Round Trip Ticket

Track #8 on evolution is “Round Trip Ticket.” This is a simple conga groove song, recorded September 24, 2006.

On this song, I finally figured out how to get a full, rich sound when recording the congas. Here is the system I use for two congas. In this case, the tumba was tuned to F# and the conga to B, but many other tunings are possible.

• I use a separate microphone for each drumhead. Both the conga and tumba are set up with a Behringer B-2 condensor microphone, which goes through a preamp, through a compressor, and into the mixing board.
• At the bottom of the drums, I put a SM-58 dynamic microphone, phase reversed relative to the ones at the top.

I wind up with two on top, two on bottom. Through careful mixing of these sounds during playback, it is possible to get the woody, earthy sound the congas produce. Just a tad of reverb on the bottom mics also helps get the “boom” into the mix.