Listen: Jazz drums with modern micing

[drumsound]

So I was tracking drums to a cover of Fly Me To The Moon for a client in Brooklyn yesterday. I've been keeping the drums miced up for easy tracking as projects come in, so I decided to just change out the drums from the big rock Gretsch setup to my '64 Slingerland set. I keep them tuned up for jazz playing, nice and ringy. I put up a vintage K Zildjian from Istanbul as the main ride and kept up the new Mapex Cherry Bomb snare, but removed the Moongel and tuned it up for where it was last tuned for something else. I changed to overhead position to Recorderman and got to work.

It turned out really well. I recorded an improvisation to check phase relationships and such and I decided to make a mix of it to share here. I've uploaded it to Soundcloud so you all can take a listen. Check it out:
https://soundcloud.com/user-253717914/jazz-drums-02

The set up was:
Stereo overheads -Octava MC012 in the Recorderman setup.
Stereo room- sE X1R (ribbons) Blumlein about 6 feet back from the front of the BD
BD- Sennheiser e602 and sE X1D
SD- top Audio Technica ATM23he Bottom Beyer M88
Toms- sE X1D (One rack and 2 floor toms, though I'm not sure I played the second floor tom at all)
HiHat- Beyer M201
Knee- Tape Op Ribbon mic

Everything went through my Neotek Elan preamps except the Overheads which got the Useful Arts SFP 60 Tube preamp.

[mjau]

Man, those Slingy’s sound great! And that ride is perfect for this kind of stuff.

Good stuff, Tony!

[drumsound]

Man, those Slingy’s sound great! And that ride is perfect for this kind of stuff.

Good stuff, Tony!

Thanks, Scott. I got that ride for $50 at the pawn shop. They had no clue that it was special. It's all patinaed and they just figured it was 'old' and nothing else.

[mjau]

I got that ride for $50 at the pawn shop.

Holy hell. That’s a steal.

[digitaldrummer]

dang, don't tell us about those kind of deals... Drums sound great Tony!
is that BD a 20 or 22? sounds perfect.

also, i love the comments left on soundcloud. lmao. I usually make a private link to avoid that.

[vvv]

Margie Garcia sure seems to like it, per her comment.

[drumsound]

dang, don't tell us about those kind of deals... Drums sound great Tony!
is that BD a 20 or 22? sounds perfect.

also, i love the comments left on soundcloud. lmao. I usually make a private link to avoid that.

Thanks, Mike. Its a 20". I got that set when I was 12. Its my first drumset, stamped '64 on the shells. 20". 12", 16" in While Marine Pearl with a 5x14 chrome (maybe CoB) snare. When I was working in music retail, we got a 12" rack and 14" floor in Champaign Sparkle from the same year so I snagged them. I'm not sure where the 12" is, but the 14" is often used with that set. On gigs I usually skip the 16" and just bring the 14".

Thanks for Soundcloud advice, I literally set up the account to host that for this thread.

Margie Garcia sure seems to like it, per her comment.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't see comments.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I don't see any comments either. Sounds great though!

[drumsound]

I don't see any comments either. Sounds great though!

Thanks, man!

[digitaldrummer]

yeah, looks like the comments are gone now. Maybe soundcloud knew they were spam too?

several years ago I had a guy bring a kit in when recording this blues band, and I think it was a vintage Slingerland 3-ply with a 20" BD too. That BD sounded awesome too. I usually don't like playing a 20, but maybe I just haven't met the right one...

[losthighway]

Nice playing, great sounds. Feels like I'm standing in the room with you.

It was nice you included the picture. Is that a front head with no hole I see?

[vvv]

Ha! The commenter called it a "great song" and invited you to I think link to her playlist.

[drumsound]

yeah, looks like the comments are gone now. Maybe soundcloud knew they were spam too?

several years ago I had a guy bring a kit in when recording this blues band, and I think it was a vintage Slingerland 3-ply with a 20" BD too. That BD sounded awesome too. I usually don't like playing a 20, but maybe I just haven't met the right one...

I have a 20" Gretsch as well, but I kept tuning it lower and lower until finally got a 22", which is a much better "rock record" BD for sure.

Nice playing, great sounds. Feels like I'm standing in the room with you.

It was nice you included the picture. Is that a front head with no hole I see?

No hole, nothing insider the drum. There's a felt strip on the batter head and a towel resting on the front head. I need to put felt strip on that head too.

Ha! The commenter called it a "great song" and invited you to I think link to her playlist.

Bot-tastic!

[cgarges]

Tony has a bunch of great-sounding drums and cymbals and he knows what to pick! I had the good fortune to play on a session at his place and used a bunch of his stuff. His big-ass kick drum is a beautiful beast.

I've never understood this thing where you HAVE to do minimal miking on stuff for a jazz session. The REALLY great engineers who've made astoundingly good-sounding recordings over the last 40 years have been doing close miking on stuff that whole time. I'm specifically talking about Joe Ferla, James Farber, and Jan Erik Konshaug. For my money, you can't beat the sound of those guys' records and they've been close-miking toms and stuff for decades now.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[roscoenyc]

great, natural sound.