I found out this week that a band I performed and recorded with a couple years ago, the Meteor Pilots, finished their debut CD last week and I finally got my hands on a few copies today. Even though I don’t play with that band anymore, it did cause me to pause and think on the accomplishment.

Many of you reading this have probably recorded and seen your name on the inside sleeve of a CD before, so this is old news for you. But this is the first time its happened to me, and even though it’s with a small indie band, it’s something that I’ve wanted to accomplish since I was eight years old. Seeing as it took me thirty years to get here, it feels good to check that one off the list of things I wanted to accomplish before I die:

Fall in love and start a family. Check.
Visit the Taj Mahal. Check.
Work in the software business and end up at Microsoft. Check.
Record and wind up a credited musician on an album. Check!

And I’m hoping it doesn’t take another thirty years to do it again! Trust me, I’m working hard to make sure it doesn’t take that long again.

The name of the album is Kiss My Asteroid and you can order a copy from the Meteor Pilots’ web site or, in a few weeks, on cdbaby.com. Have a look at their web site and you can stream some of the tunes to your computer.

I’m all with Lake 32 right now, but I really had a lot of fun playing for the Pilots and wish those guys the best of luck in selling their album and getting their music out there live for audiences to hear and enjoy.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about a discussion I had with Lake 32 bassist, Jeff Laird, about a mic setup technique for drums he'd heard about called the Glyn Johns Method. As opposed to the more standard close-mic setup, the Glyn Johns method requires only four microphones placed in strategic locations around the kit to maximize sound quality and reduce phasing. Jeff sent me some information on this and I read it. It looked good in theory, but I was going to need to see it in action to believe it could really work.

The Glyn Johns Method Explained

There are many articles, both online and in print that explain this (links included at the end of this post), but I'm going to explain our adaptation of the Glyn Johns setup. Again, you need only four microphones, though we used five -- we included a room mic in front of the kit as well. Here is an overhead view of the setup:

Obviously, the kick and snare mics are easy enough to position. We placed the kick mic, a Sampson Q3, about two inches inside the kick drum. The snare mic, a GLS Audio ES-57, is clipped to the rim and positioned about 1 1/2 inches from the drum head and pointed just above the center of the drum.

Placing the two overhead mics require a little more time and precision to place properly. Both mics are Behringer C-2 condensers. Mounted on a boom stand, the first mic comes over the kit to my left and is positioned roughly over the snare drum at a distance of about two drum sticks, or 32" to 36" from the center of the snare drum. The second mic is positioned over my right shoulder and is the same distance from the center of the snare drum as the first mic.

Finally, our room mic, a Behringer C-1 condenser, is positioned six feet from the kit, directly in front of the kick drum. I was talking with someone with an engineer background at a gig a couple of months ago and he said you should always position room mics in factors of three feet to avoid phasing problems. I don't know how accurate that is as I haven't found that information anywhere else, but I can say we haven't had any phasing problems during our recording as of yet. So, that seems to be working well for us.

Here are some photos detailing the mic positions:

Results

The first time I played using the Glyn Johns setup was at a live performance last August. I was a little concerned about it because it was an outdoor venue where the band was playing on an elevated stage under a pavilion and the audience was sitting out, relatively far away from the stage. Primarily, I was concerned about any fill work I did on my toms sounding like an audio "dead zone" while the kick and snare ruled the mix.

Man, I was wrong. Really wrong. Listening to the recording of the show afterward, I was really amazed at how all the drums cut through the mix over the PA with tremendous clarity. And setup was over in less than five minutes. Fewer mics means much faster setup and teardown times.

So trying this out in the home studio was to be the final test of the value of the Glyn Johns setup. Now, I should also point out that my "home studio" doubles as a family room when Lake 32 isn't rehearsing, so I have not undertaken major renovations. I've hung some sound deadening comforters on the wall, hung drapes over the french doors to cover the glass, I've rearranged the furniture in a more practical way, but that's about it.

I guess the proof is in the pudding. So here is a sample of "Left Standing" which we recorded last week in our first session in the new "studio." This cut is just the drums, but you'll hear the guitar part in the background, picked up by the room mic in front of the kit.

Note: I'm using Microsoft's Silverlight player to stream this audio to you. If you don't see a player embedded in the page below, please click on the image and install Silverlight. This is perfectly safe and required to listen to these tracks.

No too bad. Again, one of my concerns about employing this method, especially with this song, was capturing the tom work. I couldn't believe the clarity with with the repeating tom pattern came through the mix. But, of course, the next test is how well does it cut through when you add bass and guitar to the mix as well. Well, listen for yourself. It certainly doesn't sound like it was recorded in my family room!

So, I'm officially a fan of the Glyn Johns setup. It helps you save money on equipment, time on stage and in the studio and delivers amazing results. I highly recommend giving this a try at your next session or live gig. Feel free to drop me a comment and let me know how it went.

Thanks again to Jeff Laird for introducing me to this and all the hard work put in on the "home studio."