When I was at Sunset Sound in 1998 and Tchad was recording Soul Coughing's El Oso, he was using a Sennheiser 421, not a 441. I know he's not all that precious about very many things, so I would imagine that any beefy dynamic would do the trick. I've used a 441, a 421, an EV 635A, A Beyer M88, and a Beyer 201 in that spot and they all sound good. These days, I've been using an Oktava MC012 there and printing "naked" to tape, but affecting the signal afterwards. Earlier this week, I used a Neumann KN84 in that spot and it worked just fine. A dynamic is more ideal if you're going straight into the (mic level) input of a Level Loc because there's no phantom power concerns.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
Tchad Blake Mono Kit Mic: 441 Alternative
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cgarges
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By the way, no one ever talks about the Sennheiser 431, which sounds almost completely identical to the 421 and regularly sells on ebay for MUCH less than the 421. I've never used mine in that spot on a drumkit, but I'm sure it would sound completely awesome, especially after being subjected to a Level Loc.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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joninc
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he places a 441 pointing over the kick towards the bottom of the snare and crushes it with a really aggressive compressor like a level loc.
gets a really explosive pumping thing and when blended in can add a lot of sustain and richness to dry tracks.
it's a really good trick.
gets a really explosive pumping thing and when blended in can add a lot of sustain and richness to dry tracks.
it's a really good trick.
the new rules : there are no rules
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cgarges
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Not saying that you're doing this, but I think a lot of people read about Tchad Blake and the Level Loc and then hear something he's done and think they're hearing the Level Loc when they're not. The Level Loc has a VERY specific sound and although I hear it a fair amount on Tchad's records, I can identify it when I do and it's certainly not on everything. It's a really crazy, backwards-sounding thing. You can really hear it start to sneak up at the end of "Birthday" by Suzanne Vega. I think a lot of people are hearing Tchad's Spectrasonics compressors (which he usually puts in parallel across his binaural "overhead" mic) and thinking they're hearing the Level Loc. There was even a dude who wrote into TapeOp a few years ago asking about getting that Bonham sound from a Level Loc, which is NOT WHAT THEY DO AT ALL.joninc wrote:he places a 441 pointing over the kick towards the bottom of the snare and crushes it with a really aggressive compressor like a level loc.
gets a really explosive pumping thing and when blended in can add a lot of sustain and richness to dry tracks.
it's a really good trick.
For whatever it's worth, I find that spot above the bass drum is a good spot for getting a nice single-point representation of the entire drumkit. Put a mic there and it can be useful for interesting compression, distortion, or any number of other effects across the drumkit. It's also a great spot if you just want to mic the drumkit with one microphone.
The Level Loc's a cool thing, but it's an extremely specific sound. In case anyone's interested, Lowatt is selling one here in the classified section for a reasonable price. I know him and he's a good dude, so if you really want a Level Loc, now's a good time to buy.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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drumsound
- zen recordist
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This post is totally spot on!!!cgarges wrote:Not saying that you're doing this, but I think a lot of people read about Tchad Blake and the Level Loc and then hear something he's done and think they're hearing the Level Loc when they're not. The Level Loc has a VERY specific sound and although I hear it a fair amount on Tchad's records, I can identify it when I do and it's certainly not on everything. It's a really crazy, backwards-sounding thing. You can really hear it start to sneak up at the end of "Birthday" by Suzanne Vega. I think a lot of people are hearing Tchad's Spectrasonics compressors (which he usually puts in parallel across his binaural "overhead" mic) and thinking they're hearing the Level Loc. There was even a dude who wrote into TapeOp a few years ago asking about getting that Bonham sound from a Level Loc, which is NOT WHAT THEY DO AT ALL.joninc wrote:he places a 441 pointing over the kick towards the bottom of the snare and crushes it with a really aggressive compressor like a level loc.
gets a really explosive pumping thing and when blended in can add a lot of sustain and richness to dry tracks.
it's a really good trick.
For whatever it's worth, I find that spot above the bass drum is a good spot for getting a nice single-point representation of the entire drumkit. Put a mic there and it can be useful for interesting compression, distortion, or any number of other effects across the drumkit. It's also a great spot if you just want to mic the drumkit with one microphone.
