Rick- Hey Ralph and thanks for having us here at Studio D

Ralph- Thanks for coming and welcome to Studio D at The Legendary House of Blues Studios Memphis

Rick- Let’s say drums, and what you like to do with drums for R&B, Soul, and Blues music.
Alright.

Ralph- It’s interesting that you chose to start with drums, I am a drummers engineer. Which…the gentleman who spent a lot of time with me early in my career, Ken Scott, is no doubt, a drummer’s engineer. I picked up a lot of the techniques that I still use to this day some 30 years latter from one of my first real mentors Ken Scott.

With drum kits, I like to mic each drum for the maximum amount of separation and control over each drum, then I use my over-heads and room microphones to fill in the sonic gaps, a lot of times when you’re using tight microphone techniques, you loses a lot of the resonance of the kit as a whole and it makes the drums sound sterile. So there’s a combination of the tight microphone technique and the ambience from the overheads and the room microphones, which you blend together just right to get a really wonderful sonic picture of the drums. With Snare Drums, I like to use a Shure SM57 on the top with the microphone .25 to 1 inch off of the snare this varies based on snare size and the sound we are after, to achieve this I use a AKG C 451 B . I place the bottom mic 4 to 6 inches off of the snare pointing it at the rattles. Using this technique gives me a nice full snare sound, and the ability to adjust the amount of snare top and the snare bottom rattles to taste.

Rick- The C 451 B, the second mic you mentioned would be on the bottom.

Ralph- Yup, the C 451 B. I’ve been using the C 451 B now for about 15-20 years since my Motown days, and I’ve been useing it here at the House of Blues Studios Memphis.

Rick- And you place the bottom mic.

Ralph- 4 to 6 inches away from the snare bottom, depending upon the snare itself. I’ll  set my mic’s…come in, listen…go back out, move them around until I hear what I’m listening for, then I make sure I have tighten up all the mic stands and booms. I always stand up and look at mic stands to make sure they have not moved out of position, there’s nothing worse than hearing a great track, and then you notice that the high hat mic has been swung away from where you set it.

Kick drum is another one of my favorite parts of the drum kit to mic, I use a Sennheiser MD421 MKII U4 on the inside of the kick.

Rick- Inside the shell.

Ralph- Inside the shell. I like to place the 421 set to the M position, I place the mic 2 to 4 inches off of the front skin and anywhere from 1 to 6 inches off of Kick Beater center, note that you must adjust the mic in order to get the best Kick sound for the song.

Ralph- The 421 gives me that Beater attack sound that I need to help my Kick drum cut in the mix. Then on the outside of the kick I use the SE Z3300A or Neumann TLM 103 to get that low end sound that the 421 is missing on the front of the skin, I pack the kick drum to get it nice and thick, along with the 421 being locked in place inside, I like as little ring as possible which to me is the Soul of the R&B sound.

Rick- So you prefer a dead kick drum?

Ralph- I like a thick tight kick opposed to a very live lose kick. I then cover the whole kick. The SE Z3300A or Neumann TLM 103, the 421, everything is covered with a packing blanket.

Rick- For further isolation.

Ralph- More isolation and power that’s my thing. I like thick R&B and Soul Kick. I started using this technique when I was at Motown Hitsville USA in the 80’s.

Rick- Motown.

Ralph-Exactly, I started covering the kick itself with a packing blanket, back in the 80’s.

Rick- With Rick James?

Ralph- Yep along with others. I started doing this on the Rick James recordings and Albums that I did 1980-85. Now, mind you most of the track that people like to still party to, were a combination of Wendel and live playing. So it was live playing, and we used the live drum hits to triggler Wendel. that’s what we were doing then.

Rick- That’s right, the Wendle.

Ralph- Yeah, the drum machine was beginning to take root in the 80’s . And the Wendel was really prominent at that time.

Rick- The Wendle was like the new, latest (lyn 6.10 ?) gizmo wasn’t it?

Ralph- Yeah it was, and it was designed by Roger Nichols.

Rick- Oh that’s right.

Ralph- Roger had made the Wendle’s. They looked like hard drives. And each one only had that sound in it. And then it grew to where you could have each one being triggered by a sound, this was a very cool time to be a recording engineer, so much great stuff was being developed then to get us where we are right now.

Rick- Wow.

Ralph- Yeah exactly.

Rick- That was a change.

Ralph- So “Cold Blooded”, “Ebony Eyes”, those songs from Rick James “Cold Blooded” Album, were done using a combination of the two. During this time period in recording it was very important that I got really good separation, because the slightest thing could trigger whatever device we were using. Whether it was Wendel, AMS or a Eventide…whatever we were using you had to make sure that the sound had as few fragments as possible because it would trigger the device which took more time, now remember we were all living in a analog world, so that turned into a lot of time. So I had to get really good, clean, strong separation on my drum recordings so that the time need for setting up the Drawmer’s gating was kept to a minimum.

Rick- So moving onto your toms.

Ralph- I’m still a Sennheiser MD421 MKII U4 fan. I like 421’s about an inch and a half off the top skin. Periodically I will mic the bottom. Typically that runs into phasing issues which cost valuable time . So I typically shy away from doing the bottom skin.

Rick- Unless the drummer really knows how to tune.

Ralph-That’s right a seasoned drummer who knows the instrument.

Rick- Steve Potts.

Ralph- Exactly, Steve Potts. Who I have not yet had the opportunity to record here in Memphis, but I’m looking forward to that.

Rick- So if you were doing bottoms, what would you use?

Ralph- I’d use a 421 also although I have in the past used Neumann U87.

Rick- Same thing.

