Kimberly Thompson is truly one of the World’s greatest drummers — she’s versatile, too. In her career, she’s played with the biggest names in jazz, soul, funk, hip hop, R&B and pop: Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Hargrove, Meshell Ndegeocello, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, who she’s been touring with for the past six years.
She uses the Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 and a pair of OctoPre MkII dynamics to provide a total 24 channels of high-quality preamps and A-D conversion, as well as a pair of studio-grade headphone outputs, which can be fed different mixes through the included Saffire Mix Control software. “I like how easy it is to monitor when I’m working on tracks”, Kimberly explains.
When recording larger sessions, Kimberly enlists her friend and collaborator Benedetto ‘Nino’ Caccavale. Nino’s an accomplished engineer, having recorded with Mobb Deep, Maxwell and Ashanti, and he and Kimberly have a very strong bond in the studio.
Check out this video showing Nino preparing the mics, Liquid Saffire 56 and Octopre‘s for recording Kimberly in an amazing drum session :
Focusrite available from:
Kazbar Systems Pro Audio Sales
