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ecording theroomKick StartMiking a kick-drum: This is often times a double mic situation, one for inside to get the attackand punch, one for the outside to get body and depth. Start from the outside, and move inward.Listen while sitting in front of the kick and have the drummer step on it a few times, find agood spot, 3-8-inches away from the head and set the mic there. Again, I really like the low endcapabilities of the Lauten Horizon because it can handle the SPL, but try any large diaphragmcondenser. Go listen to this mic mixed with the overheads, listening in mono. With the phaseswitch on the kick mic pre-amp, find the low end loss, now move this mic forwards and backwardsto find the point of maximum low end loss. Once found, flip the switch and now you are ready tomove on to the inside mic. I like a Shure Beta 52. Start by moving this mic in reference to theoutside kick mic, once these are locked in phase turn all the mics back on, pan your overheads andyou will have a nice full, well balanced drum sound.Mike Terry, Grammy nominated Producer, Engineer, and Sound Designer c/o Lauten AudioRecording Pre-AmpIt’s no good having a Ferrari with a Morris Minorengine. The pre-amp quality should really match the mic.Don’t overload the pre-amp or the recording – watchfor the singer’s highest level, and at the same time don’trecord so low you can’t actually see any level! The louderyou can record generally the lower the noise floor will be.Alan Branch, Producer/Engineer and Audio Media ContributorTarget PurchaseBernard Butler once told me that if youhave a decent mic and a decent preamp,you’re set. As they say: garbage in, garbageout. So invest in a decent preamp and adecent microphone.Alex Theakston, Marketing Co-ordinator, SourceDistributionKH 120Studio Monitor SystemsStudio Monitor KH 120The first member ofthe Neumann KH Linewww.neumann.comSupreme SnareIf you need a quick fix for mid-rangeysnare drums that lack punch and dynamics,try this: Multiply the original snare track,sending the original signal through your bestgate and then back on to the console, andsend the second signal to another channelof the gate. With the second channel, use thegate to create a very staccato signal by settingthe attack and release times very fast.Also, with this channel you can set the keyfilter on your gate less conservatively as wewill want none of the cymbals to pass throughand we are not going to actually use the gatedsignal itself in our mix.The next step is to find a suitable speakerin your tracking room to send the staccatosignal to. Take the speaker and place it upsidedown on top of a nicely tuned snare drum.If you use an NS-10 or similar speaker witha slippery finish, you may need to place theedges on some foam so that it doesn’t moveduring the procedure.Now place a microphone about two-inchesfrom the side of the drum, and return themicrophone signal to the console, mixing itwith your original gated snare signal, down amono buss, where you can EQ the result ofyour submix, and into your stereo mix. We usethe CharterOak S600 as it has a big soundwith an open bottom end and a gentle roll offstarting at about 13kHz.Michael Deming, President of CharterOak AcousticsGeorg Neumann GmbH • Ollenhauerstraße 98 • 13403 Berlin • Germany12AUDIO MEDIA AUGUST 2011