First time in the studio!

[mike049]

Hey guys! My band recently won a battle of the bands and we won 3 hours free in a recording studio, and we're going in this Sunday! I'm super excited but a little nervous because we only have 3 hours. The studio is owned and run by one guy (it's obviously not a big studio). He has an electronic kit that he seems to rely on for almost everyone that records there. He was trying to sell me on it pretty hard, but I personally can't play on an E-kit like i can on my Saturns. So I'm a bit worried about his acoustic drum recording/mixing abilities, but we'll see how it goes. I'm going to tune my drums to very best of my ability today and tomorrow I'm going to practice playing the song to a click track. I'm posting to see if any of you drum vets have any advice for me for my first time in the studio!

Thanks guys!

[nucjd]

Hey mike. congrats on the studio time. I have experience recording on an ekit as well as acoustic kits. One thing I noticed on e kits are the detached feeling you get while recording. It is not bad, just different. I personally record better and more consistently on an acoustic kit but that is just me. The mix engineers LOVE e-kits. They can quantize your track and replace miss hits and strikes with ones the engineer likes and actually change the kits and cymbals on the track after you have recorded. These all help the final product but you will notice a difference and one thing I began to notice was I could HEAR the digital kit in the mix and know it was digital as the strike velocity maps while amazing still can't reproduce the natural variation on an acoustic set. I have used a td6 with mesh heads in the past midi triggering BFD2. It all comes down to preference but I have a feeling you will feel more comfortable behind an acoustic recording. It just takes the engineer more work with an acoustic kit to carve out the frequency range and eq; strip silence the individual pieces of the kit and set the bass drum correct in the mix in relation to the bass guitar. If he is a good studio engineer it should not be a problem and I would suspect he would not mind you recording an acoustic kit..... That is if he has enough mics, inputs and a good studio that is appropriate for recording drums. If not then I guess you will be going digital. Either way, have fun!

[Bish]

Personally, I think you should use what the studio has available. You are in his realm and he will have the drums sounding way better than your acoustic kit will sound going in for the first time.

When I would take my kit to the studio, they would spend an hour "detuning" and getting rid of any rattles and other unwanted noises your drums will give off during recording them in a studio. It's almost demoralizing when you bring a high end kit in and they "mute" the crap out of it to get their "vision" of drum sounds. But in the big picture - the overall "BAND" sound is the goal.

If you like the studio and can work with the engineer(s) you are better off returning later on with your kit and give them time to "dial it in" so it'll sound its best in the studio.

Trust me, you will need those 3 hours to get your songs in order.

If you aren't as comfortable on an EKit, ask if you can go in an hour early and play it and get a sound check and get your bearings on an ekit.

I'm not saying it's easy but again, this is your first time in a studio and you don't know them, they don't know you and 3 hours will go by so fast.