Drum Recording Checklist

Here's a useful checklist taken from my book "The Drum Recording Handbook" (written with engineer Dennis Moody).

Like the foundation of a house, the drums are the foundation of a recording. With a strong foundation, you can build almost anything on it that you or your clients can imagine. A little effort and time spent miking the drums and getting the sound just right can result in a recording that sounds great. Remember, take risks, experiment, take notes on what works for you and what doesn’t, be creative and most of all have fun!

Here’s a list of things to check if things just don’t sound right. Remember that each situation is different and ultimately the sound depends upon the drums, the drummer, the song, the arrangement, and even the other players. Sometimes things are just out of your control. Also, these are not hard and fast rules, just a starting place. If you try something that’s different from what you’ll read below and it sounds good, it is good!

1. Do the drums sound great acoustically? Make sure that you start with a great acoustic drum sound with the drums well tuned and minimum of sympathetic vibrations.

2. Are the mics acoustically in phase? Make sure that tom mics and room mics are parallel to each other. Make sure that any underneath mics are at a 45° angle to the top mics.

3. Are the mics electronically in phase? Make sure that any bottom mics have the phase reversed. Make sure that all the mic cables are wired the same by doing a phase check.

4. Are the mics at the correct distance from the drum? If they’re too far away they’ll pick up too much of the other drums. If they’re too close the sound will be unbalanced with too much attack or ring.

5. Are the drum mics pointing at the center of the head? Pointing at the center of the drum will give you the best balance of attack and fullness.

6. Are the cymbal mics pointed at the bell. If the mic is pointed at the edge of the cymbal, you might hear more air “swishing” than cymbal tone.

7. Is the high-hat mic pointed at the middle of the hat? Too much towards the bell will make the sound thicker and duller. Too much towards the edge will make the sound thinner and pick up more air noise.

8. Are the room mics parallel? If you’re using two room mics instead of a stereo mic to mic the room, make sure that the mics are on the same plane and are exactly parallel to each other. Also make sure that they’re on the very edge of the kit looking at the outside edge of the cymbals.

9. Does the balance of the mix sound the same as when you’re standing in front of the drums? This is your reference point and what you should be trying to match. You can embellish the sound after you’ve achieved this.

10. Are the drums placed in the best sounding part of the room? Even if you've followed everything else up to this point, if the drums are placed too close to a window or in a part of the room where the reflections "boing," chances are your drum sounds aren't going to sound as good as you want them to sound. Move them to the biggest part of the room that has the smoothest sounding reflections.

If you follow these simple tips, you'll be surprised how great your drum sound can be.

PsyOps And The Audio Industry

In an interesting article in Wired Magazine, loudspeakers used for psychological warfare operations (pysops) in Iraq and elsewhere are getting a bit long in the tooth, having been designed in the ’90s, so they're looking for the Next Generation Loudspeaker System (called "NGLS" for short).

In reality, loudspeaker technology has changed little since the 20's. Sure it's improved and evolved, but the transducers are still the same transducers. In fact, the picture on the left looks a lot like the University horns that my first band used in the 60's.

But the military does want a new twist, intending to network speaker systems so they can be “interconnected using secure wireless technology to form sets of loudspeakers that provide high-quality recorded audio, live dissemination, and acoustic-deception capability.”

According to the article, "A set of scattered, networked speakers could certainly create some confusing sound effects. It could create the impression of a patrol or a vehicle moving around, surrounding the enemy with phantoms while masking the presence of real forces.

Special Forces have already had good results using focused sound in the form of the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD). The unofficial PsyWarrior site reports that LRAD could be clearly heard at 1,400 meters, and it proved a handy way of communicating with the locals. “Iraqis were seen writing down the counter-terrorism tip-line number at over 600 meters range.”

