Hi Steemit!

Today I wanted to share a little bit about my personal experience when recording Drums at my home studio.
I believe most of this guide applies to all musicians.

As I previously mentioned in one of my posts, apart from working as a session drummer here in Buenos Aires, I get a lot of work through two main platforms which are airgigs and soundbetter.

What I wanted to briefly describe on this "guide", was a serie of steps I take when I get music to record.

---

Drum Recording guide for your home studio

Be Organized

First thing you want to do is to use as many directories / folders as you need in order to keep your work organized. I usually receive two tracks:
1st track is the rendered wav with drums for reference.
2nd track is the rendered wav without any drums.

I would create a folder with the platform name I received the work from, a subfolder with the artist that hired me, and consecutive sub-folders with the songs I need to record, so I can send both 1st and 2nd track to each directory, and also save the recording session and individual tracks in a better way.

I record on my Macbook, and I make sure to always backup everything I record on an external HDD, and when I'm done, I'd move everything to the ext.HDD to release some space.

Understand what you are requested to do. Know the song/s.

Most of us know our abilities and limitations.
In my case, I have a really good memory for music, but despite of that, I have to listen to the songs several times in order to understand what I need to play.
Sometimes they want you to mimic the reference drums, other times they ask you to be creative.

We need to listen to the phrasing the musicians are using , what kind of groove or fills we want to play vs what kind of groove or fills the song needs.
Does the fill get in trouble with the singer lyrics? Are we over-playing? etc.
Please keep that in mind when you first listen to the song, this applies to every instrument and aspect of music. No matter if you are recording or rehearsing or composing, you need to be able to listen to everything that's happening aside from what instrument you are playing.

You would also want to work with a metronome, so you can edit and replace. If I was not provided with the BPM of the song, I use "ProMetronome" (iOS in my case) to tap along the song and get the BPMs.

Take notes

It will make your recording session easier. You can write as little as the song form but it will help you be aware of what's coming.
You can also write down some specific fills they want to keep from reference drums, or your own fill that goes with a specific part of the song.

Interface

I don't have big technical equipment, but I still manage to provide great quality recordings.

I use a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 as an audio interface, and mics that go from a Shure SM57, AKG D112, AudioTechnica AT2020 to a Samson C02, Behringer C3, etc. Nothing expensive sound-wise, but they manage to do their job here.

I want to make sure to play along the track, and monitor the levels. You don't want the levels to be at 0db, you want them to have some rest for the processing part in the mix.
I usually intend to have them around -16/-14db.

Drum Sound

Here are a few suggestions to get the best from your drums.

• Experience with your room.
  I record in a very small room, which it's not the best for drumming. But I have learned and managed to make it sound bigger than it is, by positioning mics in certain ways. It took me some time, but it's worth it, that's how I keep getting hired.

I usually mic my drums this way :
2x Overheads a little bit over my head.
1x Hihat Mic , this one usaully gets little volume, but it adds some brightness to the hihat.
2x Snare Drum (the bottom mic should be facing the wires. Pay attention to the phase with the top mic. Top mic should be located in a way that would reject as much of the hihat as possible so we avoid bleeding the most we can).
1x Bass Drum (you might want to use your hand to sense the air pressure of the front head, and place the mic when it's almost imperceptible).
1x Rack Tom (try to place it between the lugs, so it captures less overtones).
1x Floor Tom (try to place it between the lugs, so it captures less overtones).

• Learn how to tune them.
  This is extremely important, you have to know your instrument and how to tune appropiately.

First you have to decide what drum heads to use, I prefer coated single ply (Remo Ambassadors, Evans G1) in all the drums.
I usually tune the toms by 4ths, (i.e.: Floor Tom is on E Rack Tom is on A) but I want to check if I can contribute to the song, so I might tune them to notes that are used in the song melody or chorus.

We migh always want to have some cloth at hand in case we need to muffle it, but be cautios about this, you don't want a dead sounding drum, you just want to work with the overtones so they mics don't get so much out of them.

• Bassdrum

I kind of hate bassdrum with a hole in the front, that's because I really like the drum to sing, by having the hole you are getting more kick out of it, but it will lose "weight".

• Snare Drum

Pay attention to the wires, you don't want them to choke the resonant head, but you also don't want them to be loose enough to lack of definition.

Be honest

Be responsible and honest about the deadlines. You don't want the artist who hired you to be asking you about the status of the songs, but you want to have as much time as you think you'll need to deliver quality work.

Try to be as communicative as possible with the artist. If you have doubts, or want additional feedback, I think it's always better to ask first than be sorry later.
Ask for references if needed, so you now what kind of sound and playing they are looking for in the song, and then be original.

One of the most important things in being a sessionist musician is to get re-hired.
That means you delivered what was expected in the best possible way, and that will keep you busy not only because the same artist that hired you previously will hire you again, but because new artists will trust your professionalism and work.

---

I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it helpful.

All this post is based on my experience and personal point of view, I hope we get to share some of it!

Let me know if you have questions, and I'd gladly assist in every way I can.

I'll create this same post in #spanish soon.

Please, up-vote, resteem, and feel free to follow me @matiasmenarguez for more content.