EQ Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 30)

RUSH “I’M NOT GOING TO SIT THERE AND GRID EDIT NEIL PEART’S DRUM PERFORMANCE. THAT’S AGAINST THE LAW.” —NICK RASKULINECZ and bass stuff in order to break up reflections. Then, after moving all the gear in, we walked around the room, hit just the snare drum, and listened to how it sounded. When we found the sweet spot, we set up his whole kit right there.” “Of course, we still had to take down the room sound a bit, adds ” Chycki. “It looked like Neil was recording in Stonehenge, because we had gobos up in a semicircle around the back of his kit. ” But even with all the work spent positioning the drums in just PEART’S RHYTHM METHOD the right spot in a good-sounding room, Raskulinecz credits It’s hard not to be surprised by the natural timbre of Peart’s Peart’s drum heads as largely contributing to the album’s drum drums when listening to Snakes & Arrows, as such naked drum sounds. “They had been on those drums for more than months, ” says Raskulinecz. Peart’s recording kit also utilized Roland V-Drum pads — positioned over his 15" and 16" floor toms, and off to the drummer’s far left — and a Roland T D - 2 0 Pe r c u s s i o n S o u n d Module. Sampled sounds used on the album include Metasmack sounds have been absent from much of Rush’s recorded catalog. (a tambourine that makes the scene in “The Main Monkey Peart used his custom Drum Workshop “West Coast” recording Business”), a tuned-down roto-tom, a guiro, sleigh bells, and kit — which was built when Peart needed a kit to record some tracks a pitched whistle. for Vertical Horizon at Los Angele’s Capitol Records studio in For cymbals, Peart used his Sabian Paragon signature line. 2006, and the drummer was fretting over the logistics of send“New to this session was something we had been working ing his usual setup down from Toronto. on with Sabian — a cymbal called Diamondback, which is a type “It’s a carbon copy of his stage kit without the electronic pads, ” of China cymbal with four tambourine jangles for rivets, reveals ” says drum tech Lorne Wheaton. “Part of the kit uses Vertical Low Wheaton. “That cymbal is on 60 percent of the songs. It’s not real Timbre [VLT] shells, which employ vertical, rather than horizonloud, as the jangles won’t let the cymbal ring out for any length tal, wood plies that resonate a little more, and at a lower pitch. of time, and it has such a great sound when you use it as a ride We also used his 14" x 6.5" VLT snare for the first time on a recordcymbal. It’s not overpowering, and there’s a nice decay.” ing — which is odd for us, because we’ll often show up for sesBecause of Peart’s extensive set up, proper mic placement was sions with 14 or 15 snare drums. But we didn’t take that snare off essential to avoiding phase issues. the kit once.” “Recording his drum set requires tons and tons of microphones, Another factor that greatly affected Peart’s drum sound was and you really have to have a good understanding of how phase Allaire’s Great Hall. works, as well as the phase relationships of all of these different “It’s a huge space, says Raskulinecz, “but it had a really ” microphones, says Raskulinecz. “The other thing is that Neil often ” open and transparent sound, and there weren’t a lot of room reflecgoes from one side of this huge kit to the other, and we had to tions bleeding into the close mics. This is because we intentionally put a lot of gear in there. We packed the room full of guitar make sure we had the whole spectrum covered. I wanted every one of his fills to jump out of the drum set. We spent half a day auditioning mics and getting drum sounds.” For overheads, the team used Earthworks TC30s because Raskulinecz liked their airy top end. he Taurus bass pedals had all the benefits of analog synthesis — when For even more high-end detail, a pair of Coles 4040 they worked. Because they were based on analog electronics, there ribbon mics were positioned up close and in front were always the issues of component drift, tuning instability, and reliability. of the kit — one 4040 to the far right, and the other If you’re looking for that sound, though, you’re in luck. Due to the iconic to the far left. A “crusty old” RCA 44 was placed status of the Minimoog, several software companies (in particular Creamware, at the back of the kit, and down low. Arturia, and GForce) have created plug-in virtual instruments that emulate its “That 44 took such a beautiful picture of the sonic character with surprising accuracy. As this sound is very close to that whole kit,” says Raskulinecz. “I think that one of the Taurus, with suitable programming — long sustains on the envelopes, microphone was responsible for 25 percent and keeping the filter enveloping from kicking up too high in frequency — you of the drum sound when the mix was all said can get those growling, huge bass sounds formerly available only with anaand done.” log synthesizers. —Craig Anderton “The Earthworks overheads were equidistant from the snare, and that contributed to the 12 inches from the body. We were recording in Allaire’s Great Hall, and the sound was so huge that we had to put down rugs on the floor, and surround Alex with a half-circle of gobos to diminish the reverb time of the space. We didn’t want the guitar to sound too echo-y. But it was worth the trouble, because if you wear headphones, you can almost feel Alex moving around as he performs. ” EMULATING TAURUS PEDALS T 30 EQ SEPTEMBER 2007 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - September 2007

Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly Ben and Vesper Kaiser Chiefs Toolbox Ozma Porcupine Tree Rush The Software Power User Guide Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drumheads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Chameleon Labs TS1 and TS2 Primera Bravo Se Disc Publisher Roland MC-808 Magix Samplitude Professional 9.1 Massey Tape-Head Big Fish Audio Revolucion Reggaeton Sonivox World Beats Sony Pocket Diva Adobe Audition 2.0 Cakewalk Sonar 6 Room with a VU: J Street Recorders, Sacramento, CA

EQ Magazine - September 2007

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