Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

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Greenlander
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Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by Greenlander » Mon Nov 15, 2004 4:47 am

I've always liked the drum sound on Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, despite reading a couple of Malkmus interviews where he says that the drums were recorded badly and salvaged by Bryce Goggin at the mixing stage (I think he mentions that in the Tape Op book in fact).

I was very surprised though, to read the liner notes of the new deluxe edition CRCR and see Malkmus saying that Goggin actually re-recorded the snare.

To be honest, I'd never thought about re-recording a snare and laying it over the existing drum tracks. I mean, I guess I knew it was a possibility, but I just assumed that it would be a very difficult if not impossible process in terms of making it sit with the existing drum tracks.

Has anyone any experience doing this? Can anyone fill me in on what you need to take into account if you were try something like this? There have been a number of times where I've been involved with recording a drum track and have been happy with the kit apart from the snare sound. I'm sure that's a common phenomenon, but has anyone any insights into laying a re-recorded snare over that?

Thanks.
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by bigtoe » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:18 am

i couldn't imaging a band actually 'going' for that! I'd love to try it.

someone told me when they tracked at his studio he used api on kick and snare...neve on everything else...rumor but maybe something to go on gearwise.

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by jx » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:38 am

the first time i went into a 'proper' studio, my band were recording and mixing the tracks for our first 7"- all in one day (seven songs). we did all the drums first, then broke the mics down to do guitars.

halfway through tracking, we noticed that the snare dies in the middle of the last song- the mic gave out. rather than redoing the basic track (and not having enough money to do a second day) we set up the snare and a mic, and i replayed the snare drum over the track.

of course, it didn't sit well AT ALL, and there are a few fills where the original snare bleeds through, or i mis-hit. but it's on the record. maybe malkmus et al though they could live with it like we did? it would be pretty easy to spot, though.

this was 10 years go, and the studio was basically a shitty fostex 1/2" 8 track, so no cut and paste or sound replace was possible.

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by LeedyGuy » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:43 am

There's always the old trick of taking the snare track and playing it back over a speaker while laying the speaker right on top of the freakin snare drum and putting a mic on the bottom and using that sound to beef up the snare sound. maybe even gating it on playback so that you REALLY just get the snare...hmmm

its a thought...might not work so well with a 4 mic technique though...just the good old close mic approach
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by Greenlander » Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:24 am

I actually decided to listen to CR CR since I was thinking about it. I enjoyed the drum sound as much as ever, but it also reminded me how busy Stephen West is on the snare. I just don't know how he could have recreated the original parts. Maybe they just did it on a couple of numbers, I dunno.
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by LeedyGuy » Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:48 am

I actually overdubbed a backbeat one time. the original track was just craptastic so i redid it. i was playing pretty busy myself, so i compressed the crap out of it and the heavier hits got squashed and the grace notes came through and then the overdubbed snare came out and covered up the squished original backbeat. check it out here...

http://greentothink.com/music/sundays.mp3
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by cgarges » Mon Nov 15, 2004 8:39 am

Don Dixon and Mitch Easter did this on a few songs on R.E.M.'s "Murmur."

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by lonesome_tone » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:04 pm

I thought the snare overdubbing was just on Range Life.

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by nipsy » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:56 pm

if anyone can do it, bryce can.....

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by Greenlander » Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:57 am

lonesome_tone wrote:I thought the snare overdubbing was just on Range Life.
Could be, Malkmus didn't go into details. Where did you hear that?
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by rnv123 » Sat Nov 20, 2004 8:49 am

As an eyewitness to a Bryce Goggin "rescue" mix session circa 94, I can provide a bit of information about a couple of drum fixes I saw him perform:

Upon discovering that the master tracks did not include a separate bottom snare track, he did send the original snare signal to an Auratone placed on top of a snare drum and mic'ed the bottom.

He would also use the Freeze function on an SPX90 (or two) to sample a hit, trigger it with the original snare (or kick) signal and mix the sample in with the original.

On a related note, I observed Steve Albini using an Akai sampler to fix a single snare clam in a drum track circa 1990 at Chicago Recording Company! But to be fair, he was coerced by the drummer, samplers were still quite the novelty, and the drummer, not Steve, triggered the sample manually when it was punched in.

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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by Greenlander » Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:42 am

rnv123 wrote:As an eyewitness to a Bryce Goggin "rescue" mix session circa 94, I can provide a bit of information about a couple of drum fixes I saw him perform:
Wow, that's cool information. How did you end up witnessing that "rescue"?
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Re: Snare on Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Post by rnv123 » Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:15 pm

Bryce remixed an album I played on...

Everyone always says to get a good mix you can't mix loud but Bryce would work at some pretty intense levels at the time and the mixes wound up sounding great...

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