“I have a renewed respect for engineers and producers, it's like I've stepped into a whole new world,” says Alex Toff, who joins the ranks of professional musicians who record tracks themselves so they can deliver them quickly to the client.
He works under the name ATDrumtracks in a professional, acoustically treated studio designed by Nick Whitaker, in what used to be an abandoned garage. On the ATDrumtracks website we can read: “This is the place where you'll get fantastic-sounding drum recordings, tracked quickly and efficiently, played exactly the way you want them,” and that is exactly what his clients can expect. The studio currently has a huge collection of drums, microphones, and high-end studio gear, including the Audient ASP880 8-channel mic preamp and ADC.
ASP880: “It's super easy to use! Literally plug and play.”
“People want the work right away. These home setups make it possible for a drummer to provide this kind of fast service,” says Alex, who carried out this project entirely on his own.
With almost 20 years of experience playing drums both in the studio and live, collaborating with a long list of artists in every musical style, and a résumé that includes names like Belinda Carlisle, Bonnie Tyler, Mike Posner, or A-Ha, it's safe to say he knows how to do his job and is fully qualified to deliver fully professional-quality performances. Choosing recording gear was completely new to him and demanded a learning curve that could potentially have been a bit steep. Fortunately, he found Audient products. “It's super easy to use! Literally plug and play. The ASP880 simply makes everything sound fantastic, no matter what you've plugged into it.”
In his studio, Alex has an audio interface with four mic preamps and uses the ASP880 for the remaining channels. “Being a drummer, I obviously need more than four channels, and Audient gives me up to 12 recording channels,” he continues. “That obviously gives me lots of channels to experiment with, for example, mono overheads, room mics, and so on. I don't need any more drums!”
Despite all this new technology, he argues that his precision as a drummer remains the biggest challenge in his work. “You can have all this technology, but if you're not on top of it, locked to the click, there's not much you can do. The drum kit has to be well tuned so the sound is good at the source. I keep learning about the technical side every day, and you have to learn. The playing itself? That's a different animal.”
“...having Audient gives me up to 12 recording channels with lots of possibilities” Thanks to this simple but top-quality gear, and his solid work ethic, Alex has every right to feel proud of how far he has come. “I literally went from knowing absolutely nothing about recording to building a studio, choosing all the gear, learning how to use it, and pressing the record button to get fantastic-sounding drums,” he says. And what would he tell his younger self, who was just starting out in this new activity? “Don't obsess over virtuosity. Take care of the groove, play in time, and be consistent.”
