Comparing drumkits available for remote recording

With Julian Tardo engineering and Jonny ‘8 Track’ Aitken drumming you can now record drums remotely for your Track via Protools, Logic Audio or Analogue Tape in an Acoustically-treated live room with all the great gear Church Road has to offer (full list here) just send us the stems, we can discuss what you want, produce the recordings and transfer them back to you electronically in a wide range of formats!

You can choose which kit you would prefer, choose from a selection of snare drums and from 3 in-House kits: A bright sounding Unique Premier kit, a ‘rock’ sounding Pearl Export and a beautiful 70s Ludwig. Clear or coated heads can be used (this affects the sound in a number of ways) with a variety of stick choices (light, heavy, brushes, rods, mallets etc) and together we can find a combination that will bring the right sound and qualities to your track.

We spent some time comparing the sounds of these kits against a track using a simple beat from the last session we did for Huw Costin’s ‘Torn Sail’. We tuned and setup the kits to the room and got a sound we were happy with in a short space of time, to give you an idea of what we can offer you.

Drum tuning has a huge range of variables to consider, and where possible we wanted to use minimal damping, to utilise the tone of the kit, the acoustics of the room and avoid getting a very ’processed’ sound we could achieve very quickly by programming drums. We positioned the kit in the same space as last time and used a very similar microphone setup.

You can find the list of mics we used on our previous blog here or have a quick look at the photographs where you can identify most of the mics fairly easily.

Rather than using an SM57 on the snare (Jonny’s usual choice) Julian this time used a Beyer 201 as it adds some low end and ‘weight’ to the snare sound.

Have a look at our video to get an idea of the varied sounds that can be achieved with 3 kits, minimal damping and a medium, fairly reflective live room.

To book a remote drum session for your track click here We can do single or multiple songs to order depending on your budget.