MATT MERCADO: Hi. Matt Mercado. We're here at Sonic Palace and we're going to walk you through how we recorded our record. Whoops. Hold that. Stop that one second.

I'm going to show you how we recorded this, our record, it's Matt Mercado and the Amazing Devils, my first solo record. It's out on Darkstar records, April 22nd, and we're going to walk you through the whole process of starting from drums. This is how we started it.

That's Brent the drummer [OVERLAPPING].

BRENT MAYS: How are you doing? I'm Brent Mays.

MATT MERCADO: This is my assistant, Adam.

ADAM: I'm Adam the intern.

MATT MERCADO: Bass player, Bas.

BASIL COOPER: Basil Cooper. How are you doing?

MATT MERCADO: All right. And we're going to start with the kick drum here. First, this is a Trick kit, die cast aluminum. I like it in the studio just because it's -- I'm personally not a drummer so I can leave in the back for, you know, how long it can get cold and stuff so this is why I had this one, and it's real nice too. You get that this is the kit that we used on the record.

We're going to start with the kick drum. I personally use, this is your old standard, AKG D 112. You can -- there's some other mics I've been using lately too which I like. The Audix D6, that's pretty good too but this is -- I just have this around and I've had it for years so I'm used to it. I'm going to start by putting it in right about that much on an angle, and if you can see you may need to get light here because that's -- this is a -- let me get a -- Very important if you can kind of shoot up in there, way up in there, and see where is it, and I kind of get down and you can put it in even a little bit further if you wanted to or bring it out but it's on an angle and you're going to aim it at the beater, exactly where the beater hits the kick drum right there, and that's I've been recording drums now probably 15 years and that's just where I like to put it.

Onto the snare drum here. It's just a little bit off so [INAUDIBLE] a little bit here a second. Basically, you want to come about an inch off the head, and some people like it a little bit in further. I've been doing lately right about there. It's about an inch away, pointing a little bit down. With drummers, you always have to be careful of getting away, getting around all their stuff.

Next, the first tom. It looks about right, right about there. You kind of point it down. You don't want it like this because then you're just going to pick up all this other stuff and cymbals, and always, you know, try to get the drummers to get the cymbals as high as possible because a lot of them have them, when they came down today, they were set down here. You need the separation so, you know, work [OVERLAPPING].

PATRICK OGLE: You need separation for the sound or is just a like a mechanical thing might whack the mic, or.

MATT MERCADO: This will bleed into this mic, and we don't want that, so we want the cymbals to be as far away from the toms as possible as they're comfortable with. You know, tell me that to adjust as much as they can because a lot of times they're down here. That's just going to bleed and even hit the mic too but it's definitely going to bleed into there,so we got the -- this one set up. Pretty much this one can go back a little bit maybe, right about there, and then --

PATRICK OGLE: What about those mics? The ones on the top?

MATT MERCADO: These are actually Audix F10s and I just -- I used to use PL10's, yeah Electro-Voice PL10's but I replaced some of there. I like these a lot. They're a little crisper sounding, and on the floor tom I actually use an SM58. I know it's not a very popular one on the floor tom but that's the one I like to use. I've been using it a lot lately, and right about there it depends where they have the ride again but try to get it away from there and also, try to -- You're talking crosstalk; these are cardiod mics so the crosstalk is gonna be all around there. I mean you're going to get a little bit of that but that's how he has these cymbals setup; there's not much else you can do. You might be able to come around here but that might be on his way so maybe you can even put it a little bit more over there for that. That would probably beat the two but that should be fine, right about there.

And then I'm going to -- whoops --- On the two rides right here -- I'm sorry on the two overheads, my technique -- Some people use an XY, It's like this, an it's okay. I just -- This is my technique. This is my technique; I just go over the cymbals. I tried to keep them as even as possible, and here is the diaphragm right here. I try to aim on the outside of the bell, right there, because if you go a little bit to here, you're going to get a little washiness, a little bit too much here or maybe too much bell. So right about aim, we can put on a little bit of an angle. Aim for right for about -- right about there on each side, on the other side, and then the same thing in this one, aim right about there. Sometimes the drummers have their cymbals set up differently so this is a nice setup. This is a pretty easy setup to mic right here. It's not too bad at all.

On the rag, we're going to do about the same thing. I'll try to --

PATRICK OGLE: What is -- what are there -- What this mic here we're talking about around here?

MATT MERCADO: Actually, these are all Rode just because I like them. These are NT 1-A's and this is an NT-3, and just finally worked -- I have a used -- I used to use AKG C 14's a lot, just kind of like these for the overheads. I've been using them a lot lately. Probably -- Definitely this is the exact setup we used on the recording of the records, so. And then here's the ride's. You know you can -- you come out here a little too much, it's gonna get -- you're going to get a little woo woo kind of washing and stuff, just try to maybe quite a little bit away. I mean more towards the bell, right about there. You can go more bell but right about there is usually pretty good.

PATRICK OGLE: I see. What's the logic behind where you aim that mic particularly there.

MATT MERCADO: With the -- This is because if I aimed -- ended here --

PATRICK OGLE: You're going to get a lot of wooshinesss.

MATT MERCADO: Yeah, like the nature of the cymbals, [MATT MERCADO STRIKES A CYMBAL] you're going to get a lot of the air going "Woo, woo, woo," like that. If you kind of put it a little bit here, you get a little bit more crisy, crisp crispiness. Same thing with these cymbals too, if they're out a little bit too much, you're going to get more of a flapping air sound as opposed to if you get them right on the -- aim more towards the bell, you're going to get a little bit more of just the cymbal sound that you're looking for and not just a big wash as what I do it for. And so right here is a little studio secret. They've been -- It's been used a lot now. A lot of people used to reverse wire an actual speaker but this is -- Yamaha came out with this. It's called a Yamaha Subkick, and what this does is that this is a front-of-kick mic and this just has - I just adds actual -- as you can see, it's an actual speaker. Let me see if I can show it to you here real quick. You can see that and it's a little tented right here, but this is an actual speaker wired as a microphone so it's a ginormous diaphragm microphone is what this is.

PATRICK OGLE: What kind of sound does that provide? What does that give you? It's different from what you would have --

MATT MERCADO: This is just like [MATT MERCADO IMITATING A WHOOSHING SOUND] all thunderous low end.

PATRICK OGLE: Okay.

MATT MERCADO: And then combined with this, we're going to get -- use that, use the AKG D 112, we're going to get more click, the body of the actual bass drum, and then we can even roll-off a little bit of the sub, and then use this for the sub, and then combining them with the one that we give them in the studio. I'll show you.

When you're mic'ing the same signal with two different mics, a lot of times you'll get phase cancellation, and that's very prevalent in poor recordings. So I'll show you this should be pretty easy for you to hear the phase relationship in that when we get into the control room.

And then one more mic we have here is the hi-hat mic. Same thing here where I'm aiming it right about there. As I said again, if you put it here, is you're going out of the way like that --

PATRICK OGLE: Is there any difference between when you're dealing with a hi-hat, when you're dealing with the rides?

MATT MERCADO: They're all pretty similar, similar cymbals. They're all pretty cymbals. Hi-hats are a little tougher. You might want to EQ the hi-hat a little bit more in the control room. Rides usually generally sound pretty good. Hi-hats definitely sound -- they have a lot of upper mid frequencies that are very annoying and you can EQ those out and just kind of dip those particular frequencies.