Music Production: Recording & Mixing Rock Drums

Course Information

Fees: € 99,- (approx: US$ 128,- or £ 85,-, other currencies)

Course Language: English English

Learning Advisor: Dario Dendi

Duration: 4 Weeks

Level: VIP Signature Course

Learning Advisor: Dario Dendi

With over a decade of experience in the music industry, Dario Dendi has worked with a great number of influential artists and producers.

Learning his craft by working with some of the most respected engineers and producers in the industry (including John Leckie, Hugh Padgham, Flood, Alan Moulder, Cathy Dennis and Steve Osborne to name a few), he has worked with many

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Course Description

"Drums are the skeleton and driving force of a rock band".. So Dario says and if Rock music is what floats your boat, you will agree with him.

Learn how to record and produce rock drums with the help of one of the best in the business. In the past decade, Dario Dendi has worked with some of the most established rock artists around (The Killers, Placebo, Stereophonics, Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs and many others) and he's now making available to SAE online students all that knowledge and tricks that helped him getting to the top.

But there can't be a great show without a guest of honour. That's why we got Placebo's drummer Steve Forrest to be be part of it and drum for you on the band's single "Trigger Happy Hands". And you won't be just a spectator by the way.. You'll be the engineer of the session!

And that's not it. You'll be compiling drum takes, tweaking drum sounds and even mixing a whole drum kit... all under the supervision and with the feedback of Dario Dendi himself! And if that's not enough Dario has a special surprise for you.. He's managed to find and dust off some hard drive containing Placebo's "Trigger Happy Hands" itself and "My Worst Enemy" by Stereophonics. He'll open those sessions up for you to have a sneaky peak while he explains how those radio smashing hits were made!

This course is packed with precious tips, tricks and techniques to achieve the ultimate drum sound for Rock music. The head banging is on us. Enjoy it.

Prerequisites
Aims
Topics
Outcomes
Resources
Testimonials

Basic knowledge of audio recording and mixing and familiarity with audio engineering terminology.

You also need to have a good enough experience using your DAW (Protools, Logic, Cubase etc.) in order to be able to import audio files, load plugins, tweak sounds and mix tracks

- Understand how to produce and record drums in a professional, musical way.
- Get unique and useful inside-knowledge from a professional in the business.
- See for yourself how a commercially successful rock single is built.

Week 1

Principles

· The role of drums in rock

· The quest for character

· Performance vs digital editing

· The drummer: Your number one recording tool

· Choosing the right drum kit to suit the song/style/live room/arrangement

· Getting it right at the source: Tuning and dampening drums

· The importance of a good live room

· The sound check

Week 2

Recording Rock drums

· Individual recording tips and techniques for kick drum, snare, hat, ride, toms, overheads, room mics and more

· The importance of a good performance in rock music

· How to get ahead of yourself and optimize time and energy when recording drums

· Commitment: the secret ingredient to a unique and original recording

· How to alter the drum recording space to suit the sound you’re looking for

· Monitoring drums whilst recording

Week 3

Mixing Rock drums

· The importance of kick and snare

· Individual drum mixing tips and techniques

· Trigger/replacing drums

· Room mics vs overhead mics

· Drum compression and EQ

· Parallel compression

· Drum panning

· Dynamic drum mixing

Week 4

A look at the stars...

Analysis and discussion of Placebo's "Trigger Happy Hands"

Analysys and discussion of Stereophonics' "My Worst Enemy"

On succesful completion of the course you will:

- have learnt directly from a high-calibre professional

- have a better understanding of rock drum production

- be able to optimise time and resources when recording and producing drums

- be able to make the most of what you have, both in terms of musicians (the drummer) and equipment (the drum kit)

- understand what works in a particular song and what to avoid

- have a better understanding of true priorities when recording and producing drums

This course requires a complete DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with any host software installed (Protools, Cubase, Logic, etc.) and a good monitoring system.

In the course of 4 weeks Dario taught me a lot of cool tricks concerning recording and mixing drums. Although I might have known some tricks, he made me do them better then before.
He emphasizes a lot on creativity and out of the box thinking, which I really appreciated, but it's always backed by a firm technical base. Besides that I really dug the flexible environment of the online learning platform.
Study and take your classes whenever suits you best; for me, with a family and full-time job, that was perfect!
Wouter Verhulst