Before the Recording

Alright! We have been finishing the song structures during the last few months. The final phase is to build the tempo maps. We will start the drum recordings this saturday at our own Drop Hammer Studios. I have three weeks to do the drums and editing. May sound like too much time, but I have to go to work and I have a mixing project going on as well. I really hope that editing the drums won't eat most of my time, haha! Then we will continue with bass and guitars in a cabin near Lahti. I bet Ville (Sorvali, the producer) will eat a few sausages. Matias (my partner in crime at Drop Hammer) will handle the drum recording duties but I will take all the responsability of the actual engineering decisions.  You can expect some serious studio porn in this blog! 

Let me start by telling more about the actual recording space. It's a 44 m2 space divided into a live room and a control room. Both of the rooms are acoustically treated and feature a laminate floor. Very nice and tight sound! The live room has more treating including loads of rockwool in the ceiling and corners. Some "acoustic foam" and carpet is also used to kill the most vicious upper midrange and high frequency reflections on the walls.

The drumset I will use is a full birch set (80's Tama Crestar, same as Grandstar Custom 8", 10", 12", 14" and 22") with a Ludwig Supra-Phonic (5") snare drum. I just recently bought this snare after dreaming of it for years. Absolutely amazing! I might use my trusty old Sonor Phonic D420 (3 1/2") on faster songs. Don't know yet. My drumheads will be the following:

• Toms: Remo Emperor Clear
• Snare Drum: Remo CS Coated Black Dot
• Kick Drum: Remo Powerstroke III + Aquarian Kick Pad

Most of the cymbals are made by Paiste (Signature, 2000, 2002 and Rude 1000) and Stagg (two splashes). Anything else? Oh, I am using Iron Cobra Power Glide pedal with felt beaters. Why felt? I get a better feel with them and some times wood beaters are making the sound too clicky to start with.

That's it for now.