Pat Mastelotto - P@'s Worm Hole

My hole, my studio, my drum room, my own little rabbit hole . . .

But i do share. From my hole I have cut drums tracks for all sorts of people.

Maybe you ?

I've been hitting drums since i was 10 years old and know first hand a drummer requires space, and isolation to rock out. As you can imagine over the years I've built many drum rooms to woodshed in. Ive also been lucky to work in some of the greatest professional recording studios in the world and some superb home studios. Here in Texas i have the space to have both: a woodshed room and a recording room. Like a lot of musicians, I enjoy working in my own studio, and finally I have found an environment which is ideal for recording my live drums by myself. My own "rhythm production facility" where I work on my own projects but also play on other peoples tracks .

You can check out a Modern drummer article on my hole here.

The obvious technical advantages are:

• The drum kit is permanently set up and miked with highest quality professional microphones (see list below).
• The desk channels are preset, "sound checked" and ready to record.

• Hard disk recording with Pro Tools 192 makes editing drum performances easy.

• After recording I slice and spice my drum tracks before returning.
• I return my tracks as .wav or any other format so they are fully compatible with Logic or any other DAW computer based system so clients can continue to work on their tracks in their preferred digital format.

Microphones:

AKG C12A

AKG 414 ULX [x2]

Audio Technica 4033

Audio Technica ATM25

Beyerdynamic Opus 88 [x2]

Earthworks SR25

Neumann FET47

Neumann U87 [x2]

Sennheiser MD421 [x3]

Sennheiser MD451

Shure SM57 [x2]

Signal Path:

AMEK 9098 [Neve-designed EQ]

API custom converted preamps by Steve Firlotte [x4]

Daking 52279 [x2]

Drawmer 1960 Dual Mic Pre/Tube Compressor

Mackie 32x8

Thousands of drums, cymbals and percussion doodads - More than i could EVER afford bring to a session.

I also have collected vast sample library, some purchased, some given, and others i make- -

loops vs real drums: i do both.

As my buddy Gavin has said: For many, the essence of a great rhythm track is real drums, played live with feel and groove. They form the basis of a good rhythmic arrangement which builds and supports the song. I know many people would love to use real drums on their tunes, but finding a decent drummer is only the first step - you also need a large studio with a great sounding room, a good selection of mics and a sound engineer. Setting up and soundchecking every mic can take hours . . . quite a headache, and lot of expense. Given this, it's not surprising that many people rely on drum loops and drum machines.

However, depending on your musical style, finding the right drum loops can be a problem. Although you might find a loop you like, it's unlikely to have the right variations for your song. This means you end up with a 1- or 2-bar loop that repeats all the way through the track, with a couple of unsympathetic fills awkwardly pasted in. The loop sounds great for the first 10 seconds, but then gets really boring because it can't develop or go anywhere. It can't follow your arrangement, hit the accents, or take into account the stops and dynamics. It's a compromise, and in the worst case, you end up writing your song around the loop rather than the other way round!

Relying solely on loops has other disadvantages. If you're using loops from a sample CD, the grooves won't be unique to your track, and hearing them used on other people's songs or dog food commercials will tend to devalue your production.

Here are some examples of drum productions and treatments recorded here for other artists:

COCK ROBIN New CD: drums recorded here (in fact thats my submix stem on several mixes!)