Recording Day 1: I’m a Drummer Myself

Day 1 of recording is in the books and it was quite a day. You can see the carnage that was Chris’ living room. As our engineer put it to Chris’ wife, “This isn’t a living room today. It’s a studio.”

Chris and I spent the better part of Wednesday making some drum baffles and planning on how to deaden the sound somewhat in this room with very high ceilings and concrete floors. Mission accomplished for the most part.

Leesa Harrington-Squyres, our original drummer and fresh off her stint with the well-known tribute band Lez Zeppelin, sat in on our initial eight songs. Steve Christian, who recently engineered the critically-acclaimed (aren’t they all?) Steve Earle album “Townes,” sat in the engineers chair. We managed to borrow drums and cymbals from our good friends Mando Perez (LL Cooper), Joe Araujo (Skillit) and Andy McWilliams (Scattered Pages) and got some killer tracks.

The sheer number of mics, cable and craziness was pure insanity. I’ll admit I don’t know much about the mic choices – that was for Chris and Steve – but they did an amazing job.

We worked from 10am to around midnight and had a good, exhausting time. Leesa was fantastic and we are really happy with what we have so far. Here’s the rundown of drum gear.

Drum Kit:

Pacific Drums 10″, 12″ and 14″ toms, 22″ kick

Snares:

14″ Ludwig Star Classic
14″ Pearl (similar to an old Ludwig)
14″ Custom Maple snare (made by Joe Araujo)

Cymbals:

13″ Zildjian A Quick Beat Hi Hats
21″ Zildjian A Sweet Ride
22″ Zildjian K Ride
18″ Zildjian A 18″ Crash/Ride (really old and awesome)
15″ Zildjian A Custom 15″ Crash
17″ Zildjian A Custom 17″ Crash
17″ Zildjian A Fast Crash

Big thanks to everyone that helped out mentioned above and to my friend, Mandy, for loaning us her awesome faux oriental rug!