Planning Drum Recording

 Hey Hey Heyy, another blog post!!

Today I'm going to be planning the recording of the drums.

Portishead's drums sound so... 'black-and-white-movie'-esque. I want to recreate that with my recording. A big part of Portishead's drum sound was Barrow's inventive approach to sampling, as explained on Reverb by Fumo (2019). He recorded a drum track to a tape, pressed the recording to vinyl, scratched it and then re-recorded THAT recording. Now, due to my student budget and lack of willingness to destroy my very own vinyl, I will not be doing that. However, in the same article, it mentions that Portishead re-amped their drums through a practice amp and added reverb and delay through a "Roland Space Echo" (which I can recreate a similar effect by using plugins in Pro Tools and/or Logic after recording). I therefore plan on reamping the drums after recording to give them a more vintage and 'live' feel.

As for recording them in the style of Portishead, although I don't know their exact microphone use and placement, the drums sound quite roomy but dry, therefore, I will have two overheads placed equidistant from the centre of the snare drum - not too close, nor too far. I will book microphones to use for the recording of the drums. Below is a list of microphones I plan to use and what for/where:

Since "Eliza" doesn't have a drum track already, I had to compose my own drum beat. I wanted to keep it simple and very four-on-the-floor, as that's how Massive Attack and Portishead's drums go. It's not how complex the drums are, it's how they sound. And I can't wait to hear them!

Anyways, after I have recorded the drums, I plan to send them through a reamp box into the Fender Blues Junior tweed amp. This is because the amp gives off a very warm tone and distorts slightly, making things sound very vintage-y (we're going to pretend that's an actual word). I plan to send them through both raw and with effects on, and maybe I can blend and mix the two recordings in post.

This is my first time reamping anything, and so I needed to do a little research on how to do it. From what I have gathered from the internet and advice from more experienced people around me, I'm supposed to send the signal (of the drum recording) from Pro Tools to a reamp box into the amp. Then I will capture the signal with a microphone in front of the amp. The microphone I plan to use for the reamping is an AT2020. I'm going to place it close to the amp, off-axis and aiming it away from the reflective surfaces of the rest of the room. This is to stop it from sounding overly roomy and to give it a warmer sound - not too harsh. 

As for effects, I am going to be using Pro Tools to add them and here's a list of notes for the effects I plan to add pre-re-amping:

Obviously, that may change once I listen to the drums, but that's a rough idea of how I want to edit the drums as a whole. 

Okay... that was a lot. I hope I didn't forget to mention anything.

See you soon!

-D.