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After college at Boston U. and the Berklee College of Music, Joe Chiccarelli left the familiar surroundings of Beantown for Los Angeles, where a gig as an assistant engineer at Cherokee Studios materialized. As legend has it, one night the notoriously difficult Frank Zappa couldn’t wait for his very late engineer any longer and Joe was assigned to fill in. The session went well, the engineer never showed up, and Zappa decided that Joe Chiccarelli was his man for the whole project, which turned out to be the revered Sheik Yerbouti album. Joe learned a lot by dutifully working Zappa’s long, late hours and taking his eccentricities in stride; other seminal FZ albums followed, including Baby Snakes, Joe’s Garage and Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar. Soon Joe was moving from high-profile engineering gigs with Juice Newton to producing albums for Oingo Boingo. Looking back on his career since then, he’s worked in every genre imaginable and helped create critically acclaimed and highly successful music for hip prestige artists (Julieta Venegas, Cafe Tacuba), highly visible commercial acts (Hole, Bon Jovi), and legends who manage to be both hot with the critics and on the charts (U2, Beck). Joe’s abilities in the studio are undeniable, but his professionalism over the years may have solidified his stellar reputation just as much as his tangible skills. Above all else, he’s as patient and positive behind the board as he needs to be for artists to feel comfortable that they’re getting exactly what they want out of their recording experience. We’re honored that Joe’s offered to share his thoughts on recording low-frequency instruments with us in this ongoing column.
Blue: What are you looking for most when trying to capture a great kick drum sound? Joe: Well, obviously I like a lot of size to the sound. I'm careful to get something that represents the sound of the drum but has the clarity, the punch and depth. In a word, I would say “punch” is the most crucial. In most pop records, the kick is what drives the song as well as what hold the mix together – it’s the foundation of the house along with the other low-end instruments. “Big and solid” is the key here.
Joe: I'm most concerned that the microphone and preamp can handle the level of a close-miked rock kick drummer. I'm also concerned that I don't get a build up of low mid frequencies that would eat up space in the track for other low-frequency instruments.
Joe: In most situations I tend to use two mics: one inside to gather the impact, and one outside to capture the “tone” – the overall note and picture of the drum. I tend to use mics with a forward midrange and mics with larger capsules to capture the large wavelengths. This tends to be true for me with many other low-frequency instruments like bass amps, tympani, cello, acoustic bass, and so on. Some of my favorites mics to use here are the AKG D20, a D12, an EV RE20, and the Senn 421. On the outside, usually it’s a Neumann U47fet, an Audio-Technica 4047, or lately I've had great luck with the Blue Mouse. The Mouse has a very present upper mid spike, but has a nice size to the low end. Unlike the Neumann, the Mouse is a little faster sounding in terms of the transients and perhaps a bit less bumpy in the lower midrange. It works great as an option to my other outside kick drum mics. I've also had great luck with it on an Ampeg bass cabinet in place of a Neumann U47fet. It's also worked great as an alternate to a tube Neumann U47 on cello and upright bass.
Joe: I've done everything from PZM boundary and lavalier-type mics inside the drum to cassette machines. Yes, old cassette decks with built-in limiters can deliver quite a quirky picture of a drum. It instantly sounds like a processed drum loop.
Joe: For most music I don't use compression on the kick. For some heavy rock I might use a faster compressor like a DBX for a tight-squeezed processed effect. On some jazz recordings where I may use just one mic on the kick, I might use a tiny bit of subtle tube-type compression to keep the drum dynamics even. In general, if I'm going to compress a kick I'll wait until the mixing stage.
Joe: I tend to like preamps with lots of color. I use things like Class A Neve and API, or even the Chandler or a Quad Eight. In terms of EQ, I like big, broad EQs like Pultecs, API Graphics or Neve.
Joe: In these days of ProTools HD working at sample rates of 96K and higher, analog tape is unfortunately only a luxury. I still love the sound of it and use it whenever the artist would like, but I'm very happy with the results I get in the digital world. With analog, though, you get that slight bump at 80-100Hz, and that subtle bit of compression that can work great for some kick drum sounds.
Joe: In rock, size and punch are everything. In jazz, it’s about tone and note value. In other types of music it’s really about having kick fit in with the overall sonic picture. As in recording anything, I find that I achieve the best results when making my adjustments to the instrument itself first. Then I’ll change the mic or adjust its position, but it has to sound correct in the tracking room first.
Joe: Usually the best tone for the kick comes from the room mics – often
it’s not even the actual assigned ambiance mics. It might be the low-end
rumble in a piano mic, or even the singer’s talkback mic that adds the
right character. These room mics often make great samples to be cut and pasted
and blended in with the actual close mics.
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