Marquee Moon Drums

[Mark]

Anyone know what miking techniques were used? Also was there any compression done?

They sound pretty dry, so I'm assuming there's either no reverb on them or it's very subtle (room mics?)

[vvv]

The liner notes to the excellent re-master contain this quote:

We got to the studio on 48th St. Andy wasn?t there?but the drums were set up?we were wondering about that. A long time later Andy comes in and says, ?Sorry I?m late. I came in early yesterday and set the drums up; let me play it for you.? He plays the tape of the drums. All of a sudden out of the speakers comes the John Bonham drum sound, that huge, compressed, smacked sound. Tom shook his head and said, ?No, no, no, no, no you?ve got to take that all down?that?s got to go. We don?t want that drum sound.? And Andy was flabbergasted, saying, ?I thought you hired me for that. That?s my trademark. So what the hell am I doing here?? We said, ?We want a dry sound, no reverb, no giant compression?nice, tight, smaller kit.? Andy didn?t know what to make of it. We said, ?We hired you because you did all these great guitar records and because you?re a master engineer.? And that softened him a bit. ?Oh, it?s a New York thing, right? Like a Velvets thing, right?? He said, undoing all the things he had done and starting over again. - Richard Lloyd (Marquee Moon 2003 reissue liner notes by Alan Licht)
cite

[Mark]

Small, tight and dry

Gotcha

Does it say anywhere what miking technique Andy ended up using? Also, apart from some cymbal crashes everything sounds pretty close to the centre (even the toms), almost mono. Is that your impression too?

[vvv]

I wanna say that I read somewhere it was a very basic mic'ing, mebbe just 3 mic's?

To be honest, when I hear that fave CD, I canna listen away from the awesome guitarage.

[Mark]

Three mics? Joy! I can totally do that

[omari jamal]

yep. it sounds like Glyn Johns technique to me, maybe in a drum booth, with reverb added in some parts.

[Mark]

Hmm. Apart from the drum booth this all seems pretty achievable in a home recording situation.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I read a making of article about this record somewhere but I'll be damned if I remember where. I do remember Andy Johns talking about how the studio was quite primitive and there was only one 1176.

[Mark]

I can beat that. I don't even have one 1176

[omari jamal]

it was recorded at A&R, i wouldn't call that primitive.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I stand corrected.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

I can only tell you what I hear when I listen to the record: very few mics. 3 sounds plausible, and it could be Glynn, though I don't particularly remember the drums being stereo. To me it sounds like just one overhead and one mic on the kick.

[Mark]

I listened on headphones and I'm sure I heard crashes on both the left and right sides.

I'll have to listen again to confirm that later today (aftter I've been to bed).

[Marc Alan Goodman]

I listened on headphones and I'm sure I heard crashes on both the left and right sides.

I'll have to listen again to confirm that later today (aftter I've been to bed).

I'm working off memory here, it could easily be three mics. My point is mainly that it sounds like as few as possible.

[supafuzz]

Billy Ficca lived a block away from me when I lived in Long Island city, nice guy, If I run into him again I'll be sure to ask if he remembers anything. I jammed with him a number of times when I was with Tuff Darts. Loud heavy drummer..he would have been amazing with the Bonham sound!