On the weekend of September 10–11, 2016

John King and I attended Weathervane Music’s recording workshop. We were introduced to Weathervane by Matt Kurtz, (a great session drummer and producer) who told us to check out the recording documentary series Shaking-through. We did. It felt like home.

4 years later we found ourselves embarking on a 6 1/2 hour drive from Canton Ohio to Philly based Miner Street Recordings where the workshop was hosted.

John and I arrived Friday night. Found our Airbnb host in good order. I’d encourage finding a place in Fishtown. Philly is one of the most walkable cities in the US. So finding a place within walking distance of the studio is very doable.

Saturday

So we walked in expecting to find a long dark hall way to the staircase. Nope. We were meet by Brian and the Weathervane staff, warmly introduced to the band (Chrome Els) and quickly found ourselves engaged in the conversations musicians love to have.

I looked around to find a loft with bunks for long stay artists, a kitchen, a restroom with a shower and now … the hallway to the staircase and finally, the live room … Some of my favorite Shaking-through episodes began to playback in my head.

Setting up DAW templates for recording

Brain and Matt walked us through the templates they use for recording sessions. Weathervane templates (ProTools 11) are geared for tracking a band, but the principles can be adapted for many other kinds of recording as well. Checkout the Mix Roadmap for details.

The Weathervane Method of drum Micing

Though John and I have been messing with the Weathervane method, we’ve not really put it to the test. To be honest it was hard to let go of the old standbys like, Recorderman and the Glyn Johns method … we were doing a blend of all 3 at times.

Seeing the Weathervane Method up close makes all the difference.

Not only did Matthew Poirier and Brian McTear answer any questions we had along the way, they encouraged us to ask. And, yes! hearing is believing. It’s one thing to read references on fixing phase coherency issues, it was quite another to watch and hear a seasoned professional do it before our very ears.

During our discussion, Brain referenced the video below from Ryan Earnhardt of Creative Sound Lab. Ryan has augmented the Weathervane method by calculating the relative distance to the kick mic.

The proof is in the pudding. We used the weathervane method the following week durning a Lindsay Cardy session at our studio in Canton. It was great to walk into the control room to a drummer, bass player, producer, engineer and artist with big smiles on their faces. Mission accomplished!

Brian focused on the placement and principle more than that actual mics used. He did suggest mic types, but mentioned that a range of mics could work. We’ve had great results with the following configuration:

1. Kick in: AKG D112 — Cardioid Dynamic
2. Kick out: AKG Perception 200 — Cardioid Condenser
3. Snare Top: SM 57 —Cardioid Dynamic
4. Snare bottom: SM57 (polarity switched) 90 degree/right angel from top snare mic
5. Rack Tom: Sennheiser 421 — Dynamic (Weathervane calls for large diaphragm condensers for both toms KSM32)
6. Floor Tom: Sennheiser 421
7. ANCHOR MIC — Middle Over: Royer r101 — figure 8 Ribbon
8. Left Over: Rode NT5 — Cardioid Condenser
9. Right Over: Rode NT5
10. Room Left: AT4050 — Figure 8 Condenser (Weathervane calls for ribbons for both room mics AEA r84)
11. Room Right: AT4050

Step 1: Anchor Mic Placement (7)

Brian considers the middle over mic to be the “anchor” that all others are compared for phase alignment. The anchor mic is placed in the sonic center of the kit and is place so that the distance from the center of both toms is the same. So as we we’re looking at the kit, we were a bit left of the kick and aimed toward the snare. We were setup for a right handed drummer. Check Weathervane’s overhead mic technique.

Step 2: Over Right Placement(9)

The over right mic is placed directly above the snare. Brian place it at my eye height which is about 5' 3" from the floor. For me placing this mic first feels like it could provide a height reference transferable to the anchor mic and then moved left/right to center between the toms. In either order, the height is transferred by taping a string to the center of the snare up to the over right mic(9) and then down to the kick at the point of beater contact. Letting the string slide over your finger, move to all 3 over mics (7, 8 & 9). This insuress the same relative distance from the snare and kick to all 3.

Step 3: Create an equilateral triangle

Using yet another piece of string measure back and forth between all 3 over mics until they are all exactly the same distance apart. You will want to re-check the distance from the kick/snare string to make sure your adjustments are honoring the height requirement of step 2.

Step 4: Close mics

See our configuration above for the overall concept, or scrub to 18:38 of the Church Girls + Minka workshop to get Brian’s step by step of the close mics.

