Steve Orchard (Engineer) Mic Techniques

Steve Orchard has worked with Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, U2, Coldplay.  Steve uses ProTools and Logic at his home studio but travels all over the world.  For a great interview check out this link at recordproduction.com.

Interview tidbits:  For monitoring Steve uses Yamaha NS-10s and Dynaudio BM-15 that he takes with him for remote recording.

For miking drums:  Overheads TLM 170s behind the drummer, behind the drummer's head near the ears, but be careful of phase when mixing.   Be very careful of click bleed from the drummers headphones.  Likes a few hot tracks in the drum mix kit depth and crunchyness.   For the crunchy tracks he uses a Neumann U87 with a pad above the lip of the bass drum with 80db of gain on the mic pre amp, or a D112 above the kick pointing at the snare.  On this mic, watch the bleed from the cymbals and take out 4k if necessary.   Another kick drum technique (instead of using a Yamaha NS-10 sub), is to use a large clear water bottle from an office water cooler and put it in front of the kick and throw cheep condenser inside.  

Uses a Neumann FET 47 on the kick out slightly off axis (if possible, take the skin off and put a pillow in it.  Likes it better than a D112, thinks it's rather muted. 

Abbey Road Gobos

 Mercenary Audio, supplier of audio gear, has the fax from Neil Aldridge, (former Chief Tech at Abbey Road) to Fletcher (from Mercenary Audio) posted on their website.   I might just need to build one (or two.)

Link to Mercenary Audio's Abby Road Gobo Plans

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