare sounds, in particular, using ambience is to adjust the mix picked up by the ambient mics.
Alan Winstanley had a trick for doing this by using a highly directional rifle mic, 'positioned high and pointing down on the kit as an extra room mic, trying to pinpoint the snare more than the other stuff.' I rigged up a Sennheiser MKH416 rifle mic in this way, alongside all the other mics, while recording the 'Amb' files, so you can hear what it sounds like. On a practical note, though, I found it took a little while to find a position for this mic where the snare level rose above the cymbal spill, so if you do decide to give it a go, make sure to work with the placement for the best results.A much more common technique for increasing the snare and/or kick levels in the ambient mics, however, is to set up a PA system in the room and feed it with a mix of the close mic signals. Chris Kimsey adopted this approach for the snare on the Rolling Stones' 'Start Me Up', for example ('The PA was aiming at the drums, so the snare would actually come back through the overhead mic and create this quite unique sound.' ), while Steve Churchyard used tinny little Yamaha powered speakers behind the drummer when recording the Pretenders. He also sent the odd delay effect through there too.Chris Fogel has applied a similar approach with kick drum. 'I run everything that's at the bottom end, like kick and low tom, into a powered 18-inch subwoofer situated right behind the drummer.
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Basically it extends the bottom end on the kick drum, and when the drummer hits the kick, you really feel it. In fact, in some cases I didn't have to EQ the drums at all.' Jack Douglas takes this idea and turns it up to 11: 'Another trick I'm trying these days is to spread out a bunch of powered subwoofers — maybe six of them — in the room. Then I'll put a contact mic on the bass drum and use that as a trigger, so whenever the drummer hits his bass drum, everything from about 80 cycles down to 20 suddenly shakes the room. The subs fill the room with this low wave, which everything picks up — room mics, guitar mics, everything. That'd be pretty tough to do in a project studio, though.' For my final set of audio files, 'AmbPA', I fed a mix of the kick and snare close-mics in the 'Amb' setup to a small PA system which happened already to be installed in the hall where we were recording.
Open that file in notepad and replace 'shellopen' with 'shellrunas'.7. Click file, click export and save to a file somewhere.6.
Although the PA we had was not the most powerful of systems, the way the extra snare and kick ambience changes on all the mics between the 'Amb' and 'AmbPA' sets demonstrates the potential of this idea.It should be pretty obvious by now that there's no standard way to mike up a snare or bass drum, with different engineers gravitating towards certain techniques based not only on how they sound, but on how much control they provide at the mixdown stage. If you've listened through to all the audio files which accompany this article (or, better still, if you've imported them into your sequencer and A/B'ed them in context), you should be much better equipped to choose the right method to deliver the goods, whatever sound you're after. Here is a list of the producers mentioned in this article.
Tips for full band recordingAbleton Live is well known for its suitability with regards to electronic music. With its unique clip-launching functionality, and tonnes of instantly changeable instruments and plugins, Live has long been seen as the go-to choice of producers and DJs. What a lot of people don’t realise though is that it also excels at recording bands, on account of its relatively simple, intuitive workflow.As with any DAW, Ableton can be as complex or as straightforward as you want it to be.
For the more advanced user there are plenty of techniques for things like time-shifting, sampling, MIDI integration and mixing, but less experienced users can also pick it up quickly enough to get some professional results with just a few core skills. Let’s take a look at how to record a full band in Ableton Live.The basicsWe’ll assume, if you’re reading this, that you already have a copy of Ableton Live 9 in some format, be that the entry-level Ableton Live 9 Intro or the feature packed Ableton Live 9 Suite.
