Modern sounding drums.

[CMolena]

Hey, everyone.

I'm currently listening to Black Sabatth's Vol.4 and a question crossed my mind. (Vol.4 has one of the best drum sounds I ever heard).

When did compressed/horrible sounding drums began to be considered a standard for rock recordings?

Now, in my my opinion there is two types of compressed drums:

1- The Foo Fighters's real but loud as hell drum sound (I think they are okay, just bloody loud).

2- The plastic pseudo-hardcore/punk shitty drums (I think they sound so lame...and the only band I can give an example is Deadfish's Vitória...a brazilian hardcpre band).

I mean...I'm sorry if this is offends anybody...but anyway, what are your views in this subject?

 

[4tracker]

I like very open sounding jazz drums best. Glyn Johns technique and things along that line (even one or two mics can sound good).

For rock or punk, a natural but tighter sound is nice. Black Sabbath, sure, good drum sound. I think it became the norm to make horrible sounding drums in the 80s. Think of Van Halen and all the hair metal...awful drum sounds and enormous kits. Today, I notice people like pushing the max on all their effects so everything can be heard and such, and I think that's why we have overly done everything. The philosophy now is that every instrument needs to be the loudest and everything has to be upfront, which is impossible if you want a good listening experience. It's probably why recordings sound bad, but that bad sound is ironically becoming the norm.

 

[Greg_L]

Lol. This is bad.

 

[Farview]

Volume 4 sounds like they are in a dead room and only used the overhead tracks. The cymbals tend to be much louder than the kicks and just wash all over everything. The snare is thin and the bass drum sounds like he's kicking a couch.

That should be relatively easy to reproduce...