Recording Percussion with Ed Roscetti & Maria Martinez

Getting to work with people that helped shape you as a musician is always a special treat. I had an absolute blast recording percussion with Ed Roscetti and Maria Martinez. Many moons ago I studied with both of them at Musicians Institute. Ed taught me how to play a true shuffle (we spent 3 weeks doing 1 single exercise until I could make it feel right!) and Maria helped me understand that latin grooves weren’t mere patterns to better your independence, they were words of a language.

We spent an entire day recording percussion and shooting promo video for Ed and Maria’s World Beat Rhythms Workshops. These workshops are really cool and are totally interactive. Ed and Maria perform using drumset along with a variety of hand drums and percussion instruments, moving from one instrument to another in the ensemble (exactly how they did it while we recorded). Instruments include drumset, djembe, doumbek, shaker, surdo, d-jun-d-jun, conga, batas, clay tones, mambo bell, shekere, klong yaw, tumbadora. But the cool part is how they get the ENTIRE audience involved. Everyone there gets a chance at hands on learning. It’s cool.

For our day of recording I had the challenge of setting of a mic configuration that would allow Ed and Maria to go to any instrument at any time and still capture that sound well. Whether it was the drumset, djembe, shakers, congas, surdo or tambourine, they needed the freedom to create and I had to capture it. At the same time all the instruments had to be in frame since they were recording with only 1 camera.

After a pre-production call with Ed about how they wanted to stage the instruments in the room I came up with a plan that would hopefully give them freedom to move where they wanted and not miss a note. It worked out really well so I decided to shoot a little behind the scenes video of the setup.

Ed and Maria groove so well together it’s contagious. Give the video a watch and you’ll see. Learn more about Ed at Roscetti Music and Maria at Drum On With Maria Martinez. Learn more about drum recording at Ultimate Studios, Inc and be sure to check out the Ultimate Studios, Inc YouTube Channel. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe!

Happy goovin’ everyone!
Charlie

Watch behind the scenes footage from the session below.

About Ultimate Studios, Inc

Ultimate Studios, Inc is a full service recording studio, mixing studio and band development resource located in Los Angeles, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Panorama City, CA 91402

Bring Your Music To Life

We believe EVERYONE deserves great sounding music!
Ultimate Studios, Inc is a boutique production facility for artists and bands to collaborate, create, and record.

Led by Producer/Engineer Charlie Waymire, our team assists artists through the entire creative process including recording, mixing, mastering, and video production.

At Ultimate Studios, Inc we understand that the recording process is just the beginning. That’s why we have a full team to help you create an online presence with full web development, SEO, advertising coaching and designing for Facebook, YouTube and Google.

Our ultimate goal is to help bands and artists build a strong brand for a lasting career!