Recording Someday's Drum Loop

11 Sep 2006

Eric flew into BWI yesterday and we both drove down to Durham, NC early this morning to begin our five days of mixing at Overdub Lane.  The first song on the mixing platter was Someday, an old song that has been heavily reworked.  The first mix is always the toughest and we spent all day on this one.

At the end of the day the only remaining elements in question were a series of breaks at the end of the song. During the recording process we had thought about putting in a subtle drum loop between the breaks to smooth the part out, but we never got around to recording it. Not wanting to spend valuable studio time exploring drum loop options we decided to take our recording to the motel room.

Back at the motel Eric put his laptop on the bed, fired up the mix and Chris Garges threw on a pair of headphones. Eric and Chris quickly determined that given the limited sensitivity of Eric's laptop mic and the fact that we had to keep somewhat quiet we would need to record each drum part separately. Without further ado Chris laid down an initial click track with a small shaker, this was used to help guide the playing of the other drum parts. Then the tom drum was recorded which Chris played with his fingers while leaning the drum as close as he could to the laptop mic. Next the snare, which again was simply played with Chris?s fingers. Finally a hi-hat rhythm was needed which was accomplished by tapping a pair of brushes against the pages of the motel bible.

All of these parts were then nudged and bumped in Eric's laptop until everyone was satisfied with the groove. All in all a crazy way to record a drum loop but a whole lot of fun. We'll see how it works out in Someday tomorrow...

Category: Studio Journal

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