How were/could the drums be recorded?

 11/4/24

Today I found an article by Eat Sleep Drums (2016). It details a recording session undertook to recreate the drums in superstition. They describe having substantial acoustic paneling on the walls around the kit to make the kit sound dry additionally, they use Neve 1073 pre-amps which we also have available in the studios. 

These are the mics they used:

  • Electro-Voice RE-20 (Cardioid - Dynamic), 4 inches inside the kick.
  • Coles Electro-acoustics 4038 (Bi-directional - Ribbon), acting as a mono overhead directly above the kick foot pedal.
  • Beyerdynamic m160 (Hyper Cardioid - Ribbon), coming in over the floor tom and cymbal angled towards the snare.
  • Royer 121 (Bi-directional - Ribbon), about 3 feet from the shell of the snare to capture the weight of the drum and some mild room ambiance.
Below you can see the frequency response of each microphone used in this article. These along with the sources from which I got them from (see bibliography) will be essential in choosing the correct microphones for the recording session.
EV RE-20 Frequency response

Coles 4038 Frequency response

Beyer M160 Frequency response


Royer 121 Frequency response (From the microphones instruction manual


Bibliography:

Eat Sleep Drums, 2016. Recording Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. Eatsleepdrums. Available from: https://www.eatsleepdrums.com/blogs/eatsleepdrums--3/posts/4107175/saturday-26th-march-2016-recording-stevie-wonder-s-superstition [Accessed 11 April 2024]

Recording Hacks, MM., Date Unknown. Electro-Voice RE-20. Recordinghacks.com. Available from: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Electro-Voice/RE20 [Accessed 11 April 2024] 

Recording Hacks, MM., Date Unknown. Coles ElectroAcoustics 4038. Recordinghacks.com. Available from: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Coles/4038 [Accessed 11 April 2024]

Recording Hacks, MM., Date Unknown. Beyerdynamic M160. Recordinghacks.com. Available from: http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/beyerdynamic/M-160 [Accessed 11 April 2024]

Royer Labs, Date Unknown. Model R-121 [Manual]. California, Burbank: ROYER Labs. Unpublished














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