A brief overview of the gear I’m using. Updated 29 January 2018.
Microphones
1 x Audix D6 (Bass drum)
2 x Sennheiser e604 (12″ and 14″ Toms)
1 x Audix D4 (16″ Tom)
1 x SM57 (Snare top)
2 x Rode M5 sdc, matched pair (overheads)
All fed via a custom 12-way stagebox to a homemade rack unit housing the interface, etc.
Interface
- Focusrite Clarett 8preX
- Hoping to add the Scarlett Octopre Dynamic sometime in the futrue, to give 8 additional channels plus dynamics processing
DAW / Computer / Plugins
Presonus Studio One (I use this for all my recordings)
Logic Pro X (Long time user since Emagic days, but now only use it for controlling backing tracks and guitar rig for live use)
2014 iMac. External drives for archiving songs, etc, and backups.
For plugins, I’m a big fan of Fabfilter and use their Pro-Q (EQ), Pro-C (compression) and Pro-R (reverb), plus Steven Slate FG-X for mastering. The Presonus plugins supplied with Studio One are good too, eg their Fat Channel. I also have the Waves CLA bundle, though I don’t use these so much.
Other gear
- Presonus Eris E5 active monitors
- Various headphones
- Presonus HP60 headphone amp/distributor
- TLA 5051 preamp, which I use for acoustic guitars, vocals and other mono sources. Bought this more than 15 years ago, and still love it.
- ART P16 XLR patchbay
- Korg rack tuner
- Furman power conditioner
The homemade acoustic treatment is just adequate to control the high freq reflections, not much else, and I’m fully aware of the room’s limitations as a serious recording / mixing environment. On the other hand, it’s convenient, and as I experiment more with mic placement (and above all drum tuning!!!), I get results I’m reasonably happy with.
Ade Drums 