The article goes on to talk about first putting speakers on aircraft during the war in Vietnam. Many different broadcasts were tried, including the celebrated “Wandering Soul,” also known as the “Howling Ghost” or “Ghost Tape Number 10″ (”Number 10″ or “So Moui” was Vietnam slang for “very bad”). This played on the Vietnamese belief that unless a person is buried properly, his or her suffering soul will wander the earth.

According to the article, "The Wandering Soul tape had an echoing voice, supposedly of a dead Viet Cong, warning his comrades that his soul is doomed to wander forever and telling them to go back to their homes. The Viet Cong soon realized that the voice was not really a ghost, but it certainly had a very disturbing effect on them, and in many cases provoked them to open fire on the helicopter carrying the speakers," which of course, is what they wanted.

There's a huge difference between the "million dollar speaker system" from yesterday's post and the manpack systems used by the military, but it does go to show that the audio industry has a great impact on our lives in so many unappreciated ways. Many of us just see it as a way to reproduce music (which it does in its simplest form) but audio gear also provides everything from a sense of satisfaction to a feeling of superiority to the harbinger of fear.

Most of us are isolated in our own little audio world, but there's a lot bigger world out there than we know. And it's ever so interesting to get just a little taste of the things beyond our immediate horizon.

The Million Dollar Speaker System

High-end audio has always seemed to be more about price and hype instead of audio quality, but it looks like insanity has taken over the industry once and for all.

A company called Transmission Audio now makes a speaker, called the Ultimate, that at $1,000,000 is probably the most expensive in the world. Now understand that this is for just a single speaker system, so you'll need to shell out a couple of mil for a stereo pair!

The Ultimate is a really large speaker system with each one consisting of six, seven-foot tall panels that houses a total of forty 15-inch subwoofers, twenty-four 8-inch midrange speakers, and massive arrays of 2-inch and 1-inch wide ribbon tweeters. And that's just for one channel. Double those numbers for stereo! A pair of Ultimates are nearly forty feet wide!

Each Ultimate speaker comes with its own power amplifiers with a total output of 31,000 watts, and the manufacturer claims the Ultimate can generate up to 146dB SPL, which if true is louder than a jet plane taking off.

Just to put the price of the Ultimate into perspective, you could build a very fine professional sound system very capable of providing quality audio to 20,000 for less than that. Or a first-class recording facility complete with Alan Side's wonderful custom monitors for a lot less.

I don't know if Transmission Audio's sold any of these at all, but I'd love to know who their clients are and what they do for a living. My guess is it's a person with more money than they know what to do with, trying to compensate for impaired hearing. There's a sucker born every minute, especially in audiophile world.

Goodbye Les!

The great musical and electronic innovator Les Paul passed on today at age 94.

Just off the top of my head, here are some of the inventions that he was responsible for:

• The multi-track tape recorder
• The now common practice of overdubbing (he was the first to figure out how and the first to utilize it)
• The Gibson Les Paul model guitar (a must-have for every serious guitar player)
• Close miking instruments (commonly used today on virtually every recording)
• The Capitol Records label (he was one of the founders)
• The unique round Capitol Records building (still a Hollywood landmark)
• The famous Capitol studios echo chambers (arguably still the finest in the world)

That sure is a big impact from one person in a single lifetime. Many people make large contributions to an industry during their lives, but Les was different because what he did really changed the basic core of how we create and listen to music.

I met Les once at a party in a hotel room during an AES convention maybe 15 years ago. Funny guy, full of life, and loved the ladies even at his advanced age (late 70's) at the time. He was the center of the party and he loved every minute of it. I only wish that I would've had my picture taken with him (had the chance but it didn't happen for some unremembered reason).

Here's a little bit from Les' television show with his former wife, Mary Ford. Notice the multi-tracked guitars and vocals, which were way, way ahead of the time when the show was filmed (1954).

10 Major Milestones In Modern Music Marketing

Bruce Houghton wrote a nice post on his ever entertaining Hypebot blog today about the 10 major milestones in modern music marketing. It's hard to argue with any of these, and they all are certainly milestones in some way, shape or form. I've added my comments in italics afterwards where appropriate.

