charlie waymire

The Potluck Audio Conference is an annual trade show for audio engineers; studio, live, and broadcast. It’s held at the luxurious Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, AZ. PotluckCon is small and, unlike NAMM, very laid back. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality. Among the attendees were Audio-Technica, PMI Audio, Universal Audio, Sweetwater, Neve, API, Royer, Mojave Audio, Empirical Labs, to name a few.

The weekend also featured many great seminars on recording, mixing, acoustics, broadcast audio, DIY room treatment, hybrid studio setups, and all kinds of other audio and studio related subjects. It was a fantastic weekend of learning from some of the best in the business in an environment that made it easy to learn. It was awesome!

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was the “Casita Gear Crawl”. There is a long row of outdoor suites that are turned into mini studios and feature hands on demonstrations, recording seminars, and more.

Charlie's Recording Setup for the Potluck Audio Conference 2014

I was privileged to be asked by Audio-Technica to put on a seminar about minimal drum miking. The setup in the suite reminded me of being a kid and recording on 4-track cassette recording in my parent’s basement and friend’s houses. It was a lot different (and more challenging!) than working at the studio but I had a blast. We were able to make the room sound pretty nice by using about 16 Cylinder Traps from Aural Endeavors. Everyone at the conference was an amazing help in getting all the gear together and having extra help on hand. Luckily I had my gorgeous girlfriend on hand to help me setup too. It’s a little unnerving to put on a seminar using a rig you’ve never used!

I did a lot of experimenting before the seminar to figure out what I would do. Minimal miking isn’t a new concept but Craig Schumacher, PotluckCon’s driving force, asked me to approach it from a modern recording perspective and not from a classic point of view. That proved quite challenging but I think I came up with a few twists on the classic minimal miking techniques and put my ideas down in a handout, “The Art of Recording Drums – 4 Twists On Minimal Drum Miking”, for all the attendees. Since I think there are some pretty good ideas I thought I would share them with anyone interested in recording drums. These techniques don’t require lots of microphones or lots of gear. They will provide some pretty amazing drum tones and are great for home recording enthusiasts as well as the seasoned pros.

I’ve recorded some amazing sounding drums with these techniques and I hope they can help you do the same!

Enjoy!
Charlie Waymire

Get Your Copy of “The Art of Recording Drums – 4 Techniques On Minimal Drum Miking” FREE eBook Here!

Photos from PotluckCon 2014