The Level Loc's a cool thing, but it's an extremely specific sound. In case anyone's interested, Lowatt is selling one here in the classified section for a reasonable price. I know him and he's a good dude, so if you really want a Level Loc, now's a good time to buy.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
Los Lobos' "life is good" is a really great way to hear the Level Loc. There some Tchad Blake binaural atmosphere and there the drums kick in and it total Level Loc!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Fnx8FnGoE
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cgarges
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Yes, absolutely!joninc wrote:i think a large part of the "tchad sound" is also the heavy use of sans amp on kick/snare. it really adds girth and sustain as well.
Thanks, man!drumsound wrote: This post is totally spot on!!!
"Life Is Good" could be a Level Loc not working very hard (as far as Level Locs go), but it could also be another compressor. Almost totally guaranteed that whatever it is, it's being fed by a dynamic mic right over the kick drum.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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cgarges
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Well, I wasn't there for very long. I was visiting my friend Joe Zook, who was a staff engineer there at the time. I'd never been to Sunset. In fact, I'd never been to LA! But Zook was nice enough to meet me at the studio in the morning and give me a tour. We started at Sunset Sound and went into Studio Three, which was totally trashed. (This was the room where the first five Van Halen albums were recorded.) There was garbage everywhere and stuff crammed into every corner. There were little "mini" consoles and a 2" machine in each of the two iso booths and one setup like that in the machine room off of the control room. There was a Fairchild 670 (the first one I recall seeing in real life) that I think had been rented for the session. We were both in amazement over the whole thing and Zook then told me that the Smashing Pumpkins had been in for about a month, but he hadn't been in that studio since they started. (This was work on the first album they did after they fired Jimmy Chamberlin.) The staff assistant who was working with them came in while we were there and told us a few stories. Apparently, they had started recording like 46 songs (the titles were scribbled on a dry erase board at the back of the control room) and hadn't finished a single one of them. They had all these little studios set up in every spot they could so that they could be working on a few different things at once. Apparently, they had been through a few different studio drummers and it had not been going well. The assistant told us that Joey Waronker was going to be coming in in a few days, to which Zook replied, "Oh yeah, he's good."
Next, we went down the hall to Studio Two, where there was a very cool setup happening, but still early enough to beat the session start time. I think we found out later that it was some kind of film thing with some session players. I have some pictures of the control room and of a very cool drumkit rented from Drum Doctors with a pair of Tele 251s as overheads. That's the room where most of the early Prince stuff was done.
Nothing was going on in Studio One, so we took our time looking around in there and we spent some time listening to some tunes and hanging out.
Zook's session that day was over at Sound Factory (with Weezer), so we headed over there. I spent a few minutes looking at a great collage of Polaroids that was in the front entrance. I wonder if that's still there. Anyway, we ducked into Studio A for a minute, then headed over to Studio B to see if we had time to peek in before the session started. I had no idea until we were just about to walk in that Soul Coughing was in there. I dug Ruby Vroom, so this was exciting to me. Husky Huskolds was assisting Tchad, so Zook asked if we could take a quick look around. Husky said that that was cool. Tchad and the guys from the band were in the lounge hanging out before getting started. I only got a glimpse of them, as we didn't want to disturb their hang.
Studio B was absolutely FILLED with gear. That's not a real big studio at all, either. There's a tiny little booth off to one side of the room and that's where the drums were set up. I put it together later that the kit Yuval was playing (at least on that session) was Tchad's kit with the little red Remo bass drum and Ludwig toms. I don't remember what kind of snare drum was there, but I totally remember thinking how awesome it was that I got to see Tchad's super-secret mic setup. Of course, shortly thereafter, I picked up the most recent issue of Mix that had a feature on Pell Mell with a picture of the same drumkit and same basic mic setup. So much for "secret." Anyway, at the Soul Coughing session, the Neumann binaural "head" was there, there was a 57 on the snare, a D112 in the kick, a 421 above the kick drum. (I wrote all that stuff down and still have it somewhere.)
