Joy Division drum sounds...?

[frank]

how were they accomplished?

[concubine]

You wouldn't want to quote me on this, and i'm not sure about micing, but I do know that Martin Hannett was really into reamping (see reamping thread that recently popped up) where he'd play the recorded tracks through the monitors and re-record them using room mics. I don't know if he went back and blended all the tracks, or just used the re-amped ones. Then he'd add lot's of delay and some reverb. That's how a lot of the sounds on Closer were achieved, apparently. Hannet was also heavily influenced by dub techniques, and he really liked for the bass and drums to dominate the mix, while the other instruments tended to float about the periphery.

Hannet's snare sounds are almost *always* very bright and crisp (with the notable exception of JD's first record), so whatever you can do to achieve that will help. Lot's of effects on everything - delay, reverb, maybe chorus or phase.

Check out this website, there's probably some useful stuff you can read about here: http://freespace.virgin.net/anna.b/hannett/hannett.htm

Jeff

[the missing boy]

hannett has said that several techniques were key to the JD drum sound: tape compression, ultra-short delays (using an early digital unit, I believe, model escapes me right now) and reamping into a small, tiled room.

aside from these, heavy gating of the drums is another obvious one.

here's the part that people always forget about though - the drummer. steve morris played, for the most part, quite sparsely, and hannett's production really enhances this aspect. not to mention a rather ragged sense of rhythm, again contributing much more to the sound of the band than any recording/mixing techniques. I think listening to any live JD recording bears this out, as they are still incredibly identifiable.

[apropos of nothing]

Don't forget the Simmons drums

[flanneljammies]

In the Joy Division book I have, it talks about how Hannet made Morris go back and overdub each drum separately (snare, then kick, then toms). Most of the time the original drum track was not used. This also helps explain the robotic feeling on some of the stuff.

[concubine]

here's the part that people always forget about though - the drummer. steve morris played, for the most part, quite sparsely, and hannett's production really enhances this aspect. not to mention a rather ragged sense of rhythm, again contributing much more to the sound of the band than any recording/mixing techniques. I think listening to any live JD recording bears this out, as they are still incredibly identifiable.

Sometimes Morris' drumming could be really complex too. Take Atrocity Exhibition, for example, where he's practically playing this vague, descending, tom-dominated melody with the way the drums are tuned. Colony is another fairly complex one w/ lot's of toms. So, make sure you've got good sounding toms, and spend a lot of time tuning them. Make sure the snare is real tight and close-mic'd.

But yeah, Morris had a very stiff, kind of tense style that really instilled the music with an unique edge, enhanced by all of Hannet's delays and such. Regardless of the band, Hannet definitely had a signature drum sound, achieved by doing all the things we've mentioned. Just listen to Magazine, Section 25, the Names, early New Order, etc... and you'll hear it. Crisp, clean, big, sharp, upfront, and heavily treated with short-range delays and weird sounding reverbs.

It might also help if you, in true Hannet style, tell the band to shut the fuck up whenever they make a suggestion, and waste lot's of their time strung-out on junk, hiding under the mixing desk, and only work after ingesting large quantities of psycheadelics. Ah, why are so many groundbreaking geniuses completely fucking insane?

Jeff

[teleharmonium]

apropos of nothing wrote: "Don't forget the Simmons drums"

After a quick look around the 'net it appears that only early prototypes of Simmons electronic drums existed at the time JD was making records. I've never heard of any connection. Steve definitely used a Synare, on 'Insight' , 'She's Lost Control' and sometimes on 'I Remember Nothing', and maybe some other stuff at live shows, but it was just a single one mounted by his snare (you can see it on the Granada TV videos), otherwise he was using traditional acoustic drums in those days.

As far as other memorable Steve drum parts, I would suggest Komakino and Dead Souls. Hannett's delay of choice was an early AMS.

[frank]

thanks guys...gives me a few ideas for my own projects.