In no particular order:

1. Seth Godin writes "Permission Marketing" way back in 1999 pointing the way towards a new era of artist and fan relationships. I personally thought that his book "Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us" is more of the milestone, but Permission Marketing certainly ranks right up there.

2. CD Baby offers indie and d.i.y. artists a home to reach a wider audience on the net.

3. The Arctic Monkeys parlay internet pre-release buzz into the fastest selling debut album in UK history.

4. OK GO proves the power of YouTube with an ultra-low budget "treadmill" video "Here We Go Again."

5. TuneCore tears down the last barriers to distribution offering low flat fee no strings attached access to the worlds top digital stores.

6. Radiohead releases "In Rainbows" asking fans to pay want they want for the download.

7. Trent Reznor grosses $1.6 million in first week sales by offering fans options from $5 to a $300 limited edition package of his latest Nine Inch Nails release "Ghosts". Whether it's calculated or just an inherent feel for Internet marketing, Trent is the master and deserves to be on any top 10 list.

8. Jill Sobule asks fans for help recording her new album raises more than $80,000. Pretty good considering she was only looking for $75k and could've raised more had she not cut the offering off.

9. David Byrne & Brian Eno release a new collaboration via Topspin. While more evolutionary than revolutionary, this was one of the first well planned and executed releases that took full advantage of modern music marketing techniques with impressive results.

10. Amanda Palmer made $19,000 in 10 hours on Twitter proving the music marketing potantial of micro-blogging platform. I wonder about this one. Seems a bit fishy somehow.

Kids Abandon Social Networking Sites

Who ever thought that social networking would be uncool? Apparently that's what millions of 15 to 24 year olds now think about the major social sites like Facebook and MySpace, according to an article in The Guardian.

The article states that according to a recent study by Ofcom (the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries), the overwhelming presence of 25 to 34 year olds has driven away their younger peers. While the number of profiles have been increasing for the older demographic, the younger has shrunk by an almost identical amount.

"There is nothing to suggest overall usage of the internet among 15-to 24-year-olds is going down," said Peter Phillips, the regulator's head of strategy. "Data suggests they are spending less time on social networking sites." James Thickett, director of market research at Ofcom, said that while older people seemed to be embracing social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace still remained immensely popular with children under 16.

As we've seen several times in recent history, social networks are transitory in popularity, especially with fickle teens. What is massively popular today may be just as uncool tomorrow precisely because of that massive popularity. MySpace seems to be fading (as is Linkedin with the professional crowd), Facebook seems to have peaked, and Twitter is growing but skews old as it's never captured the hearts and minds of the below 25 crowd.

This makes marketing via social marketing a very moving target. Just about the time you get good at utilizing a social platform, it's time to learn the nuances of a new one. This seems to be the new way of working these days. The only question now is how fast something will get old.

Colbert: Black Eyed Peas Advertunities

Stephen Colbert's humor hits really close to home. In this video, Colbert takes the Black Eyed Peas to task for missing too many "Advertunities." This, of course, means that the Peas hardly miss any opportunities to exploit their brand, so it's more of a news item when they pass something up than when they actually do brand themselves.

Also, take notice to the pretty blatant examples of Autotune in the video as per a previous post.

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Autotune Is AWESOME!

Autotune may the bane of some artists, a necessary evil with others, and an overused effect by others. I believe that autotune is merely a tool in a mixer's or producer's extensive toolkit that can be used for musically good or evil, depending upon your taste and skill.

Here's one of the of the more hilarious uses for autotune.

The Key To Great Arrangements

Ever have a song that really works when it’s a piano or guitar and vocal, but just doesn’t seem to cut it when the whole band gets hold of it? That’s because one of the biggest problems with songs that don’t end up sounding as good as they do in your head is because of some common arranging mistakes. Arranging is an art form just like everything else in the music business so it does take some talent and experience to get a song to really click, but you can easily avoid some of the common pitfalls by observing the pointers below.

