EQ Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 40)

DRUM HEADS that’s going in its own direction, and keep it off the rocks. They know what they want, and they spend a lot of time getting it before they come in. They typically record live in one room, and after two or three takes and a couple of minimal overdubs, you have a song. There’s not a lot of control from my end—Damon’s drum tones are what they are. Well, Damon is certainly open to suggestions, but by the time the band is in the studio, he has already done much of the work in terms of tone selection. He also has an odd style of playing the drums. He uses marching sticks—those giant things the size of broomsticks—and he holds them backwards so he can hit with the fat end. His snare drum is on an angle I’ve never seen before, and his kick pedal spring is so tight I couldn’t even push it down at first. I can’t play a single beat on his kit! Damon is definitely an enigma in his ability to get tones out of drums—and anything else. In fact, there’s a bit of a legendary story about the first record I made with him around 1997 or ’98. He had a working table saw as a part of his drum set. He would hit the saw blade with a stick, turn the power on, and the spinning blade would bend the pitch. I had to mic this! It was hilarious. How did you mic the kit during the Punkgasm sessions? Sutton: I really like miking drums in the old school, Bonham style of using room mics, but, with Damon, he wants so much of the detail in his playing that I have to use close mics for everything. For example, there’s a section on the record when he taps his fingers on the snare drum while holding his other hand on the head, and he wants all that to come through. I even had to mic the kick-pedal spring for a section where he wanted the squeak featured. The basic setup involves miking the top and bottom snares using a Shure SM7 for the top, and an old AKG C414 for the bottom. I used an AKG D112 on the kick drum. For the smaller rack toms, it was Shure KSM141s, and there was a Sennheiser MD421 on the floor tom. If Damon used a Roto Tom, I’d mike it with a Beyer M 88. I put a mic on each of his cymbals, and a mic underneath the ride—right in the bell. In my experience, you don’t really need to mic a ride cymbal if it’s played well, but, nine times out of ten, when you’re doing a mix and you’re not getting enough of something, it’s the bell. So I put a mic up underneath the bell to get a ping you can blend into the mix after if you need more. I’ll use only that track for 40 EQ JANUARY 2009 www.eqmag.com http://www.mackie.com/420 http://www.mackie.com/420 http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - January 2009

EQ Magazine - January 2009 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Bob Dylan The Killers Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Microsoft Windows Vista Apple Mac OS X "Lite" Software Roundup "Lite" Software Gadgets & Goodies Sounds Room With a Vu

EQ Magazine - January 2009

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