toaster3000 wrote:
i think i would have lost both my mind and many clients if i couldn't get a drum set mic'd up with 6-10 mics and great sounds in less than hour...
...recording with more than 4 mics doesn't mean that it has to take forever and make everyone wait around and kill the vibe.
Like John said, a setup of 10 mics or so shouldn't take over an hour.
But, even if setting up 4 mics on drums and making them sound decent only takes 15-20 minutes, you still might end up tweaking them during initial run-throughs until it turns into an hour, all-told. In the meantime, at least the band gets to rock out and rehearse.
Back in the day, folks used to pay for an hour of setup time, and the band would come in and just get to it. Tweaking and rehearsing would follow, and it was on to making a record. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to happen that way with self-financed bands (easily the majority of session at almost
any studio). So, a little setup and troubleshooting has to happen now and then.
Sometimes it can take an hour-and-a-half to setup for a complicated session, (especially if you have a board with a couple crappy channels and some shotty xlr's as many studios do). It's unfortunate that the band is almost always there for this part of the process, but, hey... that's our modern world.
Preliminary setup time is still a reality on session that uses union musicians (don't worry, most tape-oper's will never have to worry about this!). After 3 hours, they could be getting time-and-a-half, meaning you better have accounted for setup time!
Anyway, around an hour of setup for an average "basics" session is the norm. Anyone care to disagree?
toaster3000 wrote:i it probably takes us... about half an hour to get great drum sounds if we are recording a good drummer with a good sounding kit, regardless of style.
On the other hand, you could take 2-3 times as long... but if you don't have either of those elements to work with, you'll never end up with what
I'd call "great" sounds. I've had to deal with that kind of situation numerous times... (even at your studio!) With a cool room and tons of great gear, sometimes, there's not much you can do.... Then again, (like many others) even the crappiest drum sounds I've ever gotten sound way better than the drums on 'either/or', so I guess a little taste can go a long way.