Today, I continued where I left off yesterday in terms of my final project for my production lessons, which was to create a drum portfolio.

Before I began recording for this, Tom requested that I re-track some ideas I did for a previous technical assignment. For this previous assignment, I experimented with home drum recording for a cover of “I Don’t Trust Myself” by John Mayer. To revamp this assignment, I decided to experiment with different mic placement ideas on my acoustic kit. Previously, I had only used a kick and snare mic and performed the snare and kit part. This time, I decided to setup a front of kit mic, which I placed underneath the ride cymbal and beside the rack tom.

I decided to track 3 different variations of the tune. The first was the regular groove which I recorded with the three mics (kick, snare, and front of kit). The second was using three mics but no HH or cymbals. The final variation was the full groove but on my e-kit. The reason I tracked this way was to give me more options during the mixing stages, which I was going to do later this week.

After I had finished re-tracking the parts from the technical assignment, I was ready to start recording some ideas for my portfolio. I began with the gospel loop. For this, I started at the e-kit. I ended up tracking 4×8 bar groove variations. The first one was a simple kick and snare pattern. The second featured off beat HHs with the same kick and snare pattern. The third had the HH playing on all eighth notes. The final had the HH on all eighths notes but a more advanced kick pattern. 

Once these variations were tracked, I decided to go over to acoustic kit and double the same parts that I did on the e-kit. These were tracked using the same three mics I mentioned above (kick, snare, front of kit). In addition, I tracked a sixteenth shaker and tambourine loop overtop.

The last idea I tracked was a cover of “You Should Probably Leave” by Chris Stapleton. The groove here was fairly steady, and I decided to follow the same approach I did for re-tracking the John Mayer tune. The process was as follows:

• 3 mic tracking with cymbals and HH 
• 3 mic tracking no cymbals or HH
• E-kit tracking with full groove

I am looking forward to tracking more ideas for the portfolio in the next week or so!