Recording Session Plan

This session will take place on Monday 28th April, and it is scheduled to begin at 12pm and finish at 3pm. I will be using this 3 hours to record my drum tracks as well as some little dialogue i was going to include into my track. For this session I will need a studio engineer and 2 assistants and a performer. We will hopefully spend about 30 mins setting up the drum kit with microphones and getting the kit into a comfortable position for the performer, this should give us 2 1/2 hours to record drums and vocals. The session will cost a total of £420 of my budget, this covers the cost of having to use both the live room and the control for 3 hours, having the instruments, microphones and XLR cables for the full 3 hours. It will also cover the cost of the staff, since i am the performer and producer i will not have to pay anyone to do it for me but i will have to pay for the engineer and the assistants for the 3 hours.

The above picture is a picture of my drum set up that i will be recording with, the numbers indicate which channels the microphones will be plugged into the patch bay and on pro tools. I am only using the high tom and the floor tom because that is my set up at home and i created my drum parts by using this set up. I will also be using a SM58 to do some dialogue, that will also be plugged into channel 1 in the patch bay.
When recording a kick drum we have a choice of a Shure Beta 52A and an AKG D112. I have chosen to use the AKG D112 for the kick drum mic because it has been long known as the best microphone for kick drums, this is because of its ability to handle up to 160dB SPL (Sound Pressure Level) which is excellent when recording a kick drum because depending on the placement of the mic, the frequency response of the AKG is much better for picking up low frequencies than the Beta 52A (Shown in Picture below) which is good because the kick drum is a low frequency instrument, the SPL of the kick can vary but wouldn't peak at 160dB, the D112 is also a Cardioid which means it will pick up any sound from in front and around the sides but  not any behind it, this is useful in a recording situation because the mic will be placed with the kick drum in front of the microphone and could be placed inside the kick so that it can pick up all the sound that is resonating inside the kick drum. The placement of the D112 in my session will be inside the sound hole so that I can get an equal sound of both the beater definition and the kick drum sound.

I have chosen to use a Shure SM57 for the Snare, High tom and Floor tom mics because it is a very versatile microphone which has a reputation for giving a clean sounding recording, they are a cardioid so that they will not pick up any background noise and they have a frequency response of 40-15kHz which covers the frequencies of all the drums I will have miked up using the SM57. The placement of the SM57's on the snare and toms were at a 45 degree angle and about 2 inches away from the skin of the drum and placed towards the side of the drum because as I am playing I do not want to hit the microphone as I am playing and so I can get a good crisp sound.

I have chosen to use 2 AKG C1000s's for the Overheads, I have chosen this particular model of microphone because they have a frequency response of 50Hz-20Khz which is very good for what I am using them to record for, the frequencies it can pick up are pretty much all of the drums and cymbals and I am using the overheads to pick up the cymbals mostly, with it being able to pick up the rest it will pick up the acoustics of the room better and be able to layer the other drums. With the microphones being cardioid as well they will only be picking up sound from in front of the mics and that no reverb could be picked up behind them. Since the C1000s' is a condenser microphone they are more sensitive than dynamic microphones, so if i was using the C1000s' to record the snare the microphones would probably break and if i were to use a dynamic microphone as overheads they wouldn't be able to pick anything up with them being less sensitive. For the placement of the mics, I want them to be positioned about 3ft above the drum kit, one overhead on the right hand side and one on the left (because they are stereo) pointing in towards each other at about a 70 degree angle, this is so that the microphones will pick up the all of the drum kit and I will have two audio tracks, one from the microphone on the right and one from the microphone on the left and I will be able to pan those when editing my track.

Equipment Needed
1X Drum Kit
1X AKG D112
3X SHURE SM57
2X AKG C1000S
1X SHURE SM58
8X XLR CABLES
7X MICROPHONE STAND
7X MICROPHONE CLIPS
1X HEADPHONES

Studio Roles

Studio Engineer- Mat Quinn will be the studio engineer, he will be in charge of operating the mixing desk and be responsible for the gains and the recording of the drums and vocals, it is imperitive that he and the performer have good communication.

Studio Assistants- Dan Burrows and Alex Dudley will be the studio assistants who will be there to help with either the engineer or the performer, be it getting a cup of water for the performer or helping set up the drum kit

Performer/Producer- I will take on the roles of performer and the producer, being the performer i will have to know what i am performing in order to get the most of my session, being the producer i have the final say over how something sounds and if i need to improve anything.