Today I will begin tracking drums for the upcoming Emily Watson EP. Actually today will be spent getting drum tone and mic placements. My friend Niko Bolas at Capitol Records gave me some very important advice once. When I asked him what the most important piece of gear a producer/engineer could have was he said, "Get a drum key!"
Drums are the foundation of the modern song and getting them right can be challenging enough but truly knowing how to tune a drum and how to get the types of tones you are going for will help you tremendously. So, for this project I have called on Lemar Carter. Lemar is a good friend and a true pro. (Carrie Underwood, Mick Jagger, Raphael Saadiq, Joss Stone, etc.) My favorite thing about Lemar is his rock solid grooves and his understanding of tuning for varied drum sounds. He is the type of drummer a producer/engineer can truly count on to deliver the best possible sound. Makes the rest much easier.
I am going to be tracking with a combo of Shure SM57's, Sennheiser MD 421's, Shure Beta 52, and a couple of AT 4041's. I will also be recording through the new UAD Apollo Interface. For those of us who do lots of "on location" recording this piece of gear could be huge. I will let you know how drums sound coming through this thing.
I will be tracking drums the rest of this week so any advice you have send it my way!!