[gentle_ike]

Very cool string guys. You learn a lot here just be watching. Anyhow, speaking of Simmons, I have a gaggle of pads and a unit floating around. I have been building my own pads from rat shack parts and was wondering if anybody had any experience or ideas building a synth unti to be triggered by the pads. Nothing fancy, I would just like to get some new synth drum sounds on the cheap. I have tried some simple 555 based osc. circuits, but I can't seem to get the piezo to trigger just right.
Thanks,
Joel

[tyson]

This is really odd....I just got done talking about Hannett's production with Joy Divsion on another messageboard no more than 10 minutes ago. My main point was that in my imaginary Tyson Dream World, Joy Division would have recorded alternate versions of their albums with a more traditional, punk-influenced producer. Listen to the Warsaw demos or any live recordings of JD and it becomes obvious that the way they wrote the songs was a lot different from how the album versions finally came out under Hannet's directions; while I think his vision is fascinating, I think it can tend to take away from the actual songs. Anyone agree?

[concubine]

This is really odd....I just got done talking about Hannett's production with Joy Divsion on another messageboard no more than 10 minutes ago. My main point was that in my imaginary Tyson Dream World, Joy Division would have recorded alternate versions of their albums with a more traditional, punk-influenced producer. Listen to the Warsaw demos or any live recordings of JD and it becomes obvious that the way they wrote the songs was a lot different from how the album versions finally came out under Hannet's directions; while I think his vision is fascinating, I think it can tend to take away from the actual songs. Anyone agree?

Nah. While it's true that Joy Division were initially pissed about what Hannet did to Unknown Pleasures (they wanted something raw and way less produced sounding), part of what made Joy Division really stand out from the rest of the scene *was* Hannet's production. Not that they'd have been just another run-of-the-mill punk band without Hannet, but he definitely gave them a sound that was strikingly original at the time, which spawned countless imitators. For me it's difficult to imagine the stuff without Hannet's sound; that atmosphere is absolutely an integral part of the Joy Division experience, and really adds to the songs. But that's just me. I've also read that in hindsight, the remaining Joy Division members tend to be slightly less harsh about Unknown Pleasure's production these days, at least ackknowledging that it was pretty distinctive and groundbreaking, despite the fact that it tamed their rawness.

And for me, personally, I don't like the sound of their demos, and I tend not to listen to their live stuff for the same reason. Hannet's techniques are like ear candy to me. Plus, Closer, as well as the singles released around the same time, all still have that heavily treated Hannet sound, and one would think that by that time, the band had come around to appreciating what Hannet was doing, or else they'd have used a different producer.

Jeff

[tyson]

I guess I'm just too damn punk rock.....

[concubine]

I guess I'm just too damn punk rock.....

No, I'll freely admit that I'm a total art-fuck wanker.

[moogplayer]

Jeff - I'm right with you on all counts. I remember hearing the Warsaw demo and thinking "this isn't anything special". And the live bootlegs out there didn't give JD justice. Reason being, we got used to Hannett's signature on JD recordings. You can argue that Hannett was Joy Division's 5th member. Some years ago I bought up a lot of Hannett produced releases on Factory Records (not just JD). Listen to Section 25, Durutti Column's 1st album, and Magazine. This stuff still stands up today.

[teleharmonium]

While I love the raw live sound of JD, I think Hannett only improved them, often dramatically. I think the studio recording of Dead Souls is every bit as good as their best live version and captures the same energy, in fact to me it is a textbook example of a studio recording as a perfect, imaginary live recording. Furthermore he did things in the studio that were beyond what they could and would have done live, like 'From Safety to Where ?' and 'Autosuggestion'.
The 'Warsaw' bootleg of the early 78 aborted album is interesting but I don't think it holds a candle to UP. The band disliked it well enough to spend a lot of money buying back the tapes to prevent it from being released, so it is clear that they weren't happy with garden variety rock band recording and production, even though two of the four members would later be initially hesitant about embracing Hannett's work on UP. They were apparently all down with the work he did with them before that for the Factory Sample, which is not much less produced than UP.
It is also important to note that while sometimes playing incredible shows, they were not the most consistent live band and had more than their fair share of technical issues when they tried to stretch beyond their guitar-bass-drums-vocals base. If you saw them on the wrong night, you could easily wonder what the fuss was about, whereas their records had mostly high praise and strong sales.