Marquee Moon Drums

[honkyjonk]

No one's mentioned they overdubbed the cymbals? Maybe I'm just making that up in my head. I had thought I heard that about this record.

[Danly]

Don't remember where I heard this, but I'm pretty sure they were rehearsing and didn't realize they were actually rolling yet when that song was tracked.
So you're gonna be more likely to get that loose, relaxed magic on hopefully the first take. So don't mess up.
It does sound like very few tracks.
I would try to hunt down a 1" 8 track.
Iso the amps and make them wear headphones.
Good luck.
If you have to di something, I would at least make sure the bass amp is mic'ed.
Besides that, you can totally get away with 4 mics on drums - kick, snare and stereo pair. If it doesn't need to sound "modern".

[JohnDavisNYC]

i just listened to this, and i think people are having that magical thing where you remember something sounding different than it actually sounds... i would say absolutely close mic'd drums. for sure hihat. They wanted it to sound like Tony Williams. You don't get that tom fill sound at the top of Marquee Moon (the song) without close mics... or the floor tom riding on See No Evil.... Kick with no front head, most definitely. Sounds like cs black dot heads on the drums.

Dolby SR and a super dry and small drum room?

John

[vvv]

"I toured with Richard Lloyd back in 2001, and he told me that the band rejected producer Andy Johns? idea to get a ?John Bonham drum sound,? and instead went for the more organic sound on the record. I told him that I was grateful they made that correct choice, and he replied, ?I don?t know. It might have been better if we would have met him halfway.? Better? Richard, you?re wrong. Marquee Moon could not be better." - Steve Wynn
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[Judas Jetski]

I can't seem to find my LP of that.

[Judas Jetski]

Found my copy of Tuff Darts though.

[Rigby]

I've been listening to the remastered reissue of Marquee Moon lately, and there is quite a bit of what sounds like plate verb on the snare. More than I remembered from the original. Maybe they compressed it more in the remaster, or something.

[Zygomorph]

I'm listening on headphones. Definitely mostly mono. I think any of the VERY subtle stereoization I (think) I can hear is mainly happening in lower frequencies and sounds like spill into the left guitar mic. Besides the reverb.

You can also definitely hear the small size of the room it was recorded in, it sounds like a 12x12 foot rehearsal room with one mic like, 8 ft up. This is just the picture I get in my head when I listen. But then I have this weird habit of mixing-by-synaesthesia, where the resulting sound has to remind me in some way of the space it was recorded in, or where I think it ought to have been recorded (e.g., in a Giant Eagle supermarket).

Interestingly, you might notice how the mix at the end is quite a bit brighter than the mix at the beginning. Maybe this has something to do with mastering for vinyl???

[JohnDavisNYC]

I'd hardly call recording at A&R in Manhattan with Andy Johns a 12x12 rehearsal space with one mic...

[Zygomorph]

I'd hardly call recording at A&R in Manhattan with Andy Johns a 12x12 rehearsal space with one mic...

Fair enough, however: "This is just the picture I get in my head when I listen."

[Mystic Steamship Co.]

If I was asked to get this drum sound, I would put a 451 or similar SDC a foot or so off the snare by the hihat, a LD Condenser (U67 or U87) above the kit and something like a D12 in front of the kick drum.

The snare doesn't sound ultra close mic'd to me. But the toms kind of do. I wouldn't be surprised if they close mic'd the floor tom.

The drums on this record sound good, but the guitars can't be beat!!

[losthighway]

The drums on this record sound good, but the guitars can't be beat!!

I've heard it was Jazzmasters and Musicman amps, but I've never seen that in writing.

[Mark]

If you've got the LP the inner sleeve photo might give a clue

[vvv]

I always thought they just played Twins ...

"We used no effects whatsoever on Marquee Moon -- just guitars into amplifiers."

But also,

"What were you main amps during TV, specifically the ones you used in 'Adventure'?

We used to use Fender Super Reverbs. Black face with 4 ten inch Jensens. We both had those for years. Then for some reason we switched to the Music Man equivalent. They weren't nearly as rich and resonant; a little generic sounding but real work horses. The Fenders were temperamental ponies and used to be plagued with breakdowns like speakers blowing and all that. Later we both had Ampeg V4s, but man, were they loud! Since we used no floor pedals and no power soaks, we had to turn them way up to get good tone, and the V4s were what the Stones were using in 20,000 seat halls. We were playing 500 seat clubs. I used to see glasses vibrate off the tables and we used to laugh, saying that the fans didn't pay to hear us, but to feel us. That's about it live. In the studio we used different amps including those, but live we both always used the same amps. Some kind of sibling rivalry I bet, as a 20/20 hindsight junior psychologist."

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No attribution but some guy says on a forum,
"An old magazine article has this to say:
"TELEVISION SET LIST For the new Television album TOM VERLAINE relied mostly on his trusty Fender Jazzmaster and Stratocaster, the latter often used for chording. Also appearing were a Vox "with a vibrato arm that wouldn?t stay in tune," a hollowbody Gibson and hollowbody 12-string Harmony - "they?re much better than people give them credit for." For effects, Verlaine employed "a lot of little whacky ?60s boxes? generally not featured on the main part of a song, but a little bit that comes and goes." Among them were an Electro-Harmonix delay, a Fender Dimension 4, a Musitron and a tube Echoplex "that was in a fire and the plastic melted off. So sometimes it distorts and sometimes it doesn?t." His amplifier was a Valv-O-Tronics, a new tube amp made by Television techie Robert Derbie. Tube fan Verlaine also used old Ampeg, Danelectro and Sears Silvertone amps."

"In concert, Verlaine plays through either Fender Super Reverbs (also used on Marquee Moon) or Vox AC30s, but for Television he went with a Valvotronics tube amp made by the group's amp technician Robert Darby, although Super Reverbs, an Ampeg Jet, and a Silvertone amp all made their way into the mix. For effects, he brought his usual "trunkload of total garbage stuff", which includes Echoplexes used as preamps, "just to goose it up." "
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May be from Guitar Player in '82. cite.