Tag Archive for: Drum Session

Drums with Nick Cassey

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Recently, I had the pleasure of getting Nick Cassey down for a late night drum session for a record by Michelle McCosker. The musical vibe we were after was warm, laid back, country and reflective pop with an openness to a contemporary tone.

The session input list was, as below, using the pre amps in the Neve Custom 75 in Retro Mode:

  1. Kick In – Audix D6 – JLM FC500A Fet Compressor
  2. Kick Out – Electro Voice RE20 – Distressor
  3. Snare Up – SM57 – Distressor
  4. Snare Down – SM57
  5. Hat – AKG 451
  6. Rack Tom – Sennheiser MD421
  7. Floor Tom – Sennheiser MD421
  8. Overhead L – AKG414 B-ULS – AMS Neve 33609 Limiter / Compressor
  9. Overhead R – AKG414 B-ULS – AMS Neve 33609 Limiter / Compressor
  10. Crotch mic – Sennheiser 441  – JLM FC500A Fet Compressor
  11. Blumlein room Mid – Nuemann U87 – JLM LA 500A Opto Compressor
  12. Blumlein room Sides – Nuemann U87 – JLM LA 500A Opto Compressor

Wins from the session included:

Nick Cassey’s performance and his array of home made brushes made from various natural grasses from his adventures through the Australian landscape.

The D6 and RE20 combination of mics and processing on the kick. We had a scooped sub and tap from the D6, which was complemented and filled in nicely with the warmth from the RE20 on outside kick duties.

Further, I really enjoyed the warmth and tone of the pre amps in this console in general.

Other wins include the darkness and warmth of the old AKG414 B-ULS compared to the newer ones. That tone worked well on the overall drum sound.

Lastly, both the JLM 500 series compressors were enjoyable to work with, and I look forwards to understanding their tone better across future sessions.

A big thank you for Nick’s time and drum work on this record.

Below are a few pictures from the session.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danga Island comes to town

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2019 kicked off in fine form with a 4 day session for long term collaborator and man of mystery from Danga Island.

He and his musical muse, Cam Cooke, were down from their bohemia of Dangar Island, and had drummer Mark Spence in tow from Port Macquarie.

The crew had hired a beautiful mansion in Annandale with view across the city, and next to an allegedly haunted church. The sessions mainly took place at Musicfeeds aka Megaphon Studios with DI’d guitar and bass, whilst the focus was on great drum takes from Mark. By night a bit of extra tracking was also conducted at the mansion.

With all the inevitable large swirling psychedelic guitars and synths to come, we decided on a tight, smaller room drum sound, with a couple well placed room mics that allow us to expand the drums into a more splashy big room sound.

Notable elements in this session were;

The kick sound. We created a tunnel to avoid spill into the kick mics, and used the legendary D12 on the inside, plus a TLM107 on the outside. The TLM107, just keeps surprising. It seems a workhorse for a widest possible range of applications; vocals to kick drum mic ing.

The snare also sounded gorgeous, and for this session we taped both a AKG451 and a SM57 together for a bit of tonal flexibility in the mix.

Lastly of note, was the the movement between Pro Tools in the studio, and cloud-based multi-track recorder Soundtrap for the late night mansion sessions. Further, the acoustics of the large mansion were also of note and I look forward to hearing the takes back from those overdubs.