You’ll also need a few other bits of kit to get started, notably a USB audio interface and set of monitor speakers. The audio interface is effectively an external sound card which enables you to connect your instruments ready for recording, while the monitor speakers will allow you to listen back to your sounds.The first decision to make will have a huge impact on exactly how you record the band; do you record ‘live’, with everyone playing, or do you lay down instruments individually. If you’re dead set on recording everyone at the same time, there are certain barriers you should understand, most notably the need for more expensive audio interface capable of recording multiple audio signals at the same time.For many bands recording live is the preferred option, however there are advantages to tracking instruments individually, including the ability to record certain parts over and over until you have the desired results. A mix between the two approaches is often used though, with full band recording done for laying down demo recordings and per-instrument recording done for final versions. Setting upWorking on a hypothetical band of two guitars, drums, bass and vocals, let’s assume we want to record ‘live’.
We can see that we’ll need at least two inputs for the guitars – either as microphones for recording amplifiers, or for line-in connection to software packages. We’ll also need a few inputs for drum microphones, another for the bass amplifier microphone and finally one for the vocals. In total this could be anywhere between 6 and 12 microphones, depending on how many you assign to the drums.For a recording session of this size, you’ll need a large interface like the superb Focusrite Scarlett 18i20. This interface can easily cope with up to 18 individual inputs, and will ensure the collected audio signals reach Ableton in perfect condition.HousekeepingWe’ll explore microphone techniques in other articles, but let’s assume all the instruments are mic’ed up and ready to go.
The first job in Ableton should be to start a new project – naming it so you can easily find it later – and opening up the app’s preferences page. From here, you’ll need to tell Ableton which audio interface to use. In the picture above you can see we’re using a interface. Next, we want to put Ableton into its ‘session view’, as opposed its clip launching view. Clip launching is great for writing songs and arrangements, but for proper recording we’ll use the traditional timeline session view. You can access this easily using your tab key.Once this is set up, you need to begin some good ol’ fashioned administration. In this context, administration means setting the project up so it can be easily navigated around with everything in a logical place.
We’ll begin by adding as many audio tracks as we need – let’s say 10 – which the interface will feed into. With your 10 tracks, go and individually name each one with the corresponding instrument which will be recorded into it. It’s also a good idea to colour code the tracks, which again helps navigation and also provides a welcome wash of colour to Ableton’s otherwise pretty stark interface. Assigning inputs and outputsTo the right of the screen you will see the track information, like its name, level, pan setting etc. You can also set the input and output settings here – if you can’t see this, press the small ‘I-O’ button – so we can assign the audio interface to the correct tracks.
Next, change the track input setting to Ext. In, which tells Ableton to look for the external channel, and then change the input channel using the drop-down menu by the track’s I/O settings.With your mics set up, tap gently into the top of each individually to ensure the right one is reaching the right track. You’ll see the green level meter in the drop-down light up for the relevant channel.
With each channel recording into the right track, we’re almost ready to go.RecordingWith all the necessary housekeeping out of the way, we can begin recording. To do this, you’ll need to ‘arm’ each track for recording.
You do this by simply clicking the small record box with the circle in for each corresponding track, which will turn red to signify it is active and ready. To arm multiple tracks, hold down control/command as you click each time.If your drummer is playing to a click or metronome in Ableton, you will need to set up the output BPM accordingly. This is done in the top left hand of the screen, either manually or by clicking the ‘tap’ box to the time you want. If you’re playing without a click (very brave!) then you can disable Ableton’s BPM by clicking into the ‘Record/Warp/Launch’ tab in preferences and unchecking the box marked ‘Auto warp long samples’. Now, Ableton won’t try and change your recordings to fit the BPM template which can save many a scratched head moment.With everything all set up, it’s as simple as clicking the record button at the top centre of the screen, then clicking play. If everything has been done correctly, you should now see the screen begin to fill up with your sounds.
Once you’ve finished, press the space bar to stop recording, and you can listen back to what you’ve captured. Overdubbing or re-doing sections is as simple as finding the relevant part and following the same process. Ableton has some pretty solid overdubbing functionality built into it too, which you can read more about. In summarySo, to recap, recording a full band in Ableton will require you to do the following things. Start a new project. Name and colour-code the tracks. Assign channels from your audio interface to the relevant tracks in Ableton.
