ELO drums?

[Kyle Motor]

How did they do that? By they I mean ELO and by that I mean the drum sound, especially the toms. I don't know how to describe it, that big round, smooth-sounding thud with what sounds like a short-delayed (only 1 repeat) attack. Just listen to the big tom fills in "Telephone Line" or pretty much anything in the "New World Record"/"Out Of The Blue" era. I think I know that there's a lot of compression involved, but I don't have a compressor to play around with (yet). Anyone know the mechanics of how they got that sound? I know the drums and drummer are a big deal, what kind of room did they track in? Am I asking way too many questions? What the hell?

[Slider]

I heard they used only two room mics kind of far away. compressed to death.
I read this in one of those studio mags a while back.

[wing]

i have an old EQ mag with an article on this exactly... i'll dig it up and write it out later this evening.

i still get EQ for free, even after telling them i don't want it anymore, they still send it. it's like i'd have to pay NOT to receive it. oh well, there are occasional good things, but it's nothin like tapeop!

[markpar]

I'd love to get a drum sound as cool as the kick/snare/hat combo at the beginning of Don't Bring Me Down. Man, that beat just kills! It does sound compressed to death, that's for sure.

-mark

[soundguy]

for my dollar, a good drum sound begins and ends with a good drummer. worrying about a good drum sound is a worthless activity and I never really understood that until working with good drummers. You can take the biggest POS mic and plug it into the cheapest junk available and you'll have the sickest drum sound if you have a guy playing the kit who knows how to play it. Ive stopped worrying about good drum sounds, I know where to put mics, its not rocket science, voodoo or anything like that. The mic has a polar pattern, point the pattern on axis with the kit, make sure all the mics are in phase with the kit. EVERYTHING else is up to the drummer and how he has tuned and plays the kit. I dont care what anyone says to this otherwise.

dave

[matttherat]

for my dollar, a good drum sound begins and ends with a good drummer. worrying about a good drum sound is a worthless activity and I never really understood that until working with good drummers.

So going for a range of drum sounds from When the Levee Breaks to something off of Let it Be is totally up to the drummer?

No real point in worrying about the room dimensions, mic distance, drum set up? ANY drum sound comes from the drummer, be it a close muted thump to a huge sounding boom, is all in the wrist? Amazing.

Sorry to be a smart ass, but we know it comes down to the player, but there are other variables in getting different sounds.

Sorry if it offends you so that people are interested in such banal topics.

[joeysimms]

I thought ELO's special trick was double-tracked drums, anyone hear that?

[scarygroover]

perhaps 2 room mics double tracked?

[Moon Unit]

for my dollar, a good drum sound begins and ends with a good drummer. worrying about a good drum sound is a worthless activity and I never really understood that until working with good drummers. You can take the biggest POS mic and plug it into the cheapest junk available and you'll have the sickest drum sound if you have a guy playing the kit who knows how to play it. Ive stopped worrying about good drum sounds, I know where to put mics, its not rocket science, voodoo or anything like that. The mic has a polar pattern, point the pattern on axis with the kit, make sure all the mics are in phase with the kit. EVERYTHING else is up to the drummer and how he has tuned and plays the kit. I dont care what anyone says to this otherwise.

I don't think I've ever agreed more with any statement ever made on this board.

However, we are talking about Jeff Lynne here. He had to have had a trick or two up his sleeve.

[soundguy]

So going for a range of drum sounds from When the Levee Breaks to something off of Let it Be is totally up to the drummer?

yes it is.

No real point in worrying about the room dimensions, mic distance, drum set up? ANY drum sound comes from the drummer, be it a close muted thump to a huge sounding boom, is all in the wrist?

room dimensions and mic distance will obviously effect the amount of ambience that you are recording (the primary difference in the examples you site above). A close muted thump to a huge sounding boom will have %95 to do with how the drummer (or whomever) has tuned and prepared the kit and then played the kit and %5 to do with where you put a microphone. The sound the drums make going into the room is entirely up to what the drummer can do, where in the room you chose to capture and balance it is up to you.

Amazing.

amazing? I dont know, its just basic acoustics. drums are an acoustic insrtrument, how you hit them determines the sound. Where you place a mic to record them is just a perspective issue. this is wildly overlooked by people, notably the crowd that obsessed over drum sounds taking the drummer out of the equation.

Sorry if it offends you so that people are interested in such banal topics.

who's the one offended here? it's certainly not me. This is hardly a banal topic but you and I can sit down in front of the SAME exact setup and perform two entirely different sounds go to tape without touching a knob between setups. Without making that case, the discussion quickly does in fact become banal. Pointing a micropone and patching a compressor does not make a drum sound, sorry.

there are really better things to debate. this is my experience, be my guest to file it as worthless to your style of recording, whatever that may be.

dave

[kRza.]

with lyn everything was larger than life, so i imagine there was a shitload of processing here. Compression, double tracked, chorus even! Take disco drum sounds, make em rock and there you go.

[concubine]

I think most of us can agree that yes, most of the drum "sound" you get is entirely up to the drummer - how he plays and tunes his drums. But, there are recordings where the drum sounds have been manipulated quite a bit. Take Martin Hannett, for example. Sure, Joy Division's Stephen Morris had a pretty unique style, but I would definitely say that more than 5% of his sound came from Hannett's manipulation, ie - short delays, midi-triggers, lot's of re-amping, etc... He took drum sounds to a whole new level, and the *sound* is quite different from the comparitively spartan Joy Division demos with none of the production flair. It's the same drummer, but the drums have an effect on the albums which makes them sound pretty different and distinctive.

A better example - Bev Bevan was clearly a great drummer, as anyone whose heard ELO could figure out. But have you heard that song by the Move, "It Wasn't My Idea to Dance"? The drums are competent and forceful, BUT, they sound like shit!! Why??? It's not Bev's playing, it's largely the bizarre fucking eq-ing/effects they used to fuck with it.

My point is that some producers choose to do more than set up a mic and point it, some use effects that do account for more than 5% of the drum sound. I think there are times when a particular sound is achieved through a combination of the drummer *and* a little (or excess) production and/or mixing trickery, and sometimes I think that's what people are asking about when they say "how'd they get that drum sound?" Like the delay on the Beach Boys' "Do It Again."

Just like that Andy Johns article in TapeOp when he talks about When the Levee Breaks. The drums would have sound a little bit different had they been recorded in some completely baffled and deadened room with a mic on every drum and no compression. That's why I thought that question in the interview was totally valid. Obviously they arrived at an overall sound through more than just the drummer, although I'm not saying the drummer still isn't a massive part of it. It's the production techniques that sometimes further define the particular sound.

[scarygroover]

well said concubine. and by the way. I saw you at the ashby bart station the other day.

[concubine]

well said concubine. and by the way. I saw you at the ashby bart station the other day.

whoa, that's weird. that would've been monday. did i see you?

[scarygroover]

I think it was last week. I noticed you from the picture thread a few weeks back. I don't think you noticed me. maybe I don't know. next time I see you I'll introduce myself.

Cheers,
Michael