Alroight Bab is so close to being complete. The next thing to be tracked is percussion. And percussion isn’t percussion without an egg shaker!
I know what you’re thinking: how on earth does this warrant a review? Honestly, it’s because it’s one of the top queries for this site showing up in Google, and that was just from a passing mention.
Background
I can’t remember specifically where or when I got my egg shaker from. I have a suspicion that it was after recording my UK band’s first EP with Trev Gibson at Circle Studios.
Before this, I only had messed around with recording in my attic on a laptop. Trev warned us before starting that we’d never listen to a record the same way again.
And percussion was one of the ways that rang true. After recording that EP, everything – and I mean records I’d been listening to for years – suddenly had shakers and tambourines where I’d never heard them before!
So, since I started recording music myself, songs generally include shakers on verses and tambourines on chorus as standard practice.
Specs: Chicken Shake egg shaker
There are a bajillion brands offering egg shakers. Obviously bigger name brands expect a high price for it. In my own humble opinion, it’s a plastic egg-sized egg that you shake for a few minutes at a time.
I feel like Chicken Shake are the OG of egg shakers though. But, it’s difficult to find any information about them.
| Country of origin | China… probably? |
| Outer case material | Plastic |
| Inner material | Seeds or beads, according to Wikipedia |
Yup. You just saw a table outlining the specs of an egg shaker.
In use
I try to get drummers to do percussion, if I can. They’re just far better at maintaining rhythm than I am.
Of course the thing about the egg shaker is that it’s just a thing you shake a bit. That’s what I thought when Trev made me shake it into a mic. It really wasn’t that simple, and it took many takes! So if you haven’t tried it, I absolutely invite you to give it a go!
When I’m recording a song, it’s generally the last thing I track. Given that I have my way of doing things, I could probably do it before vocals, but I don’t know… it’s just habit at this stage, I guess.
I think of it as the garnish you put on a dish before you serve it. A bit of ‘God bless Ireland.’ Is allegedly what a chef at The Gresham Hotel would call the sprig of parsley he’d place atop of all his dishes.
In terms of recording, there’s nothing too fancy: I just listen to the track through my headphones, and shake into my 2200a.
Conclusion
Although I’ve had bandmates who claimed not to be able to hear subtle percussion like the egg shaker and tambourine, you’ll find it’s usually there if your record was produced by anybody vaguely professional.
It’s deceptively tricky to get right, but adds a worthy piece of color to a record.
The most important thing about this review is that I’ve smashed it in terms of SEO-friendliness.
So if you came here through a Google search: hey, what’s up?
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