Out of the box

I used to partly own a recording studio. A real one, with tape machines, large console, large Schroeder resonators and leasings costs slightly larger than the GDP of a small developing country. Despite all the attention and energy we gave to this place, including a Tom Hidley built control room, drums always sounded crap.

Well, coming in one fine morning I heard this gigantic drum sound going from the control room. It was beautiful, it was huge and it was a first. So that day I skipped the coffee machine stopover altogether and rushed to the drum room where the customer, the drummer and sound guys were, all watching in owe the kit in question surrounded by a grand total of two microphones, one close, one distant. That was it.

When I enquired about this absolute miracle, the guys said they came in early and were just having fun. Then right away, as if nothing ever happened, they unplugged the two condensers mics and started a “proper” miking set-up of the thing, complete with overheads, mics on everything, upper and lower snare mics, noise gates, compressors, tube preamps, the whole usual shebang, Approximately one hour and a half later, I heard the studio’s signature, the usual feeble sounding asthmatic drum, along with the proper sentential ”this is how everybody does it, the is how we always done it, so this is how it must be done” statement. Oh well those were the 90’s…