Step 5: Room Mic Placement (10 & 11)

Here’s where Brian’s experience has a huge payoff. His room mics are relatively close the the kit with their figure 8 nulls facing the kit. This is significant when adding reverb later. The fundamental attack is rejected but the splash off the walls, ceiling and floor are collected. He uses 2 (AEA r84) figure 8s and spaces them same distance apart that the toms (rack & floor) are from one another. They are placed on the kit’s sonic center and out 6–8' from the front of the kit. The nulls of each mic is pointed at the floor tom (Room L 10) and rack tom (room R 11). Using string, pull a line from the floor tom to to Room L. Use the same distance to measure from the rack tom to Room R. Scrub to 28:30 of the Church Girls + Minka workshop to see Brian set it up the room mics.

First Round Listening

So we watched the process …Drums… bass… guitar… vocals… we had full access to any of the Weathervane staff. So there were questions … lot’s of questions, and in context along the way. So, the quetions you have in your head all the time. Boom, right there. An answer while it’s in the making.

Sunday

Console confiuragting for recording vs mixing

Sunday morning we talked thru the Weathervane bussing construct. The conversation spanned from how to setup stems to compression principles.

Subtractive EQ

I asked Matt if he was looking for something he liked or something he didn’t when he would sweep the frequency spectrum with a +6 to 10 eq boost … He was quick to respond with, “Something I don’t, I’m only going to cut trouble frequencies”. From this old guys perspective (speaking of myself), this is how we didn’t back on the farm … I’ve noted recently, that boosting has become common place so I was interested to hear what Matt had to say. And, at the end of every conversation, it will certainly depend on the circumstances you are being faced with. I’ve been trying to practice openness to change.

So much life to be lived … so much to learn.

Reamping

When I think of revamping, my mind goes to some of the crazy sessions we have done with the SHVS. We tracked the drums, bass, guitar and vocals live, but went direct with everything to keep the drum tracks clean… We took the clean signal for bass and guitar from our DAW and piped it back out to the live room where we ran it through the players amps one at a time … placed mics on their speakers as well as the room …and magically, we had everyone playing in the live room.

But vocals …Vocals through a fender twin? So good. Just so good.

Things we observed: bonus

The Chrome Els are bonkers … talented, crazy talented … Generally, the social dynamics in producer-engineer-artist conversations can get dicy. Throw some recording enthusiasts at that and you have the potential for things to go very wrong … but no way … The staff at Weathervane are very kind, very professional. It just seems like great people find great people. So it’s not a big surprise that the working relationships and communication were so positive.

Gear worth looking into

Warm Audio’s version of the 1176 was calling me all weekend. Front and center in their control-room rack. Matt said there’s not a good reason to not go grab one. I found that it’s available everywhere for around $600. And, then there’s the Teletronix LA2A. They seemed to get a ton of mileage out of it as well. For vocals, Matt uses 30/60 settings to start with and adjusted as needed.

I’ve been on the fence about the whole 500 series rack idea. It’s just so hard to lay down $500–$800 for nothing but the chassis … but, there after the options are endless. Especially, when a client has a 500 piece to bring along. It would be great to have a 500 chassis wired into the patchbay.

The plug-in takeaway was the Fabfilter Pro MB multiband compressor. I noticed Matt loaded it into several tracks/buses throughout the mixing process. Brian mentioned it was a great way to tame transient frequencies without just scooping that space (eq) when it might be fine in lower dynamics range.

Lionel Forrester, the drummer from the Chrome Els, and I had a great conversation about what he looks for in general purpose recording cymbals. He mentioned the Sabian AAX studio series. I’ve since been looking around ebay and craigslist for someone wanting to part with a hi-hat, ride, crash set.

A Learning Rich Environment

Good teachers talk, Great teachers listen and respond. From an educational perspective, the interaction that Brian and Matt encouraged created an environment that was leaning rich. Talk about being in the moment. Brian has fostered an environmental attitude where questions and suggestions were commonplace. Great teachers those two.

The outcome of vision and hardwork. 20 years of treating people well. Humility and Respect for our fellow man … Musicians included.

Thanks for a weekend well spent Weathervane. See you in March!

References:

The mix roadmap is a great resource that John and I both had purchased ($20) and read thru prior to attending. Brian and Matt refer to it quite a bit, so worth checking out.

http://weathervanemusic.bigcartel.com/product/tracking-in-the-footsteps

Watch for future workshops