Richie Peña on How to Record Drums at Home Like a Pro (Episode 143)

Everything you do is an audition.

Richie Peña is a drummer, programmer and producer whose credits, from the show notes, include Babyface, Anthony Hamilton, Boyz II Men, CeCe Winans, Ariana Grande, Josh Groban, Tori Kelly and David Foster. He is also one of Nomad's oldest collaborators: they met in Nashville as writers and producers, then toured the world together. In Episode 143 of The Career Musician, Richie had just come home from recording his father's album in Nashville, Moscow and India.

This episode is a masterclass in how to record drums at home like a pro, plus the business habits that keep a session player working. Here is what Richie shared.

Play everything to pay the rent

Richie's father is a jazz guitarist who chose business instead. In college, a teacher offered him a pop-funk gig. He said he only played jazz. Her advice: pick another career. If music is a financial game, you have to be able to play everything to pay the rent.

Richie and Nomad agree it was spot on for its time, and still mostly true. Players like Kamasi Washington built careers on their own music, but they also played for other artists for years. What has changed is the internet. As Richie puts it, now you make your own audience.

Home recording is nothing new. Doing it right is the secret.

Richie and Nomad have been recording from home since the late 90s. Richie's father's album moved from home rooms to a Nashville studio to a historic Moscow room where he cut a 30-piece chamber orchestra. The Moscow engineers asked where he had recorded the rhythm section and guitars. At home.

The basics still rule: record the cleanest sound you can, with no EQ, compression or effects going in. Learn the fundamentals first, like a barber learns clippers and scissors before designs. Richie walks through his whole process (gear, tuning, mics, editing, processing, delivery) on the drum recording lessons in TCM's Pro Series course.

How to record drums at home without overthinking it

During the lockdowns, Richie talked with killer touring drummers who had never pressed record themselves. Where do you start? Fewer mics than you think. He shows what a kick mic and one overhead sound like, then three and four mics. Plenty of great pop and rock records were made with kick, snare and two overheads. You don't need to mic the ride if the record doesn't need that detail.

"When I first started, I used an SM57 on everything... You can buy a gang of them and you'll be shocked how great they sound."

Richie Peña, 21:34

His starter rig: a handful of Shure SM57 dynamic mics (no phantom power needed) and an inexpensive interface. A friend's roughly $99 Behringer interface surprised him once it sat in a full mix. Ready for the next step? An Audix drum mic set and an eight-channel Focusrite Scarlett, and you could be recording records tomorrow. And if you hate the process after a couple of weeks, sell the gear.

His practical hacks: put the laptop and interface on a folding snack tray or a drum case where your side snare usually goes, hang a gym bag on top-heavy overhead booms, use rim clips, and look at ceiling mounts if your room is tight.

Deliver a premix, not a puzzle

When you record from home, you are the musician, co-producer, engineer, editor and mixer at once. Nomad's first point: always send a clean, faders-up reference mix the client can play as an MP3 on their phone. If that mix doesn't sound great, they will think your part isn't great.

Nomad says he can count on Richie's files like a clock: drop them in at bar one, beat one, roughly 10 to 16 channels, already balanced. Richie even prints his reverbs separately, so the mix engineer can raise or drop them. Most of the time, he says, they end up using his.

"Whether you're turning in files for Josh Groban or Tori Kelly or you're turning in files for a $250 demo, your process is the same."

The table, 18:50

Richie's version: treat every track like they are paying you a million dollars, because otherwise you will never get the second call. That is reliability beats virtuosity, delivered by Dropbox.

Know every genre, and choose the gear for the song

Gear choice is production. A huge ride on a light track won't work. The snare and tuning have to fit the style, and you don't need 100 snares, just two or three you can tune up and down. Clients expect you to know the tone without telling you which drum to use. Even crash cymbals are a style choice: a lot of old funk and R&B barely uses them.

That takes listening to everything. Before one trip, Richie's queue held a metal track, a Christmas song, CCM, gospel and a reggaeton track. Read up on how classic records were made, watch documentaries (one about Chicago sent him home to try new ideas), and Google what you don't know. He grew up on Latin music first, with parranda at Christmas, and learned production as a 15-year-old stuck in the studio waiting for his ride home.

No high-end outboard gear? No excuse. Richie built a Logic template with only stock plugins for a drummer friend with an eight-channel interface and SM57s. A year later, that friend was doing sessions from his garage. You already have the skill. Recording is just amplifying it.

The self-funded audition

Nomad tells the story of calling Richie in 2009: fly yourself to LA, I can't pay for your ticket or put you up, and I can't guarantee the gig. Richie said he was in, booked his own flight and hotel, auditioned and got the gig with Babyface, which lasted eight or nine years. At the time he was already busy with Natalie Grant and other dates. He went anyway. Everything you do is an audition, and so is how fast you say yes.

Half the job is business

Richie would gladly recommend friends for gigs, if they show work ethic: be on time, write a complete email, communicate with management, and don't try to become the artist's best friend. He thinks half or even 75 percent of what they do is the business side: emails, invoices, meetings, presenting your vision and talking budget.

As a producer, you become an accountant. He has seen production careers end because someone blew a budget. And there is no excuse for missing a flight with today's apps and reminders. His dress code tip for young players: when in doubt, wear black, but nice black. Show up looking like a professional. That is low maintenance / no drama.

Say yes

His definition of success came from a jazz club in New Delhi, where a man in his late 70s was playing and looked like the happiest person alive. If Richie ends up like that, he will be fine. His words of wisdom, proven by the Babyface audition, are simple.

"Say yes. Try it out. Don't say no. You're not too good for anything... The day you think something's beneath you, you'll never grow again."

Richie Peña, 1:15:20

The takeaway

Learn the basics, record with what you have, deliver files that make the client's life easy, and run your career like a business. Then say yes to the next thing. When the call comes, prepare with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.