outoftheboxsounds.com
Online Session Drummer Stef Hambrook
Thanks to the internet there is no need to book a studio and session drummer separately!
My drumming specialism is playing with brushes and beaters and then using microphone gain to amplify their tone.
Let me bring a solid foundation to your project with my 25 years experience as a session drummer-engineer.
Upload
Firstly send me your tracks (stems preferably or a guide mix) via wetransfer
Record
Then I’ll record the drums in my purpose built studio
Revise
Listen to rough mixes of the drums. Let me know if you need any changes
Download
Finally once you’re completely happy, I’ll send you the final drum tracks
“You managed to make it sparse and restrained enough but somehow sneaked in a huge amount of wonderful content. This is an absolute gift and based on this effort you’re quite a magician. I hope you can help me on more tracks in the coming weeks”
Sol Trader – Rap Artist
Because I find it brings an extra dimension, my drum kit incorporates a Brazilian surdo drum. Traditionally, it is played at street carnivals so it happens to sound great multi-tracked! The surdo on this kit works like a bass ride because it comes across like a kettle drum without any fixed note. It’s a special effect but it blends well in the right setting. Also it hums along in sympathy with the other drums like a plate reverb.
Brushes Beaters and Sticks
I often work with a combination of brushes beaters and sticks. Using a variety of hitting implements is a bit like recording with different kinds of compression. Beaters sound like massively compressed sticks – or slowed-down tape – because there’s a heavy impact with a slow attack. Brushes also sound really textural when amplified with close mics. The combination works really well. If the track requires of course I’ll play sticks with a conventional drum kit too!
Take a listen to my portfolio here. If you’d like to hear your music with support from this kind of drumming do get in touch by sending an email to me at stef@outoftheboxsounds.com
Finally if you’d also like your project mixing hop over to the mix page.
Selected Session Drummer work
Firstly this is a track from Paul Butler’s album “Cities Made of Gold”. We ended up using quite a bit of lofi Sony MS907 on the drums for rawness. Meanwhile I’m using one brush and a surdo beater on the kit.
This is a track from the Debut EP of Cardigan Hip Hop artist Sol Trader. His razor-sharp dark lyrics sound at home against the dull thud of surdo off-mic, also the handle of the surdo beater on a ride cymbal.
From Jonny Velon’s album Goodness Flows which I am grateful to have played on and produced with him. There are plenty of dynamics throughout track and specifically some stick changes from me midway through.
A track from a personal project called Volander together with sound designer-guitarist John Lemke. This is a good example of minimal playing in order to get out of the way of the spoken word content from John Cage.
This is another song from Damir. The drums start half way through but the track builds throughout. Kuvshin was my favorite track since our first session in 2011 so I’m really glad this made it to be the opener.
Finally from Paul Butler’s Album “Cities Made of Gold”. On the drums I played one beater and one brush in order to get all the dynamics from delicate stuff through to heavy beats.
Tell me about your music
Drum Gear – Beverley Vintage Snare • Black Panther 12 inch Snare • Pearl Masters Drums with 15 and 10 inch toms 22 or 18 inch kick • Dave Collingwood Ride Cymbal 22 inch • Zildjian Dark K Crash 18 inch • Istanbul Agop Medium Thin Crash !8 inch • Zildjian K Hi Hats 13 inch • Contemporanea Aluminium Surdo • Box of tambourines and emphatically invaluable percussion bits
Microphones – Neumann U87 • AKG D112 • Placid Audio Copperphone character mic • AKG C414 x2 • Shure Beta 91 • • Sennheisser e604 x3 • Electrovoice RE-20 • Beyerdynamic M201 • Beyerdynamic M88 • AKG D440 • AKG C451x3 • Calrec CM1050 x2 • AKG D224E • Line Audio CM3 x2 • Also Altec 633A “Salt Shaker” Mic
Recording via Allen and Heath Qu24 mic amps finally into REAPER on Mac