Trum Tracking and the Millenia

So, this class we continued miking and tracking drums, but we treated the room as best we could and used a few more mics than the last. On top of that, we got to track bass and guitar over the drums with the Millenia.

2.1.12

Today, we used the D112 on the inside of the bass drum and the 421 on the outside.
The SM57 on the bottom of the snare and the E22 on the top of the snare.
Last, 2 AKG 4050's are used in the M/S style for the overheads.

Mic    |     Patch Bay/Panel Channel   |    ProTools Channel
D112                      1                                          1
421                         3                                          2
SM57                     4                                          3
E22                        5                                          4
4050 Side               8                                          5
4050 Mid               9                                          6

The reason why we skipped channels 2, 6, and 7 on the patch panel and bay is because something along that line didn't work for those channels.

BUT, the channels in ProTools don't have to correspond to anything other than the brown patch bay on the board, so if row 9, channel 3 goes to ProTools in channel 2, ProTools will register whatever mic going through the patch panel and bay channel 3 as channel 2.

And never forget.... IN on BOTTOM, OUT on TOP!!!!!!

All the faders should b, and pretty much were, at unity gain and the mic pre at 12 o'clock. Both the 4050s and the E22 are condenser mics and need phantom +48v power.

Duplicate the Side 4050 track and Opt. Click Drag the wave file to the duplicate track. Apply the Trim under TDM > Other > Trim then bring up that track's fader a little to compensate for the loss in dbs.

To clarify which mic is the mid and which is the side... the mic with the side facing the kit is the side and the one with the front facing the kit is the mid. Duplicate the side mic track.

To treat the room, we put packing blankets over the two white boards and used the bass drop wall things on the sides. The bass drop walls sit on chairs and two go in between the white boards. The difference in sound was incredible! The drums went from sounding spacey and roomy to crisp and sharp.

Next, tracking with the Millenia..... So we created a mono audio track in ProTools and plugged the bass into the Millenia. This is a drawing of what the left side of the Millenia strip looks like.....

VT = Vacuum Tube
SS = Solid State
POL = Polar Opposite
XFMR = Transformer

The output master is what controls the level of the instrument being recorded into ProTools. So the Millenia doesn't really pass through the board at all. There are 4 patch points for the Millenia on the Brown Patch Bay that go to ProTools.

From the Millenia patch point 1 to ProTools channel 1 will register sound to the new audio track. Then, don't forget to go out from ProTools 1 and 2 to the 2 Track plugs (the monitors). 

Thoughts

This was a really fun class because the possibilities of what we will be able to do is just starting to unfold and it's really exciting for all of us!