By T. Perry Bowers
You’ve probably been jamming on your drums in your basement for years now. You and your buddies have a handful of songs you think are good enough to be recorded. You find a studio, put a deposit down on a weekend in the studio. But now what?
Are you solid with a metronome? If not, read my article here. This is fundamental. If you can’t do this, you aren’t ready for the studio. You don’t have to play every song to a click, but it is a skill you will need. Don’t underestimate how valuable it is and how much time it will save you. Get with it, even if you think you won’t use it – but you’ll use it. Trust me!
Headphones are your best friend and your worst enemy. Some studios have great headphone systems, others not so much. Even if your studio has a great headphone system, you can’t be super picky about your headphone mix. It takes hours to get a perfect headphone mix. You’re better off getting only what you really need in the headphones. If you mostly play with the rhythm guitarist, have the rhythm guitar in your mix. If you need the bass and the click or a little vocal to guide you get that. If you’re playing in a mid-level studio, the headphone system will be something you’ll have to get used to. If the system is really bad, you might have to consider tracking your drums (along with a scratch guitar) before everyone else puts down their parts.
Before you get into the studio, you’ll have worked out with your engineer whether you’re going to play the songs live as a full band or use the multi-track method. When you play together live, you’ll have a lot of headphone tweaking. It’s worth it if your band really vibes off of each other and you need that live feel. But bands that really need to record this way are few and far in between. Most bands have more success if they track things separately. It’s easier to listen to the parts as they go down. As a drummer, you get the whole band’s attention while you lay your parts, then you are done. I always like that about being a drummer. I got to lay my parts down and then sit back and relax.
If you are in a band that needs to play together, then you do need to spend some time on the headphone mix. Maybe you’ve toured a lot as a band and you’ve developed a report that you can only get in a live setting. It’s good to know whom you rely on the most for your groove. I find that in most rock bands the drummer connects with the rhythm guitar. Put the guitarist in the same room. However if it’s the bass player with whom you connect the most, put them in the same room, or both the guitarist and the bass player. Put the amp(s) in another room so you don’t get any amp bleeding into your drum mics. You can use a hallway or a bathroom if your space is limited. Being in the same room, you can see each other clearly, signal each other and feel the groove!
I would suggest (even if you are playing live) that you don’t get too hung up on the guitar takes. As long as they aren’t bleeding too badly into the drum microphones, you can always overdub guitar tracks later. Recording at the same time isn’t about getting the perfect tone and performance out of each player, it’s still about you, the drummer. If your take is good, move on. If you have a good take with a good feel, a guitar player or a bassist is going to have no problem locking onto your performance, even if they have to play along later. Don’t let a little flub in another player’s performance force you to re-do your take.
Even though drums have a lot of microphones on them you can still do a punch in. A punch in is where you play along with the song in your headphones and the engineer punches the record button. Let’s say your verse is great, but your chorus needs to be re-done. You’ll be listening to your own performance, you start playing along, and when the chorus kicks in, the engineer punches the record button. If you played the song to a click, the engineer can punch you out at the end of a chorus too. This is just one of the many reasons to play to a click track. One thing to keep in mind when punching in drums is the cymbals. When you play a long cymbal crash, you won’t be able to punch drums seamlessly. You’ll hear the punch because the cymbal ring will come in at a slightly different volume. So work with your engineer to find places, like stops, or in between beats with no ringing cymbals, to do your punches.
I’ve been recording drums in studios for twenty five years. The one thing I would say to any drummer going into the studio is to keep it simple. When you get into the studio forget all those fancy techniques that you’ve been wood shedding and use the ones you can play with your hands tied behind your back. The studio isn’t a place to experiment with your prog rock skills. In a recoding studio, you need to connect with the band and do what’s right for the song.
