Er I just did "Cities in Dust" from scratch on that album (the hit!) although I did overdub on all of it and designed the trade mark drum sound and concept of Cities hip hop-esque 12" before Steve Churchyard mixed the whole record..
Producer / engineer Hugh Jones recorded Lands End before his exit from the project. All you need is a giant Ballroom! He recorded that tune at Hansa by the Wall studios, Berlin, Germany. It is one of the bigest recording rooms I've ever seen. Hugh is a real pro, and Budgie just thunders away!

Re bleed, some tips.

Fresh skins
Tuning to suit the room
Quiet cymbals
Small hihats
Don't hit the cymbals hard
and whack the living crap out of the drums..
"Old rooms" - seem to be a common factor in great recordings! Go find one to use!

Recording Budgie:

Budgie (Siuouxsie & The Banshees drummer btw) had a very competant rodie called Joss and an unending supply of new drum heads.He is an amazing drummer, it was honor to work with him.
Simon Philips the session drummer had visited the studio I worked at (Matrix) a few months prior and had made the studio owner, turn the pool table room, into a drum room for us to record in..So we used that..It had a nice zing on the cymbals and a sharp snare sound in there + I put to use the ambient room mic techniques S.Phillips had shown me - on the Banshees stuff.
Namely - get a cool sound on the whole kit with two room mic's (I like cardiod big diaphram mic's pointed AWAY from the kit at about 1 ft from concrete walls - this is called a 'boundary effect' I belive) anyhow get that sounding cool (compress & eq perhaps) next, your overheads, then 'tuck in' the close mic'ed stuff FOR DEFINITION ONLY - but don't base the starting sound from the close mic's..
Some indie/alt records seem to use ONLY the distant mic's, I find that sort of hyper realism, too 'washy' for my tase... personaly I dig the slam of close mic's.

I start with room / overheads then kick & snare...

try all that..

:)

hi, jules, nice forum

i'm just about to start recording with mike stavrou,(who also happened to produce/engineer siouxie's first two lp's, who also happens to be a yank who lived in london, but is now living in the land of oz), and we've pretty much decided on a similar setup: 2 overheads to get the sound, kick and snare to complement

mike also talks about the concept of stretching the sheet of sound from the overheads, and adding the other mics up to the point of the sheet stretching but not breaking (if you know what i mean)

cheers
max
newcastle, oz

I geuss there is no monopoly on "sheet" ideas!
:)
But seriously, that is a good analogy for how close mic's can be blended with room mic's.
:)
If you throw a sheet over the drummer you get more ghost notes!
:D

Thanks Jules,
Now to work!!