Season 2 – Episode 1

Project Hell Cow is back for another season!

In this episode, we picked up a new preamp -the Nady PRA-8, as well as a few mics (SM57 x4, e609…), and try to set up the microphones for recording drums… We don’t get too far…

The new singer didn’t work out! He was a cool dude with a hell of a scream, but family issues are currently preventing him from dedicating any time to music. Thankfully, Hell Cow understands such matters, and subsequently burned him to death.

In other news, I have been going though Hell attempting to get a good sound from my drums in the home recording world. See, drums are a very acoustic instrument, and when placed in a tiny room without proper acoustic treatment (aka the secret layer… aka the studio) they tend to sound… well… like drums in a small crappy room. Our initial intention for the room was to have a small practice space at home and keep the rest of the house fairly quiet; for that, the room is perfect. Obviously it isn’t completely sound proofed and isolated, but for us it’s good enough. Now that we have decided to record our own music the downsides of said room are exploded into view. Even though the drums are properly tuned, and the mic placement has been thoroughly thought out and experimented with, the recordings, though decent, still show signs of boxy-ness and mud. Thankfully the Hell Cow has something up its… sleeve? What we want to do is record drums elsewhere, but still do it ourselves. If that doesn’t work out then we will throw in the towel and pay the big bucks to the experts! We don’t give up easily though…

On the bright side, Hell Cow has written yet another original! We also have plenty of concept ideas on the shelf as well, so once we get over the recording hump, be prepared for a Moo Uprising!

Not liking the sound of our bass drum, we switched the resonant head of the bass drum. Hear the difference?

Here is the video to go along with our post on recording drums! Mike attempts to record a drum track for “Agony”.

Check out Hell Cow’s home recording studio! This is where we record all of our music, and sometimes come to sit in the corner and cry!

Today we went to the local music store (the one better than Guitar Center) and picked up a Shure SM-57 dynamic microphone. The plan is to use it to record guitars, the snare drum, and vocals (till we have enough money to afford a nice condenser mic). We went with the Shure because it’s basically an industry standard mic… and it was cheap.

We also picked up a new head for Mike’s snare. He went with an Evans genra dry. It has a built-in baffle ring on the inside, as well as some holes in the head that are supposed to help lower overtones. So far, he’s pleased with it; it has a nice crisp attack, and very short overtones; just what he was looking for.

On a side note, there is no concrete evidence proving that we may or may not have bought a case of beer at the huge liquor store next door…

Finally! We had everything set up properly (or so we had hoped) to start recording drums! For no reason in particular, we decided that “Agony” would be the best song to start recording. That meant that it was up to me to lay down a drum track first…

Eager, and excited to be recording our first song, I jumped right in with the intro; I had to do 16ths beats on the high-hats with an accent on the last hit. It sounded simple enough but this being my first time recording drums all of the pressure was on me. Let’s just say I gave it my best… and failed.

In the end, I realized two things; I needed a lot of practice, and I needed a new high-hat stand. I never actually sat down and practiced this song; usually I hop on the drums, Chris grabs his guitar, and we start jamming. From now on, I’ll actually have to practice! As for the high-hat stand, I was using a stand that Manny had given me for free. It sounded terrible. The old saying rings true; you get what you pay for… and I didn’t pay shit. So it was off to the “store-that-is-a-thousand-times-better-than-guitar-center” to buy a new high-hat stand. Stay tuned for new high hat action!