spoon drum sounds

PT · Post by PT » Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:50 pm

Does anyone know any details about how the drums were recorded/mixed on the last two Spoon albums? I really love the drum sounds on Kill The Moonlight. "All the Pretty Girls Go to the City" especially rules. I love how the drums are really big, but natural sounding, and up in the mix.

Would love to be able to achieve this type of drum sound.

Dubious · Post by **Dubious** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:02 am

doesnt the drummer record al ltheir stuff? i bet that helps

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:09 am

i generally dig their drum sounds too. to me, it sounds like it's all in the tuning.

paranoidandroid · Post by **paranoidandroid** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:12 am

I've heard that Jim Eno is a big fan of tube pre's, other than that i know he's got a later model neve console at his home studio. But ya those drums are tuned really well, and pushed up a bit in the mix.

dirty · Post by **dirty** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 12:41 pm

For all the non-drummers out there, how do you identify good vs bad drum tuning? I just don't know the instrument well enough, I guess...

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:16 pm

i can pretty much like any drum sound....some would call mission of burma's drum sound horrible, i love it. i dont know.....so i'm not talking about good tuning vs. bad tuning. although as a drummer, i tune mine for nice round, full tones, bouncy rather than attack-and-die.

but talking about spoon, i'm just saying those drums sound relatively natural to me (aside from some compression), they're just tuned low. the space around it always screams "small room" whether its the room or a preset on a reverb unit, i dont know. with low tension, you get a "softer" tone. they've probably got a decent amount of damping going on, because the tones are focused, not flappy (that changes from song to song i guess). with looser drum heads, you might try adding more damping- moon gel, gaff tape, whatever you want to use, to get more of a tone rather than the sound of the head.

daede · Post by **daede** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:36 pm

Check this out:

Some pictures of Jim Eno's studio.

rawnickel · Post by **rawnickel** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:52 pm

I read somewhere about how they recorded the basics at The Garage in Austin. Apparently the key to the drum sound was using a pair of AKG D790 mics for the overheads. I've never heard of this model mic before, but if you happen to find a pair, let me know how you make out. [By the way everyone, this is a total lie. I'm just screwing with PT so don't tell him.].

jmoose · Post by **jmoose** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:14 pm

I haven't listened to 'em in ages so I can't help there, but I vagely remember the Tape Op (???) piece on their studio from a few years ago with the pictures of a Trident 65/24 & a couple of tape machines kicking around. That was around the time when "Girls Can Tell" was released.

MechaGodzilla · Post by **MechaGodzilla** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:39 am

Didn't I hear somewhere that they recorded some of the drums for Girls can Tell outdoors, like in a backyard?

timbertrout · Post by **timbertrout** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:54 am

Great drum sounds...definitely.

Major components are also:

-Drum parts themselves: typically not busy...very understated and tasty.

-Song Arrangements: They're fairly sparse, so the drums have room. I read an interview with Sppon, and they talked about how much time they as spend removing elements from a song as they do adding.

Think of "The Beast and Dragon Adored"...mostly a simple drum part with single low piano notes comprising the basic track. Lots of room for the drums to breathe.

Coco · Post by **Coco** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:08 am

timbertrout wrote: -Drum parts themselves: typically not busy...very understated and tasty.

I think that is %75 of the battle right there and why I love Spoon so much. Knowing when not to play is the key. And as timbertrout said, the drums have room to breath. Also having a great drummer, a great studio and a great engineer (can't remember the fellows name, as well as Mr. Eno) helps alot too. These guys are one of my favorite bands, I just wish they would tour Canada besides just hitting Toronto or Vancouver.

stapes · Post by **stapes** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:34 am

I know the guys, so maybe I can shed some light. I don't know exactly what they use on everything, but in general. Mike McCarthy is the producer/engineer that works on all the spoon stuff. He's pretty hands on with the bands, so there's a big part between the band coming up with stuff, and them fitting it into the song which like everyone has said, is a nice study in pop minimalism. They recorded most of the album in Jim's garage studio in his backyard. For Girls and Moonlight, he had a Trident 65 back there, but always used api or neve preamps. For the last record, Jim got an 8036 neve, which it turns out is the 65th neve ever made. It's a behemoth and sounds amazing. I don't know that they used the pre's much on that board, as mic brings alot of his own gear to sessions. This consists of various old pieces of gear like telefunken, langevin, urie, neve, calrec. He's strictly a vintage guy. His tube mic collection would make anybody drool. I know he's a fan of vintage neumann tube mics on the drums, but I don't know specifically what he used and where. They did record the drums in the control room, so it's not really a studio designed for recording in. It just sounds pretty nice for both recording and mixing. Jim just finished adding on to his home studio, so now he has a live room and a tracking room. I'll try to see if I can make it over there soon and report back.

Erik Wofford
Stapes Audio

timbertrout · Post by **timbertrout** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:00 am

At the fadeout of "The Beast and Dragon Adored", it sounds like the close mics get muted, and all that is left is the room mic and/or overheads. It's a pretty good study of what those distant sounds add to an overall drum sound. The room sound seems fairly unadorned...not radically eq'd... not "flaming lips compressed"... Just sounds simply like a couple omnis 6 feet from a drum set in a 15' x 15' room.

Also check this out:

http://www.spoontheband.com/site.html

click "pics, and "recording".

You'll see some tracksheets for some of their songs. Pretty standard track layout for drums: close mics on each drum, 2 overheads, one room.

glagola1 · Post by **glagola1** » Thu May 18, 2006 1:18 pm

Yeah, the drums sound great... now if only the guitars were not so deep inside my ear cannals. Some of that drum room mic action would be swell in the guitar tracks. The sense of foreground/background and distance is pretty annoying to me.

Just my opinon and I'm certainly not saying I could do better.

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