Real drums with no verb, Pop/punk.

[Glenn Fricker]

Hey all,

Got something really different from the usual "death & destruction" type of stuff I usually work on.

This is a pop/punk band called "Shortcut to Last." The track is called "IMperfect." Essentially, they wanted a great big 'in your face' radio friendly mix, and that's what they got.
Here's the link:
http://www.spectresound.ca/recordings.shtml
It's the first song on the player.

There's certainly nothing new musically here, but it was fun from an engineering standpoint:

This is the first recording I've made in 11 years that I didn't automatically throw reverb onto the drums. It's just a blend of close mics & a room mic. There's a breakdown at 2:21 where it's pretty much just drums & you can really hear the ambiance.

Room mics on drums have always thrown me for a loop, but I finally had some success.... I had the drummer play a beat & have the singer walk around the room with the mic to find the sweet spot.

I'm quite happy with how they turned out. The drummer brought in a Pork Pie 13" acrylic snare that had a great snap & the rest were the house DW kit.

The only replacement on drums was a kick blend (around 50%) with a slate sample. Other than that, it's all real.


As always, comments & questions are welcome.

-0z-

 

[Folkrav]

Man, sounds big. Not sure if I like the sneap kick here, as normally it tends to be more buried kicks in this style, less "tacky", but whatever.

Only thing I hate... I'm going to say that these vocals are clearly Autotuned/Melodyne'd. Kills it for me, as the vocals are really upfront.

 

[kev]

I quite like it Glenn. Not a fan of the particularly kick in this context though, I feel something more rounded might aid it. Great job overall

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

I have to agree that the kick sounds a bit to metal for this style of music.
The tuned vocals work ok in the choruses but sound forced and unpleasant in the verses and bridge if you ask me.
Overall I think you did give it a really radio friendly vibe.
Personally I would have made that drum breakdown a lot more bombastic, perhaps use only the room mics there and compress them pretty hard, bring some contrast in the song.

 

[Nauru]

Yeah I agree the tuning is way to apparent.
Usually this style of music has more bass, and the kick is pretty different, but it sounds pretty decent!

 

[xFkx]

To my the whole thing doesn't work as a song, the music doesn't glue with the sound.

And holy auto-tune batman

 

[JayB]

I agree with the kick being too clicky for the style , and also the tuned vox are VERY noticable in the verse , not so much in the chorus. But not too bad , reminds me of like Strung Out or something, has a catchiness to it

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

The kick was the Slate "Green Day" kick blended with my DW.... I thought it was fairly rounded... guess not. Oh well, not a deal-breaker, anyway. But, something to keep in mind next time something like this comes along.


As for the auto-tune, well, I tried to back it off as much as I could, but there was definitely a threshold: Any less on the verses & they just turned to shit. Kind of a 'damned either way' sort of situation. Hopefully the layman won't hear it..

The drum breakdown does have a shitload of room mic on it compressed to hell. I've just got a tiny drum room! Seriously, it's roughly 10'X18'

The room mic was an SM7 in the sweet spot, run through an Empirical Labs Distressor set to "nuke", with a super fast attack & release.


Thanks again for the comments!
-0z-

 

[Mikaël-ange]

As usual Glenn, want more info about the band, sessions/gear...etc.
Something like SOS Secrets Of The Mix Engineers description would be great

 

[Plankis]

The snare and guitars sounds really good!

 

[DeclanWhite]

great tones!

although guitar sounds a bit out of tune at 1:58 and drums need quantizing, especially at the parts where the kick and snare dont line up when they are meant to be at the same time

 

[AllanD]

Sounds good mix wise! I think the actual parts that are being played on the drums, especially the kick, sounds really awkward and unfitting to me at least. It sounds like the drummer didn't actually play the kick parts, and it was all just done afterwards.

 

[DeclanWhite]

it just sounds to me like he/she's not solid enough. im like that on a lazy/off day haha

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Ok, I'll try to answer questions/give a few details in this post:


The drums were quantized. And yes, the kick doesn't line up 100% on every hit.... I wanted to keep that quirk in place so the drums didn't sound robotic. I was trying to keep things as human as possible. That & if I moved the kick too much, you could hear it flam with the room mic & that sounded like total shit, so I kept it as is. If I wasn't relying on the room mic so much for ambiance, it wouldn't have been an issue. I could have moved the kick independently from the rest of the mics.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely! However, the kid is only 17, and this being his first time in the studio, I'm not going to complain too much. He gave me very little grief. That, and he brought a cool snare!

My main gripe was he tended to ride the crashes EXTREMELY hard during the choruses. Meaning I had to ride the room mic & turn it down during those sections or the mix would suffer from 'lead crash cymbal' syndrome. I wish punk drummers would lay the fuck off the crash cymbals during choruses, or at the very least, hit them lighter during extended rides.


Anyway, I've got some pics from the session to share:

Drums from the control room: Spaced Pair Oktava overheads, 421's on the toms. Audix D6 on the kick.

You can see the Acrylic Amber Pork Pie snare here.

SM 57 on the snare top and a Studio Projects C4 on the bottom. A couple of moongels for the ring & a ddrum trigger to control the snare gate. (Thanks Andy!)

Room mic about 5 feet in front of the kick at hip height, aimed at the ceiling, smashed to all fuck with a Distressor.

The guitarist brought in a Schecter Tempest Custom. It sounded great (hey, I'm a big Schecter fan, you can see my Hellraiser in the background) and played great too.

Bass was my Mexican Fender Jazz. I found it on the local Kijiji site for $200. Brought it home, cleaned it, did a proper set up & now it growls like a Fender should. I think we just ran it through the Sansamp Bass Driver DI & then the Distressor.

Rhythm guitars were run through my 5150/Mesa cab setup, with a 57/421 mic combo. The mics are roughly 2 1/2 inches away from the grill. There's a fair amount of post processing going on as the mic levels are fairly even.

 

[AllanD]

Very cool, great pictures. The kick would probably be over looked by average listeners anyway. Great job overall!

 

[DeclanWhite]

surely you could line up the kick and snare and automate the room mic down a bit for those parts?

 

[Glenn Fricker]

surely you could line up the kick and snare and automate the room mic down a bit for those parts?

Surely it's been tried, and it didn't work. ..the sound fell apart.

 

[DeclanWhite]

:/ thats a shame man

 

[Joshua Wickman]

Im a verb junky! I want some verb on them drums. Sounds really good though and I dont mind the kick at all personally. Just a bit dry for my taste but that does not make it sound bad by any means.

Kinda off topic, but are you using Reaper now?

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Great post Glenn, I dig it so thanks for that