Castle Cove, New South Wales

Tucked away in the leafy northern Sydney suburb of Castle Cove, former Split Enz drummer Mal Green has set up his ideal recording facility, Green Sound Music. The studio not only provides a great space to work in, it also sports a stupendously leafy vista, viewable directly from the control room.

The mainstays of the studio are the Soundcraft 6000 48-channel console, and two sets of Roland V-Drums, a setup Mal reckons provides not only the best drum sound any band could require, but also ensures that the drum sounds can be gained within minutes of setting up. While one kit remains in the main recording space, a second V-kit can be used upstairs if the main studio gets a bit overcrowded.

“As a drummer,” engineer/producer Mal Green explains, “I’ve found the best and the most practical way of recording drums was using Roland’s V-Drums. As you know, acoustic drums are a whole other ball game, but having the V-Drums suddenly means not having to worry about 16 channels of mics and all the cabling and outboard that goes with it. It makes it relatively simple really, only needing a couple of channels because of the MIDI aspect. Then once all the drums are ‘captured’, I record them down into individual audio tracks. I’ve just got the new TDW-1 upgrade for it, which has really improved the sensitivity and the dynamics, and also the sounds themselves.” According to Mal, the new sounds sit a lot better in the track.

Mr Green runs the show using a Mac Pro with Apogee converters, Apogee Symphony 32 card, and Cubase 4. He’s also hugely into his pair of Peach pre-amps – hand crafted by the enigmatic Dave Peach of Coogee. For monitoring, Mal’s happy with the slightly less enigmatic Yamaha NS-10s.

GreenSound Studio: 0434 933 794 or www.greensoundmusic.com.au