I’ve been playing with Mat and Will for a while in a band called The Empty Spaces, morphing out of Mat’s solo project. We recently recorded a four song EP that is now available from Golden Sound Records. I played drums, engineered, and mastered it.
We recorded it live straight to an Otari 1/4” 2-track tape machine. It was my first real experience working with tape, but after a reel and a half of unspooled mess I started to get the hang of it. All tracks were mixed through an Allen & Heath Mixwizard WZ2 16:2 board. Mat’s vocals ran through a JOEMEEK TwinQ with some slap-back delay from a Roland RE-501.
I played my Gretsch Catalina club kit with my Tama Starclassic snare. All drums were fitted with Aquarian Modern Vintage heads except the kick drum, which sported a Remo Coated Ambassador on the batter side and a stock resonant head. I placed sheets of paper over the snare and floor tom heads for a little extra dampening and high frequency attack. The cymbals were a 21” Zildjan Sweet ride, an 18” Istanbul Mehmet Sultan Flat Ride, and 13” Zildjan K Custom Dark hats.
The kit was miked with a Cascade X-15 stereo ribbon mic overhead. I did have to boost some 12-15k for some high end (15k is as high as the MixWizard’s EQ goes) but I was really pleased with the self compression and beefiness of this mic. The kick drum was captured by an AKG D112, and the snare a good ol’ SM57, both running through dbx 163’s with a considerable amount of compression.
The bass was played through a Gibson G100-B 2x15” amp and miked with a Cascade Fat Head about a foot and a half away.
The stereo output of the mixer was routed to the ins of the Otari and we monitored from there, doing takes of the songs until we had ones we liked. The tape was hit pretty hard; you can really hear it on the snare. It made us a little nervous to throw down live takes straight to tape without someone actively listening to the mix in another room. There’s no mixing post 2-track, so we had to get it right before we recorded. I’m happy with what we ended up with, but it’s definitely one of those EPs where you can tell the drummer engineered it.
As a tribute to our experience, we laid out the packaging to look like the boxes the reels of Quantegy tape came in. The disc looks like a little reel of tape. It’s entertaining so the music doesn’t have to be.
We go on a week-long tour starting this weekend, hoping to sell copies and have some fun. It’s my goal to achieve at least one of those. Dates are up on the website. You can download a digital copy or order a CD from Golden Sound Records for $4/$5.