Ralph- Exactly, I’d use the same thing. And the reason why I like the 421 is because they can handle such a great deal of SPL and they have a good wide frequency range for drums, and that is the key. I’d like to use 87’s or some other large diaphragm condensers I know some other do, but for me and my Soul, R&B, Funk style of recording I need a microphone that can handle the SPL, when a strong drummer is playing.

Rick- Now on the floor Tom’s.

Ralph- 421.

Rick- Same thing.

Ralph- 421 yeah and I place the mic about 1 and half to 2 inch off of the skin

Rick- 421. So that’s your mic of choice, except for the 57 almost.

Ralph- Except for the 57 and 421’s. I like a large diaphragm condensers microphone on the outside of the kick and I’ve become a fan of the SE microphones. I like the Z3300A, It gives me a good, round sound from the outside, and the ability to blend the mallet with the poof from the front of the kick, once again its all about the balance and once your blend right you will have a really good, in your chest, R&B kick. And that’s important to me.

Rick- It’s sort of funny you mention the R&B kick. There’s a quality to the kind of kick that your describing that you would have found, maybe in Rick James, or in Commodore’s records in a certain era…that wasn’t too many steps away from almost a Mutt  Lang AC/DC type of kick. You know what I’m saying? It’s very hard. Lot’s of transience, but a very…

Ralph- Controlled. You literally feel it. You feel it in your chest. And it’s not distracting. Because when you do it right, you’ve isolated it to where you’re hearing just kick. And that’s what R&B Kick is all about.

Rick- Now for cymbals. And high hat.

Ralph- for high hat, I like the SE 2a or Neumann KM 184 Small Diaphragm. There’s a sizzle that I like from these mic’s it, and they also give me good transient response.

Rick- And you use what for Overheads…

Ralph- For Overheads, I like the  Neumann KM 184 Small Diaphragm for overheads I set them up with the Cardioid capsules with the the hi pass filter set to the on position. I have been known to use C12 A’s and AKG C 414 B-XL II Condenser, it just really depends upon the drum kit itself and the drummer.

Rick- The way the player plays.

Ralph- The way the player plays his cymbals, his velocity and dynamic control all of these things factor into the microphone selections that I make for overheads. The overheads and the room mic’s play a very important part in the audio mural, which I’m painting, like I said earlier, I like that nice tight, close mic-ed sound. Now by blending my overheads and room mic’s I can balance the hole kit out. If you don’t, have ambience It’s just some drums being hit with out any color. So you have to choose the right microphones to paint that ambience in there…to where it’s entertaining to the listener. I don’t know if the listener knows what they’re listening to, but they know when they don’t hear it. Whatever it is, they’re like, I don’t know what is missing, but it doesn’t sound right. So be sure to remember the live drum sound is very important for R&B and Soul music, and a bad drum sound can affect sales.

Rick- You got to make them move!

Ralph- Yeah! When you’re doing drums, you want the listener to literally feel as though that drummer is in the room with them, or in their car. They want to hear the clarity the nuances and detail, the high hat dancing and all the other good stuff that only drummers have the ability to do, they like to hear that. And they’d like to hear that back beat. The snare. The motion. Whether it’s the snares, or if it’s a drummer who’s able to do a lot of roughs in between. The listener like this. Yeah.

Rick- And when you’re doing high hat, where do you like to place the mic in relation to high hat?

Ralph- I place the mic after watching the drummer play some time about 2 to 6 inches away from where he strikes the Hi Hat depending on there style and how much Hi Hat work is being done for the song, the mic is set up off of the Hi Hat 4 to 8 inches and 1 to 3 inches from the Hi Hat edge never on top of the hat, it’s too thuddy I like to be able to hear the clapping of the Hats.

Rick- So if he hit at 3:00, then you’d be at 9:00.

Ralph- That’s right 9 or 10 depending once again on several factors.

Rick- I got you.

Ralph- Right. And that way the listener hears the Hat work and clapping.

Rick- That’s great.

Ralph- It gives me that ability.

Rick- So how do you feel that over the years…drums…like since the time of Rick James and Stevie Wonder…how drums have been approached in Urban R&B and Modern R&B. How has that approach changed? Has it gone all the way to a more sampled drum machine kind of style, or is it going back old school now? Where are you seeing…

Ralph- I believe that we are going back to drummers playing more and for good reason, it hard for someone to recreate the work that a good drummer can do. I find this to be more true, especially now that our business is going indie, the cat’s with the best bands will have the most fans, the most sales and the most web site traffic. We all have to realize that our consumers operate like this, They Hear, They Like, They Buy not the other way around, so it stands to reason the person with the best band or group wins in the end.

Rick-There’s no soul in to much synthetic music.

Ralph- Nope, and it’s fun to have “Cats” playing the fans can hear and feel the energy. It’s well documented that I’m a big fan of the power drummers, and I’ve been very fortunate to have recorded some of the best in the business. Stevie Wonder Modern drummer voted him a couple years ago as one of the top ten drummers of the century, then Rick Lawson, James Gatson, Phil Ehart, Terry Bozzio, Omar Hakim and a host of others incredible cat’s.

Rick- So Wonder is a Wonder.

Ralph- Yes he is and the other cat’s agree …Ricky Lawson…and a whole host of others…James Gatson, Billy Cobham, have all said they can never play like Stevie. It’s the way he sees and here things, that makes him so special, along with his work and practice ethic.

Rick-It is haha.

Ralph- Yeap he’s always going to play different. So…yeah, when he sits down to play, he always feels all the drums, he’ll feel the cymbals and once he starts playing, he knows the kick - snare -hi hat. But everything else is part of his gift, he will always play differently than most. And this, hence is why he has the style of playing, that’s very hard to mimic for anyone that does not see the way he dose.