[In10city]

Brandon, your advice and suggestions are deeply appreciated. Thanks so much for taking the time to give me some great detailed advice. I will print out your reply and put it all into practice. Seems like it's going to take me longer in pre-production than it will actually take to record the drum tracks. Like you guessed, I ran into major phase problems on the last recording and to complicate matters further, the hard drive crashed about halfway through the project and I had to start over.

Dach, I also appreciate your ideas and suggestions and don't take offense to anything said. I want to learn as much as possible BEFORE i start this next recording project and I'm gratefull for any and all input.

Yes, Farpoint is a progressive rock band and this next album will offer me the most opportunity to play in the progressive metal style that I'm a big fan of. And sadly, I do need all those drums to cover the parts I've written for the songs. I have a short attention span I guess but I like to hear different "voices" in my drum parts and I do use everything quite a bit. When I am recording a song, I'll play a quick run-through in my mind and take away anything that won't be played just to avoid any sympathetic rings or buzzes. I also use more individual stands to keep the drums from resonating each other. The small accessory snare will only be used with the set in 1 song, the rest of the time it will be put away. The chimes will be taken down and recorded seperately as required for each song. Only 4 of the songs will require the "full set" and I'll record those first. Once those are out of the way, I'll strip it down to just the necessary parts to complete the gentler songs.

I had considered triggering each tom for recording but I don't like the sampled tom sounds available to me in the Alesis DM5 I have so I'm going to go natural. I always use new heads for recording and spend a lot of time tuning them and feel pretty confident with my ability to tune drums so I'm no too concerned with getting good sounds. I have birch shells so they really cut through and project without as much bottom overtones.

I'd love my drums to sound like Neil's from the late 70's early 80's era of Rush so you might say that's the sound I'm striving for but I'd also like to have my own sound. I don't like a lot of effects on the drums, I like them to stay pretty clean so the listener can hear all the goofy little things I'm playing.

I'll clean everything up in the studio and then start with the snare like Brandon recommended and just walk around the room, looking for a sweet spot. I'll build from there.

Any other advise is more than welcome. It's great to finally find a forum where I can get some great advice and answers to my questions. Thanks!