Service · Berlin
Different rooms for a range of tones: from tight and focused to big and ambient. We have a fantastic selection of kits, snares, cymbals and a full percussion locker — from African drums to Latin percussion and classical mallet instruments — so your session sounds like a record before the mix even starts.
THE ROOMS
Depending on your production needs, we can use the main room or our specially designed drum room for recording drums. Our main room provides spacious ambience for a "big American" sound with plenty of boom and punch. The non-parallel walls create a lush decay with an even frequency balance. The drum room on the other hand favors a quick, musical decay — long enough to put air around the kit, short enough to stay tight when the tempo lifts. Here the walls are also non-parallel but the room is fitted with more absorption to keep things tight.
When a session calls for the drums to interact with the rest of the band, the kit moves into the main room instead — same mics, different feel, more bleed and more ambience. We consult with you to decide where the kit should go to meet the needs of your production.
Kits, Snares & Percussion
Beyond the kit, the percussion locker covers African drums, darabukas and hand percussion, congas, bongos and timbales, plus shakers, cowbells and a range of smaller percussion gadgets — built up over years of recording African drumming groups, classical percussion and vibraphone, and Latin American percussion sessions alongside kit drumming.
How we work
A drum sound that translates is a sound that fits the rest of the music. We start every session with the song — reference, tempo, where the drums sit in the arrangement — and tune the kit, choose the snare and place the mics from there. Triggers and samples are tools, not crutches; we only reach for them when they genuinely help. That approach comes from the engineer's own years behind the kit — recording his own playing as well as a wide range of touring and session drummers based in Germany — so tuning and mic decisions are made the way a drummer would want them made, not just an engineer.
Who it's for
Drum tracking is one of our most-booked services. Depending on your needs, we can provide you with a range of drum sound options.
Best studio in town! Big daylight-filled rooms, great vibe, great equipment and sound. Rob is an amazing recording, mixing and mastering engineer — your place to record in Berlin in a cool, relaxed environment.
Both work. The house cupboard covers vintage Ludwig and Japanese kits, a big rock kit and a small jazz kit, plus a deep snare shelf — many drummers travel with their own snare and cymbals and use a house kit for everything else. Bring whatever helps the record.
Yes — djembe, doundoun and other African drumming ensembles are recorded regularly, usually in the main room where the space and natural ambience suit a group of players interacting together rather than a single close-mic'd source. Multiple players are mic'd both individually and as a group, so the ensemble's interplay stays intact in the mix.
Yes, both as a full Latin percussion setup and as individual overdub elements — congas, bongos and timbales are part of the house percussion locker alongside shakers and cowbells. Sessions are tuned and mic'd the same way a drum kit session is: matched to the song and the tempo, not a fixed template.
We keep darabukas and a range of hand percussion in-house, alongside African drums, congas, bongos and timbales — so most sessions don't require you to bring anything. If you have a specific instrument with its own tuning or history, bringing it is always welcome; we'll mic and treat it the same as house gear.
Yes — vibraphone, mallet percussion and other classical percussion instruments are tracked here as both solo and ensemble sessions. For orchestral-scale percussion recorded as part of a full ensemble in a concert hall, that's usually handled through our on-location classical service; studio sessions here suit solo, chamber-scale or overdub percussion work.
Yes — sessions with several percussionists playing together are tracked with a combination of individual instrument mics and a room pair, so each player is separable in the mix without losing how the ensemble locks together as a group. We'll plan mic count and room placement with you ahead of the session based on the instrumentation.
Yes — sessions here are engineered by a working drummer, which shapes everything from tuning suggestions to how a kit is mic'd for the song. That background comes from years recording both his own playing and a wide range of touring and session drummers based in Germany.
Yes — that's a normal booking. Send a rough mix and a click track, and we'll come back with kit and snare suggestions before the session; edited multitracks are returned the next working day.
Four to six songs in a day is normal for a well-rehearsed drummer with charts and references, done across multiple takes. Complex arrangements or heavy editing move slower — we'll plan the day together on the pre-production call.
Yes. Multi-velocity, multi-mic round-robin sample sessions are a regular part of the calendar, and this extends to hand percussion and world instruments as well as drum kit — tell us the format you need and we'll plan the session around it.
Let's plan a session together.
Tell us about the music, the players and the sound you'd like to hear back. We'll come back with a plan.
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