Arm the tracks for recording. Record!We hope this guide has helped and given you some ideas for recording your next session. Ableton Live is great for full band recording, and with the good habits you’ll learn from keeping everything organised your recording workflow will become more efficient and easier to manage as your portfolio grows.
Studio One has some real handy ways in which to edit and manipulate your audio. These methods can be useful in speeding up your workflow and in creating new audio ideas. Let’s take a look at some helpful audio tips that will improve your Studio One production techniques. Tip 1 - Using the Volume HandlesOn each audio event you’ll notice a black horizontal line. This is the volume handle for that audio region. You can make quick volume adjustments by tweaking these handles.
Grab this handle and lower it to decrease the volume on that particular audio event. This comes in handy for vocal volume level editing. Take your vocal track and cut up the audio region into manageable sections. Wherever you hear a break of silence in the vocalist’s voice make a cut there. Then select each audio event and go in and tweak the volume handles so that you get a clean volume level amongst all the regions. You see the waveform change as you adjust the volume handle, so it gives you visual feedback as well on the audio waveform shape.
Now move the volume fader on one of the tracks, and the volume on the other grouped tracks will change as well. If you want to make changes to one track but not the rest in the group, then hold down Option (Mac) or Alt (PC), make the necessary changes and then release the key for it to go back to the grouping.
Tip 4 - Hide and Show Tracks from the Track ListAnother way to manage your audio tracks is to use the show/hide function to show and hide tracks in the Arrange area. Let’s say you’ve got quite a big project of 30 tracks, but only want to see the guitar tracks you're working with, then open the Track List panel. This is the horizontal line icon next to the Inspector Icon above your tracks. And then click on the white circle to hide the track.
See how this can neaten up your arrange view. Click it again to show the tracks. You can also quickly swipe up or down across these circles to show/hide multiple tracks. Tip 5 - Adding CrossfadesIt's very easy to add crossfades between two audio events. Let’s see how this is done. Take one of your audio events and slide it over another audio event so that they overlap, Select the one audio event and then hold down Shift while you select the other so that both audio events are selected.
Now simply press X and a crossfade is created between the two audio events. You can see from the waveforms displays in the audio events that the two crossfade between each other. How easy it that! You can go in and fine-tune the fade-in and fade-out points by going to the Inspector, and then down to Event FX. Here you can fine-tune the fade points.
Either type in an amount or drag up and down on the box to change the fade times. Tip 6 - Creating Automating LanesWhen you get into your audio mixing, you're going to want to start automating parameters on your channel strip and plug-ins to add some interest. For example, you may want to create dynamic changes to the volume and pan, or automation to your effects like reverb increases to create reverb swells. With Studio One you can create automation lanes. Let's say you want to automate the volume of the channel strip. Select a track, then open the Track Inspector and click on the volume fader.
Now in the top left of the transport panel you’ll see the Volume name and its current amount. Next to the volume is a hand icon. What if you want to automate a parameter on a plug-in? Then do the same thing. Open the plug-in, select the parameter, and its name will show up. Select and drag the hand icon under that name to the track list, and there you go.
It’s that easy. Remember to rename your automation lanes so that they make sense to you.You could even create folders and put this track and its associated automation lanes in the same folder. That way all your automation for that track is neatly packed into a folder, and you can expand that folder when needed when you want to edit the automation.
Or you could even hide these automation lanes when you don’t need to see them by going to track list and hiding them like explained earlier. ConclusionThat’s how you can improve how you work with your audio events and audio tracks in Studio One. Try this out and see how they can really improve your workflow and song project management, especially when you're working in big songs with lots of different types of tracks. Group similar tracks together, bundle them in folders, and show and hide tracks when needed. And really get in there with your audio automation and build up some interesting dynamic productions.
For more Studio One tips and tricks check out the following tutorials.
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