Overdubbed cymbals

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Overdubbed cymbals

Post by vvv » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:52 am

I've read how QOTSA and the Crooked Vultures and others have OD'd cymbals, usually because they wanted mix-down control.

Now I wonder if "Maggie May" was the first tune to do it.: story.
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Re: Overdubbed cymbals

Post by roscoenyc » Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:28 am

vvv wrote:I've read how QOTSA and the Crooked Vultures and others have OD'd cymbals, usually because they wanted mix-down control.

Now I wonder if "Maggie May" was the first tune to do it.: story.
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Neil Young's "Heart of Gold"
Not a crash on there.
Cymbals are the enemy of a great drum sound.
The less you hit them, the better the drums sound.

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Re: Overdubbed cymbals

Post by kslight » Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:29 am

roscoenyc wrote: Cymbals are the enemy of a great drum sound.
The less you hit them, the better the drums sound.
True story. Depends on the cymbals used too, though?a lot of cymbals suck?and or their players don't know their sweet spots.

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Post by vvv » Sat Oct 24, 2015 12:46 pm

I played inna Goth band in te early 90's, complete with died black hair and devil's beard and a junkie singer - he wouldn't allow cymbals, either.
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Re: Overdubbed cymbals

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:55 pm

roscoenyc wrote:
Neil Young's "Heart of Gold"
Not a crash on there.
pretty sure 'honky tonk women' is just one crash, right at the end.

less cymbals/more drums tip: put your room mics on the floor.

then hit the cymbals only as hard as is necessary to get the required brightness out of 'em.

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:02 pm


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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Oct 26, 2015 8:19 am

Unintentional double-post removed.

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Last edited by Gregg Juke on Mon Oct 26, 2015 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Oct 26, 2015 8:20 am

Cymbals are a huge part of the drumset and it's sound, silly-heads. Depending on musical genre (jazz, for instance) and the drummer's style, they may be most of the sound.

The problem (which we've all discussed here before) is not cymbals ("We Need More Cymbal Control!"), the issue is the player playing, and his/her musicality or lack thereof. A lot of today's drummers are cymbal bashers. And, I submit, techniques like trying to get a "perfect" drum sound and "perfect" timing and "perfect isolation" (along with things like over-dubbing cymbals and tom hits), are the reasons for the move towards drum-machines in the 80's, and synthesized/software, or triggered drums today. When a player or their kit, well, suck, we have to do our best to un-suck it, but it's kind of the nature of the gig. Some players will be world-class, some will not even be classy enough for their own garage...

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Post by vvv » Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:00 am

What up with the double-posts here? I hit "Submit" and it does nothing, hit it again and post twice. :evil:
Last edited by vvv on Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by vvv » Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:00 am

:lol: Had to get that drummers-w-cymbals viewpoint eventually!

I think not having cymbals is a "sound", also. I usually think of it as kinda tribal but bands like Bow-wow-wow in the 80's, Joy Division, Tones on Tail, Bauhaus, Love and Rockets (those 3 related, of course), Gang of 4, often used very little or no cymbals, and they are kinda de-emphasized when used.

Savages is a current band that comes to mind.

Depending on the song, I'll use drums without cymbals, and I gotta add, the first drummer who used his crashes and rides like a pedal-less hat, where there's just a whole song's worth of was, well, he should be sentenced to listen exclusively to Buddy Rich records for the next year.
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Oct 26, 2015 12:20 pm

see i actually like washing on a crash, if you're in a big loud crazy cathartic sorta band, it's often the right sound. you just need to hit it proportionally to the drums. i.e. about 1/10th as hard.

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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Oct 26, 2015 1:00 pm

YES! ^^^^ Yes, Space, I agree. But to me, "proportionally" would equal "musically." I mean, Ringo did plenty of "washing," as did lots of great rock drummers, as did some great jazz players... Shelly Manne, any big band guy that chose "swish" over "ping;" maybe, Davey Tough, Mel Lewis? Tony Williams had amazing control of the K Zildjians'. He could play it at any dynamic level and get wash, swish, ping, pang, whateva...

The issue is that it's often _not_ proportional, and successive generations of rocking dudes are seeing and hearing bad cymbal players and think that that's the deal, so they pick-up all of those bad traits. It's really about _when_ to do the wash-y thing, if at all, depending on the genre, style, and song. But many of these younger guys are one-dimensional.

vvv, to your point re: "no cymbals as an aesthetic statement" (which is _not_ really the same as "over-dubbing cymbals"), King Crimson did a lot of that for awhile, as Fripp was sick of the sound of cymbals, so he told Bruford to get rid of them, they were "taking all of his accents."

Creative and innovative, and questioning of tradition and all that I suppose, but also could be construed as an example of incredible hubris. I mean, what if it was Bruford's band and he told Fripp "You need to play a four-string guitar instead of six. I don't like the sound of six strings." Sounds kind of silly, right?

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Oct 26, 2015 1:09 pm

i dunno if it's hubris.....i used to play in a band where the songwriter really didn't like hihats (and she REALLY hated regular old riding on the ride).....at first i was all "what is wrong with you woman? do you not appreciate the rare subtlety and grace with which i play the hihat?"

i got over it and came up with lots of nifty beats without much, if any, hihat. turned out great.

i'm way more interested in songs than drums, so if the songwriter (i.e. the boss) has a strong opinion about something, i'm gonna try and accommodate them.

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Oct 26, 2015 1:26 pm

also, "You need to play a four-string guitar instead of six. I don't like the sound of six strings."

if you rephrase that as "those full 6 string chords you're playing are taking up too much space, just use the top 4 and leave the bottom for the bass" that seems perfectly reasonable (and smart) to me.

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