STAX/MOTOWN soul drum sound - how?

[joninc]

hey all - i have been mesmerized by stax and motown for the past several years and would love to learn how they recorded the drums. please don't misunderstand me - i am not asking "how can i make recordings that sound like theirs?" - i know the player is key but i am just curious how they captured the sound. where did they place the mic(s)?

i'm assuming that its quite minimal micing -

mono overhead?

snare?

kick?

hat?

i know ribbons were very popular - i don't have any rca's but i have a coles and a m160. i figured the kick might be a D12 which i have as well...

i have done lots of reading about STAX and motown but not really found any clues or even good photos of the drums with mics..

i'd love it if anybody has insight here.

*yes i know stax used a wallet on the snare to help deaden and for the thud*

[sparky]

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[rwc]

From what I've read a lot of it was a FET47 on the kick, km84 on the snare, and a U67 overhead bussed to one track on tape.

[joninc]

ahh! i just googled it and found that picture as well. i always was under the impression that the room was much smaller than that. the photos around the piano make it seem a lot more intimate.

so - what mic is that overhead? looks small - maybe a 635?

looks like no kick mic and something on a boom towards the floor tom...

like the glyn johns 3 mic technique *minus the kick* maybe?

[joninc]

they got such a dry punchy sound in that big cavern! i guess the gobos are the key there.

[RoyMatthews]

There looks like there is a kick mic. If you look at the rim just in from the left is (I think) a xlr connector. The mic is black near the top of the kick aimed 'bout 45 deg. down.
The OH. Maybe a KM84[/list]

[cgarges]

Stax was in an old movie theatre. Motown's place in Detroit was much smaller.

The overhead in the photo doesn't look like a 635A to me. I would have guessed a KM84 or KM54 or something like that, although the one in the photo does look a bit longer. I'm sure stuff would have changed occasionally, especially over the period of time those labels were operational. For instance, although a FET 47 may have been used on some of that stuff, it wasn't developed until 1969, so anything prior to that would have been something else. I've hard lots of different stories about and seen lots of different photos of what was used on that stuff over the years.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joninc]

I've hard lots of different stories about and seen lots of different photos of what was used on that stuff over the years.

do tell....

(it does look like a km 84 -no bulb on the end like a 635)

[joninc]

what do you think the drum riser contributed to the tone of the kit?

[Recycled_Brains]

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... msg_146017

That thread outta answer some questions.

[joninc]

great thread! thanks for sharing that.

"I always thought that the old school memphis sound was recorded in an old school in memphis"

[Recycled_Brains]

I did a session a few months back and the drummer and I were talking about the wallet trick while I was micing things up.

We recorded one song where the snare sounded particularly cool. I asked him what he did...

Well.... take a wild guess.

[sparky]

the problem is you need a mid 60s sears-roebuck tri-fold for the most warmth, filled with all pre-1970 currency. a double fold has a cool sound too, but its a bit bightier in the uppermids. Today's wallets, filled with today's money, have a too-detailed overly harsh sound, I think.

[joninc]

especially the digital ones

[cgarges]

I've hard lots of different stories about and seen lots of different photos of what was used on that stuff over the years.

do tell....

Same stuff as mentioned in that thread. I've seen pics of Al Jackson at a kit with an RCA 77 overhead. I've also seen different pictures of Roger Hawkins with KM54s and U67s as overheads. I also know that a lot of guys from that period (like Tom Dowd) were using Altec 639s or 633s on bass drum (when there was a bass drum mic) or sometimes EV 666s. (I'm about 99% sure that's what was used on "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag.")

Of the Motown multitrack masters that I've heard (probaby the same ones a lot of you guys have heard), drums were usually printed to one track, sometimes two if there was a separate bass drum track on a 16-track session. The sound of the drums individually was pretty unremarkable, but totally awesome at the same time.

I would bet that a lot of what was cool about the drum sound on some of those records (Aretha's version of "Respect" comes to mind, even though that was Tom Down engineering for Atlantic) had everything to do with whatever other mics were open in the room.

Of course, I wasn't there, but that's my two cents.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC