Week 1 - Wednesday 3/13/1991

Setting up microphones and drums

The Drum Doctor began tuning Urbano's drums. I spent an hour speaking into an assortment of microphones while Puig formed his impression of each.

Jack Joseph Puig in front of the studio's Neve console

Various mic pre-amps were tested as follows: The best microphone for the instrument being tested (such as the snare drum) was plugged into the pre-amp under consideration, such as API, Demeter, Neve rack unit, Neve console module, or Trident outboard unit. The second engineer cried out a slate ID (such as "API!") and struck the drum. The event was recorded to DAT. The second engineer quickly swapped out the pre-amp for another under consideration, and the procedure was repeated. After all of the pre-amps have been recorded to DAT, the production team listened to the tape and wrote down their impressions. After twice evaluating the tape, Wallace and Puig compared notes and selected the pre-amps to be used for each drum/mic combination.

The guitar tech began intonating and re-stringing the guitars and basses in the studio. That evening Mio took Wallace, Rosen, Gates, Berg and me out to dinner. Urbano was left at the studio to tune and set up his drums.