Renowned in the metal scene with bands including SikTh, Enter Shikari and Young Guns, Dan gives us a behind the scenes look (and listen) at his drum recording setup with a tour around the kit to look at mic's and tuning etc on a session at VADA Studios in the heart of the UK. We counted 21 interesting tips on getting great sounding drums!
Clint Murphy has mixed many of Dan's records and he was keen to see the drum recording setup that Dan uses with a keen interest in the setup of the kit as a whole, the use of dampers and drum tuning etc..
A view of Dan's drum recording setup - watch the video for the full rundown
Dan kindly ran off a stereo mix of this drum setup after we left, a pass with the close mics and then a full mix with all of the room mics included. This conversation is one of our favourite features on the subject - even if Dan's approach isn't what you might choose we are pretty sure that there will be things in this video that might help you get an even better drum sound :-)
A very big thanks to George and Matt at VADA Studios for helping make this possible, to Dan for giving us his time and to Clint who asked the questions day's before re-locating back to New Zealand!
Some blurb on Dan:
Dan Weller at VADA Studios
London based Dan Weller is an award winning producer/mixer, writer and guitarist, known for his work in rock and metal, but with credits as diverse as Children’s BBC to his name.
Dan began his musical career as founding member/producer of metal band SikTh. Renowned in the metal scene and credited with spawning the microgenre ‘djent’, SikTh are often name-checked as an influence by bands the world over. In a career spanning almost 20 years SikTh have toured the globe extensively.
In 2015 they toured with US metal titans Slipknot and were featured on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine in India. Away from his band Dan is best known for nurturing talent and extracting the very best from the artists he works with. Production and mix credits include Enter Shikari (2 x UK top 5 records*), Monster Truck, Bury Tomorrow, Young Guns (Active number 1 in US**) and many more.
In more recent years Dan has found a balance between Producing/Mixing and his first love — Song writing. Credits include Taylor Swift approved Austrian based Hunger, Shvpes, Sea girls, Cody Frost and many more.