The rest of the room was just filled with stuff. Amps, keyboards (Husky was showing us this little pump organ he had just bought), percussion instruments, all sorts of noise makers. In fact, there was one of those little plastic Fisher Price record players (the ones with the plastic records that worked like a music box) on the floor with a Telefunken 251 on it. I thought that was hysterical. I've listened to that album over and over again and have never been able to hear it, so I'm assuming it didn't make the record. Anyway, the other thing that I remember was that there was a spinet piano (or maybe an upright) against the back wall with the top open and a random EV dynamic mic (635A? RE15?) just kind of pointed down into it, but also kind of angled towards the back wall. Zook and I were laughing about that and he asked Husky if that was any kind of specific mic technique. No, it was basically just thrown over there near the piano. I'm pretty convinced that that's the piano sound featured on a good bit of that record. But there was all this stuff in the room and this one little pathway carved out to get back to that piano.
Since there were artists there and stuff happening, I didn't take any pictures, but I sure wish I had. I was told that about a week after I was there, there were torrential rains in LA and part of the ceiling collapsed with all of that stuff still in the room. Yikes!
After that, we headed back over to Studio A, but went through the storage area to look at the mic collection. Somewhere back in there, I saw a safety copy of the "What's Going On/Mercy Mercy Me" 2" and said something to Zook about it. He grabbed it off the shelf, threw it up on the Studer, and let me play around with it on the API console in there. That was a pretty mind-blowing experience. They even had a copy of the original track sheet. We walked around the studio a bit and I got to play the piano in the iso booth to the right of the control room. I think Zook mentioned that the piano belonged to Jackson Browne and he just left it there-- or something like that. That was the loudest piano I've ever heard in my life. Could have been the cinder block walls, but it seemed REALLY loud. I split shortly after that so that Zook could get prepped for his session.
Overall, it was a pretty great day and a great experience for someone who had only been engineering professionally for about a year.
When I left, I walked down Sunset Blvd. and around Hollywood for a bit. I saw a one-hour photo lab, so I dropped off my film before heading over to Tower Records. I went back and got my film a little later and really dug the pictures I was able to get.
Years later, I saw a picture of the strip mall where Gold Star used to be, which included the one-hour photo shop where I got my Sunset Sound pictures developed. I had no idea!
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
Next, we went down the hall to Studio Two, where there was a very cool setup happening, but still early enough to beat the session start time. I think we found out later that it was some kind of film thing with some session players. I have some pictures of the control room and of a very cool drumkit rented from Drum Doctors with a pair of Tele 251s as overheads. That's the room where most of the early Prince stuff was done.
Nothing was going on in Studio One, so we took our time looking around in there and we spent some time listening to some tunes and hanging out.
Zook's session that day was over at Sound Factory (with Weezer), so we headed over there. I spent a few minutes looking at a great collage of Polaroids that was in the front entrance. I wonder if that's still there. Anyway, we ducked into Studio A for a minute, then headed over to Studio B to see if we had time to peek in before the session started. I had no idea until we were just about to walk in that Soul Coughing was in there. I dug Ruby Vroom, so this was exciting to me. Husky Huskolds was assisting Tchad, so Zook asked if we could take a quick look around. Husky said that that was cool. Tchad and the guys from the band were in the lounge hanging out before getting started. I only got a glimpse of them, as we didn't want to disturb their hang.
Studio B was absolutely FILLED with gear. That's not a real big studio at all, either. There's a tiny little booth off to one side of the room and that's where the drums were set up. I put it together later that the kit Yuval was playing (at least on that session) was Tchad's kit with the little red Remo bass drum and Ludwig toms. I don't remember what kind of snare drum was there, but I totally remember thinking how awesome it was that I got to see Tchad's super-secret mic setup. Of course, shortly thereafter, I picked up the most recent issue of Mix that had a feature on Pell Mell with a picture of the same drumkit and same basic mic setup. So much for "secret." Anyway, at the Soul Coughing session, the Neumann binaural "head" was there, there was a 57 on the snare, a D112 in the kick, a 421 above the kick drum. (I wrote all that stuff down and still have it somewhere.)
