Here's the first of what will be a new and ongoing series of "highlights" from Open Sky Studio sessions that I've either produced, engineered, mixed, played drums on, or all of the above.  

This is the isolated drum track for an as-yet unreleased song by my friends 
Trent Horne (Stickman), Charlie Sheets (The Dreaded Marco), and me... I'm on drums, producing, engineering, and mixing, all done at my place, Open Sky Studio.  

To get this nice, fat huge sound when we tracked  I used the following:  

A 28" Ludwig bass drum, with a single large diaphragm tube mic about 8-10" in front of it, through an API mic pre with some EQ for attack and sub-lows.

An 18" Pearl Session Series bass drum, with a single large-diaphragm tube mic about 8-10" in front of it, through an Avalon 737, with some EQ for punchiness.  

A 7x14" 1950's Leedy snare drum, with an AKG large-diaphragm condenser mic about 4-6" away, next to the rim, angled towards the center of the head, through an API mic pre, with some EQ to add low-mids.  

Also there were room mics in a "mid/side" configuration, using a Shure sm-7b for the center mic, and a modded CAD ribbon for the L/R mic.  Room mics were also through API preamps, no EQ.   

I used a pair of medium felt timpani mallets by Vater, rather than sticks, for a fatter tone from the snare, and also one of those big, puffy felt beaters on the big kick drum (also a Vater), and a regular felt beater on the smaller kick drum.   

I decided not to use any cymbals of any kind, to keep it more open and roomy-sounding, and to leave room to hear the detail in the acoustic guitars and vocal track that we laid on top of this.  It ended up giving the finished mix of the song a nice dark, open, spacious vibe that is really nice.  

Performance-wise, I was going for kind of a cross between a big "Bonham" type of drumset sound, mixed with a loose, lazy-feeling marching beat.  

Thought Of You, DRUM TRACK isolated, Trent, Charlie, Mike

This is a sample of some cool sounds we created for an upcoming song from Emily Vance, who is one of our favorite Open Sky Studio/Step Up to the Mike Productions clients.  

Emily is a highly talented 16 year-old singer and songwriter, and my friend Nina Baldridge and I have been co-producing her latest material.  

These cool "ambient" sounds were recorded to help create a dark, brooding mood behind all of the primary instruments in the track (guitar/bass/drums), and were created using a variety of techniques, including room-mics on an upright piano in our large live room, some heavily-EQ'ed and compressed eBow tracks on electric guitar, a stereo combo amp set-up for the tremolo guitar parts, an analog synth bass pad, and a nice layered cello sample, all with a generous serving of some juicy delay and "cathedral" reverb.   

Done Saving You-Emily Vance-ambient stuff

Atlanta, GA-based producer (www.stepuptothemikeproductions.com), mix engineer, drummer (www.mikeisyourfavoritedrummer.com), recording studio owner (www.openskystudioatlanta.com), coffee junkie, gun nut, basset hound herder, loudmouth libertarian, hair farmer, husband, father, car guy, and Star Wars/Star Trek nerd.  

MikeFroedge,OpenSkyStudio

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