Beatles Drums

[andrew embassy]

Okay everyone, I'm just now REALLY falling in love with Ringo's drum sound. Over the past year I've completely reversed my feelings on Ringo and the Beatles in general. Pretty much, from Revolver to Abbey Road, they rule, but the engineers at Abbey Road rule it so hardcore too. Holy geez, I LOVE how compressed ringos drums are all the time. I LOVE the drums on I Am the Walrus, just barely distorted, with that slight tambourine behind them. And on Its Getting Better, sheeeit. Man, those cymbals just washing around under all the compression...

Anyway, yeah. Sorry I'm late.

[nlmd311]

Okay everyone, I'm just now REALLY falling in love with Ringo's drum sound.

I am right there with you! Its very wierd how that happened. Its also strange how a topic like this can come up so often here, yet always be so intuitive and fresh. There was a good discussion a month or so ago, similar but well: http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopi ... ingo+snare

I started "hearing things" especially after I started reading the Complete Beatles recording sessions book everyone here recommended.

-Darrill

[nestle]

its a coles/fairchild thing-
But mostly its in Ringos playing, hes the greatest!!!
I never understand the Ringo argument, hes the drummer in the worlds best band, no argument hes one of the best..why does everyone underestimate his talent?
I just saw the Pete Best band at the stooges show, what a fucking loser,they were the only band with 2 drummers...I mean you wanna see pete play and they have 2 drummers?
he really sucked

[leigh]

The Beatles had drums?

Leigh

[3db@1K]

AKG D30 on the kick

U47 mono overhead

on most of this stuff ... through the fairchild 670



by the way revolver is one of the greatest "balanced" mixed records... we can all learn from listening to this record....


the whole snare thing ... originally cigs on the heads ... but try to cut some bottom snare heads all the way around the edge and place this on top of your snare ...killer sound... I have different thickness of these cut heads on hand most of the time when tracking...

[aurelialuz]

not to jeff robinson out on ya, but the chandler EMI clone totally does "that sound." this information is probably totally worthless to everyone here that doesn't have a trust fund.

[LTA]

The Beatles had drums?

Leigh

Not sure. What was Bernard Purdie playing again?


Ringo = tasteful. And his left hand lead fills on a "right handed" drumset are tough to nail if you try to lead with the right.

[BrianK]

It's a pain to have to wait, but .... please wait. The book will be done soon, with lots of interesting information on this stuff. I would not trust any other sources, from the widespread rumours we've seen so far.

www.recordingthebeatles.com

Most of it IS done, just finishing a few parts. I would caution against telling someone "what you know" as seen above... very few people possess the qualifications so far (except to say that it IS largely Ringo, an incredible pop drummer).

[Professor]

Hate to dash your hopes man, but you should be aware of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn. I picked it up about two weeks ago at a local bookshop and while I'm only up to around the end of 1964, it seems to have lots of stuff covered. It was written for/by Abbey Road and is drawn from some exstensive cataloging work that one of their employees did - going through every tape, and session log and file folder to compile a complete catalog of everything Beatles in the Abbey Road archives. The book is arranged as a day-by-day diary of every session, even if it was only a tape copying session from 1962 to 1970. Lots of photos and commentary from the crew and reprints of session logs, and notes, and pay cards, and even the odd track sheet.
Now it isn't written for engineers so it doesn't list every signal path of every channel, but from the photos and the track logs, there is certainly a lot that can be seen and read about the sessions.

As for what goes into making Ringo's drums sound the way they do, well it could be the U-47 or U-48 or ELA-M251 or Coles 4038 used as an overhead depending on which track you're listening to, or it could be EMI's custom built console, or the 1-inch 4-track, all-tube tape machine, or it could be the drums, the heads, the tuning, the room, the player, the producer, the engineer, or all of those things coming together in just the right way. So listen to the track for inspiration, and consider it a kind of magical blend to which you should aspire, but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

-Jeremy

[Al]

but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

but don't ever get hung up trying to recreate it.

[brakeshop]

If you want ringo's sound, just ask him, he seems like a pretty nice guy. If you've ever picked up any beatles bootlegs, he just sounds like that naturally without too much studio chicanery. I love the way he plays, I think he damps the drum head with his stick when he hits the drumhead, or something like that (heavy hands!), but I'm not an expert on drum techniques, maybe someone else knows.

p.s. and you should get hung up on those drums, because they do sound cool. Always get hung up on good things.

[cgarges]

As for what goes into making Ringo's drums sound the way they do, well it could be the U-47 or U-48 or ELA-M251 or Coles 4038 used as an overhead depending on which track you're listening to,

Don't forget the infamous D19!


Hey Brian, nice to see you here! I'm a big fan. I can't wait for that book, but I have been for a couple years now, so I guess I can wait some more. Not to be too OT, but will there be anymore Cookbook records?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Spiderhead69]

I've actually got a copy of a Musician Player and Listener Magazine, No.40 from February, 1982 in my "Library" that has an interview with Ringo in it that I'm skimming through and reading when I'm in there...

One quote he says when he's talking about his "funny little frills"...

"I can't just sweep around the kit, dubba-dubba-dub, like a lot of drummers. I found I had to come off with my left hand, even though I'm right handed, and so I wound up working my way up the kit backwards, and that's how the funny little frills thing started.

[The2and4]

Awesome quote from Ringo..

All I know is that he uses skinny sticks.

..and I couldn't help but listen to some Beatles all night.

..on vinyl!

Great for learning my monitors..

..Cool.

[@?,*???&?]

You should pick up the remixed version of 'Yellow Submarine' that came out when the DVD came out. All those songs were mixed from first generation masters as opposed the bounced/collapsed slave reels that the engineers at Abbey Road put together for the releases we have been listening to for 30+ years. The drums are even more clear and EVEN MORE stellar. The bottom on the bass drum on 'Yellow Submarine' is sublime.