Most well conceived arrangements are limited in the number of elements that occur at the same time. An element can be a single instrument like a lead guitar or a vocal, or it can be a group of instruments like the bass and drums, a doubled guitar line, a group of backing vocals, etc. Generally, a group of instruments playing exactly the same rhythm is considered an element. Examples: a doubled lead guitar or doubled vocal is a single element, as is a lead vocal with two additional harmonies singing the same melody. If the bass plays very tightly with the kick and snare, that can be a single element too. Two lead guitars playing different parts are two elements, however. A lead and a rhythm guitar are two separate elements as well. So what’s an element then?

Arrangement Elements

There are 5 elements in every arrangement.

Foundation - The Rhythm Section. The foundation is usually the bass and drums, but can also include a rhythm guitar and/or keys if they’re playing the same rhythmic figure as the rhythm section. Occasionally, as in the case of power trios, the Foundation element will only consist of drums since the bass will usually have to play a different rhythm figure to fill out the sound, so it becomes it’s own element.

Pad - A Pad is a long sustaining note or chord. In the days before synthesizers, a Hammond Organ provided the most often used pad and was later joined by the Fender Rhodes electric piano. Synthesizers now provide the majority of pads but real strings or a guitar power chord can also suffice.

Rhythm - Rhythm is any instrument that plays counter to the Foundation element. This can be a double time shaker or tambourine, a rhythm guitar strumming on the backbeat, or congas playing a Latin feel. The Rhythm element is used to add motion and excitement to the track.

Lead - A lead vocal, lead instrument, or solo.

Fills - Fills generally occur in the spaces between Lead lines, or can be a signature line like the intro to Coldplay’s “Clocks” or the Stones “Satisfaction”. You can think of a Fill element as an answer to the Lead.

Where Things Go Wrong

The biggest problem with most arrangements that don’t work is that they have too many elements happening at the same time. You can’t have 4 percussion elements, 5 guitar elements, 3 keyboard elements, a rhythm section and lead and background vocals and not get physically tired from listening because there’s just too much going on!

The mind unconsciously longs for simplicity and rewards a simple arrangement with attention, which is what we want to have happen, of course. But what does simplicity mean?

You should never have more than 4 elements occurring at the same time. You can get away with 5 every once in a while, but 4 is usually the max. “But there’s usually more than 4 instruments playing in most things I listen to these days,” you say? Yes, but they’re usually playing the same parts. For instance, if you have a doubled guitar part with a 3^rd track playing the same part an octave above, that’s 3 instruments playing only 1 part, so that counts as only 1 element. If a guitar is doubling a bass line, that’s only 1 element. If you have a lead vocal that’s doubled with another vocal an octave above, that’s still only 1 element. A symphony orchestra may have 120 instruments, but when you break it down they’re all just playing a limited number of elements. Eventually, everything comes down to 4 of the 5 elements mentioned above.

Keep these tricks in mind and your songs will sound better and so will your recordings too! More on arrangement in an upcoming post. You can also read more about arranging techniques in my book How To Make Your Band Sound Great (where a lot of this article came from).

Island Def Jam Sinks To New Low

I'm not so sure if this smacks of desperation or it's just another lame-brained label scheme, but Island Def Jam will include advertising on the upcoming Mariah Carey CD "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel."

The CD, to be released on Sept. 15th, features a 34-page mini-magazine co-produced with Elle that will include the usual liner notes and lyrics along with ads from Elizabeth Arden, Angel Champagne, Carmen Steffen's, Le Métier de Beauté and the Bahamas Board of Tourism. If things go well, it's reported that Island Def Jam hopes to do similar booklet deals for Rihanna, Bon Jovi, Kanye West and others.

