Record It Everywhere!
You can put musicians in the wrong rooms. It's okay. -by Larry Crane
Every time I enter a new (to me) recording studio, I look around and wonder where people set up various instruments and singers when recording. I’ve put drums in some studio’s “wrong spots” and gotten great sounds. I’ve even recorded (several times) with a drummer in the control room.
Why would one record with the drummer in the same room as themselves? In the photos here, from 2023, we see bassist JP Downer and drummer Tyrone Hendrix in Jackpot!’s control room, right behind where I was sitting. We all had to wear headphones, of course. Why did we set up like this? We were recording completely live takes of Christmas songs, with a pianist (Alex Milsted) and several cello players (Diane Chaplin, Skip vonKuske, Lauren McShane) in the live room, and Saeeda Wright singing in our larger isolation booth, with Farnell Newton in another booth playing trumpet. Putting a drummer in the room with an acoustic piano and cellists would be havoc, with drums getting all over the other instruments’ mics. Drums in our larger isolation booth get kinda choked sounding. The control room actually sounded pretty good, plus Tyrone is a kick-ass drummer.
Under the Mistletoe by The Portland Cello Project is available here and streaming.
Love it!