The rest of the room was just filled with stuff. Amps, keyboards (Husky was showing us this little pump organ he had just bought), percussion instruments, all sorts of noise makers. In fact, there was one of those little plastic Fisher Price record players (the ones with the plastic records that worked like a music box) on the floor with a Telefunken 251 on it. I thought that was hysterical. I've listened to that album over and over again and have never been able to hear it, so I'm assuming it didn't make the record. Anyway, the other thing that I remember was that there was a spinet piano (or maybe an upright) against the back wall with the top open and a random EV dynamic mic (635A? RE15?) just kind of pointed down into it, but also kind of angled towards the back wall. Zook and I were laughing about that and he asked Husky if that was any kind of specific mic technique. No, it was basically just thrown over there near the piano. I'm pretty convinced that that's the piano sound featured on a good bit of that record. But there was all this stuff in the room and this one little pathway carved out to get back to that piano.
Since there were artists there and stuff happening, I didn't take any pictures, but I sure wish I had. I was told that about a week after I was there, there were torrential rains in LA and part of the ceiling collapsed with all of that stuff still in the room. Yikes!
After that, we headed back over to Studio A, but went through the storage area to look at the mic collection. Somewhere back in there, I saw a safety copy of the "What's Going On/Mercy Mercy Me" 2" and said something to Zook about it. He grabbed it off the shelf, threw it up on the Studer, and let me play around with it on the API console in there. That was a pretty mind-blowing experience. They even had a copy of the original track sheet. We walked around the studio a bit and I got to play the piano in the iso booth to the right of the control room. I think Zook mentioned that the piano belonged to Jackson Browne and he just left it there-- or something like that. That was the loudest piano I've ever heard in my life. Could have been the cinder block walls, but it seemed REALLY loud. I split shortly after that so that Zook could get prepped for his session.
Overall, it was a pretty great day and a great experience for someone who had only been engineering professionally for about a year.
When I left, I walked down Sunset Blvd. and around Hollywood for a bit. I saw a one-hour photo lab, so I dropped off my film before heading over to Tower Records. I went back and got my film a little later and really dug the pictures I was able to get.
Years later, I saw a picture of the strip mall where Gold Star used to be, which included the one-hour photo shop where I got my Sunset Sound pictures developed. I had no idea!
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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fossiltooth
- carpal tunnel
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A 57 of course! What else?trodden wrote:I've been using the 201 on snare for a couple years now. Like it. What are you using when NOT wanting a natural snare sounds?fossiltooth wrote:
If I want a really natural snare sound, they both work on snare top as well, but let's face it: How often do you hear a really natural snare sound?
Great posts.drumsound wrote:This post is totally spot on!!!cgarges wrote:Not saying that you're doing this, but I think a lot of people read about Tchad Blake and the Level Loc and then hear something he's done and think they're hearing the Level Loc when they're not. The Level Loc has a VERY specific sound and although I hear it a fair amount on Tchad's records, I can identify it when I do and it's certainly not on everything. It's a really crazy, backwards-sounding thing. You can really hear it start to sneak up at the end of "Birthday" by Suzanne Vega. I think a lot of people are hearing Tchad's Spectrasonics compressors (which he usually puts in parallel across his binaural "overhead" mic) and thinking they're hearing the Level Loc. There was even a dude who wrote into TapeOp a few years ago asking about getting that Bonham sound from a Level Loc, which is NOT WHAT THEY DO AT ALL.joninc wrote:he places a 441 pointing over the kick towards the bottom of the snare and crushes it with a really aggressive compressor like a level loc.
gets a really explosive pumping thing and when blended in can add a lot of sustain and richness to dry tracks.
it's a really good trick.
For whatever it's worth, I find that spot above the bass drum is a good spot for getting a nice single-point representation of the entire drumkit. Put a mic there and it can be useful for interesting compression, distortion, or any number of other effects across the drumkit. It's also a great spot if you just want to mic the drumkit with one microphone.
The Level Loc's a cool thing, but it's an extremely specific sound. In case anyone's interested, Lowatt is selling one here in the classified section for a reasonable price. I know him and he's a good dude, so if you really want a Level Loc, now's a good time to buy.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
Los Lobos' "life is good" is a really great way to hear the Level Loc. There some Tchad Blake binaural atmosphere and there the drums kick in and it total Level Loc!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Fnx8FnGoE
Last edited by fossiltooth on Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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