As drummer for UK rockers Def Leppard, Rick Allen has recorded in world-class studios. But he's always pursued the idea of home recording, he says, "because I just enjoyed being around the house." Allen has acquired a cache of recording equipment over the years, and he's had studio rooms in previous homes.
In his present house in Encino, Calif., though, his gear had simply been set up in the living room. But this past summer, Allen and his wife, Stacy, had a baby, and he realized that in order to stay at home as much as he wanted to, he needed more in the way of a work space--not to mention a little isolation! So he contacted studio designer Chris Pelonis of Pelonis Sound and Acoustics and sought his help in turning the living room into two spaces--an iso room and a control room. "I wanted a noise room, and I wanted a listening room--something where I could sit and have a reference point," Allen says, "and Chris had some really good ideas."
Pelonis specified a soundproof doorway into the room and acoustical treatments in the interior. He also designed a large, semi-circular, partially isolated drum booth, which fills about a third of the room. The booth has a concrete slab floor and geometry that creates a live sound with an even, cracking decay, which is just what Allen was looking for. Previously, Allen says, "When I finished recording drums, I always found myself tweaking hi-mids and highs and never rolling the stuff out necessarily. So I told Chris I'd rather have a room where it was more just a choice of drums, heads, mics and placement and leave the EQ exactly where it is and let the room do the work."
Construction was completed last fall, and Allen set to work on his own. (Asked about his engineering chops, he replies, "When I get a piece of gear, I'm looking more for an effect or character than a 'good' sound--I'll wind it from zero to all the way on. I'm like an engineer's nightmare, really!") In January, Def Leppard guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell joined Allen at his home, and the trio spent a couple of weeks rehearsing and demoing material for the band's next Mercury release. Engineer Gerald McDonnell (whose credits include The Chieftains and Paul Brady) came over from Dublin to help with the sessions.
For the demos, McDonnell says, Allen was mostly using his Roland TD-10 pads, set up in the booth. "The two guitarists were set up in the control room with their Marshall stacks and effects," he says, "and both of them had Palmer speaker simulators. The bass went through a DI and a tube preamp/ compressor, and that was how they were jamming out songs. Vocals would go on later." He adds that the booth is a nice space for the acoustic drums: "If you're looking for tight, punchy, reflective-room sorts of sounds, it's ideal."
Allen's gear arsenal includes a pair of dbx 160 compressors, a Yamaha SPX 990, Lexicon's LXP-1 and ALEX, and an Alesis Quadra-verb. Mics include Neumann U87s, Shure SM57s, Sennheiser 421s, and AKG 451s, a 414 and a D112. Allen's TL Audio preamp/compressor gets a lot of use, as he usually runs signal through it straight to his 32 tracks of ADAT (two XTs and two originals, synched up with BRC). For the recent demo sessions, McDonnell monitored through Allen's Mackie 32*8 and his KEF Point Source audiophile speakers. "There are the obligatory NS-10s, which I used for getting sounds," McDonnell says, "but the KEFs are much less stressful for near-field listening; they're just nice, warm-sounding speakers, which, once you know how to listen to them, are good on a 12-hour day."
With McDonnell's help, Allen and his bandmates got the bones of four new songs down in 12 days--an excellent start. "A home studio doesn't negate a proper studio," Allen says, "but working at home is wonderful. And now it's even more relevant, because it gives me the opportunity to be a dad as well."
