Well, that IS good news. Personally, I really enjoy tracking drum kits... or anything, really, that is performed by truly talented artists and musicians. Hearing the music come alive during an inspired take can be a wonderful thing.

On another note, it has usually been the case for me that the better the musician, the more fun and easy it is to work with him or her in the studio. In my world, the insecure, inexperienced musicians have always been the biggest PITAs to deal with, while the triple-scale A-list guy comes in and records 4 songs in an afternoon, all the while cracking jokes and excited about how happy he is with the sound...and it sounds great. What a difference.

Jon

There's always a particular excitement in getting the chance to track an instrument or style of music you've never done before. I'm still waiting for my first didgederoo (i hope i have better luck tracking it than spelling it), Sousaphone, and bass flute (among others). And I haven't done a real gamelon session either.

What I always hate about tracking is the band that comes in and doesn't want to use a tuner to tune between takes, punch-in's and overdubs. They think I'm trying to run up the clock and I get comments like "it sounds in-tune to me". Then when we get into overdubs or mixing something is way out and needs to be redone. Then I can say "Told 'ya so". It doesn't happen that often but when it does it almost always sucks.

Lately I've been trying to balance tracking & mixing 50/50. The mixers always seem to get the credit. I hardly hear "Man, that Lady Marmalade song was RECORDED very well". But with tracking you get to interact with that artist a lot more & on a much more intimate level. When I was an assistant I noticed a lot of tracking engineers than only hit the buttons. They didn't get the cheerleading part of the gig. When you track, you gotta control of the pace of the session. I always try to keep the mood upbeat enough so someone can say "That take sucked" and everyone just laughs it off.

Tracking and overdubbing is my 'thang' I dislike mixing.

I 'will' good takes from bands! I am praying 'keep it up' (you fuckers!)

I REALLY watch my eye contact with the drummer; some are paranoid and are always looking for a sign that 'it was shit' (in error). For them I develop a "very slow movement thumbs up signal" so they don’t confuse it with a wave "stop"!

For 'feel' based tracks I skip the click track, and Pick up a tambo or shaker and play it into a mic next to the desk..

Coaching and using descriptive language to get a vibe or more feel into a take is forte of mine. For example:

"Imagine you are part of a expedition to the planet Mars and the shuttle just took off stranding you there for eternity"

That might be good for an uptempo ragtime number.. You get the picture..

I also use boredom as a weapon, tell a long story like, one day there was a girl named Goldielocks. She was wandering around the forest and she found a house. Someone lived in that house it was the three Bears. But no one was there they had left because they where going to eat porridge but their porridge was to hot so they took a walk around the forest and when they come back it would have cooled down.
Goldielocks came inside the house and she saw a big chair, medium chair,and small chair with each having a bowl on the table in front of them. Inside their was porridge. Goldielocks sat in the big chair and tasted the porridge the porridge was to cold so she sat in the medium chair she tasted the porridge and it was cold to so she sat in the small chair and she tasted it and it was cool and she liked it so she eat it all up. All of a sudden the chair broke. The chair must of been to small.Goldielocks went upstairs to go to sleep on one of the beds. She lied down on the papa bed and it was hard she went to the next bed. It was the mama's bed she lied down and it was to rough so she went to the baby's bed she lied down on it and it was soft and comfortable. So she fell asleep and had a great sleep.Meanwhile the three bears came back because their was a Tornado heading to the forest and they were getting ready to pack up but they noticed that someone had been here. They went upstairs and saw that Goldielocks was sleeping in baby bears bed. They came closer and then Goldielocks screamed. But the bears didn't care because they were leaving. They packed up their stuff and ran away to find a new home.Mean while Goldielocks was still in the house and she heard a SWIIIFFFF! noise she looked outside and saw a Tornado she yelled TORNADO!!!. She ran the fastest she had ever ran and she ran all the way home. The bears home had been destroyed.Well the bears ran away far but they moved to Chicago because it's a real nice place where you don't get Tornados. The bears had to find a new place in the forest of Chicago but they had a hard time trying to make their house and making new things, remember they didn't take everything from their house because they were in a rush to get out. At home Goldielocks told her mom what happened and she had learned her lesson not to go into the houses of bears or people.The bears were mad at Goldielocks for sneaking into their house but it wasn't only her fault it was the Tornado. A few weeks later the bears had returned back to their old home to see what they could get that didn't get destroyed in the Tornado. The bears found only a small amount of stuff that wasn't destroyed. A few months later the bears had returned and built their home all over again and hoped that a Tornado would never destroy their home again.

And so on, until the act are so damn keen to get back to recording that they can't get to their instuments quick enough and lay down fresh, wicked takes.

Gnite!

:)

I have no personal experience but I'm pretty sure Tornados don't go "SWIIIFF".