As an extension of the program, WalMart will supposedly merchandise Carey's new CD alongside her signature Arden fragrance (who have an ad in the CD booklet) just outside the music aisle, and intends to display them together in the beauty department (boy, I'm sure that'll really boost sales).

One of the follies of this particular campaign is assuming that the people that purchase the CD will be able to afford or even care about the luxury products being advertised. The advertisers chosen just make it look like a straight money grab by the label (which it is anyway).

Perhaps this scheme will work and even be welcomed by Mariah's fans, but you can bet that a lot of music fans will take a personal offense to this kind of blatant co-branding if it threatens to become the norm. Adverts so closely tied to the music violates the trust and bond that an artist works so hard to develop with her fans in Music 3.0. The artist is the one and only brand that the true fan cares about, and co-branding generally cheapens that experience.

While I applaud the label for thinking outside the box (sorta), music co-branding hasn't really been a big winner before in the eyes of the consumer. I can't image that Mariah's package will find a different result.

And The Concert Business Gets Worse

We've been seeing signs that the bubble has burst for the concert industry just the way it did for the rest of the music industry with this summer's ongoing discounts from mega-promoter LiveNation. Now comes an article from Reuters that indicates that virtually no one is selling out a tour this season.

That's right - even superstars like Paul McCartney, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Jonas Brothers, Coldplay (big surprise), and U2 are struggling to fill seats.

For certain, the economy has finally caught up to the concert industry, but that's not all. The high prices and perceived gouging have caught up too. Couple all that with the fact that most of these mega acts have toured in major locations so much that it's not an event any more, especially for what amounts to be such a big bite out of the the consumer's pocketbook.

In fact, demand is so low that the legal ticket scalper StubHub has begun selling tickets at a massive loss instead of their normal hefty markup. Indeed, it's been reported that some consumers "have already purchased tickets as low as $1 for Springsteen and Coldplay, $9 for Kenny Chesney and $10 for the Jonas Brothers this season, with tickets listing for as low as $16 for upcoming McCartney shows this weekend in Maryland," according to the Reuters article.

It's also been reported that Live Nation is extending its half price ticket deal at ampitheaters as well as expanding its summer long "No Fee Wednesdays" promotion to include more than 1500 smaller shows at clubs and theaters.

Could this be a turning point in the concert business? Has the final music industry bubble burst? We'll know by the end of the month when the summer concert season ends.

Mixing For Internet Distribution

A different approach is required if you're mixing for Internet distribution. Here are some things to consider if your mix is intended for the many lossy encoding formats that are required to get your files online, excerpted from the 2nd edition of The Mixing Engineer's Handbook:

• Start with the highest quality audio file possible.

• Filter out the top end at whatever frequency works best (judge by listening.) MP3 has the most difficulty with high frequencies. Cutting these frequencies liberates lots of bits (literally) for encoding the lower and mid frequencies. You trade some top end for better quality in the rest of the spectrum.

• A busy mix can lose punch after encoding. Sparse mixes, like acoustic jazz trios, seem to retain more of the original audio oomph.

• Make sure your level is reasonably hot. Use the “Tips for Hot Levels,” or normalize if you must, but it’s far better to record at a good level in the first place.

• Don’t squander bandwidth. Your song might compress a lot better at 32kHz than at 44.1kHz because the encoding algorithm can concentrate on the more critical midrange.

• Don’t squash everything. Leave some dynamic range so that the encoding algorithm has something to look at.

• Use multiband compression (like a Finalizer) or other dynamic spectral effects sparingly. They just confuse the algorithm.

• Set your encoder for “maximum quality,” which allows it to process for best results. It takes just a little bit longer with today's fast computers, but it’s worth it.

• Remember: MP3 encoding almost always results in the post-encoded material being hotter than the original material. Limit the output of the material intended for MP3 to –1dB instead of the commonly used –.1 or –.2dB.