Favourite Drum Mix?

S

strangedayz

New member
Hey all,

Was just wondering what people's fav drum mixes are and why?

A few that come to mind for me are:

Police - Syncronicity.

Toto - Toto IV

Van Halen - 1984

Pretty much all of the Zep and Deep Purple stuff. :D
Just off the top of my head.

And an add on question...

Why don't modern engineers pan drums as much as they used to? I was listening to a Fallout Boy song the other day and the hats seemed to be pretty much centre as with most of the toms.

Cheers.
 
The drums on many older recordings never impressed me much. (I am talking sound quality.) A lot of them sound weak and useless. I prefer drums that are more in-your-face and full of life. I mean, compare The Who's "Kids Are Alright" with a modern day 3 Doors Down song. Apparently drums were not the driving factor in music prior to the 90's.

Before you broil me, I know there are some that were done well. I just meant that some of the older hits I used to listen to were great songs, but the drums just seemed to be distant and deflated. Hell, I can remember some rock songs where you cannot even hear the kick drum. I also realize that not all music genres are intended to have drums in your face.

I grew up a drummer and I always wanted to focus my attention on the drums. But too many songs were aimed at guitar lovers.
 
RawDepth said:
The drums on many older recordings never impressed me much. A lot of them sound weak and useless. I prefer drums that are more in-your-face and full of life. Apparently drums were not the driving factor in music prior to the 90's.

Before you broil me, I know there are some that were done well. I just meant that some of the older hits I used to listen to were great songs, but the drums just seemed to be distant and deflated. Hell, I can remember some rock songs where you cannot even hear the kick drum. I also realize that not all music genres are intended to have drums in your face.

I grew up a drummer and I always wanted to focus my attention on the drums. But too many songs were aimed at guitar lovers.
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This ^^^^^^^^^^

The Who's early stuff is totally kick ass. Imagine how many seizures they would have induced if you could clearly hear all of Moon's drumming. :eek:
 
RawDepth said:
The drums on many older recordings never impressed me much. (I am talking sound quality.) A lot of them sound weak and useless. I prefer drums that are more in-your-face and full of life. I mean, compare The Who's "Kids Are Alright" with a modern day 3 Doors Down song. Apparently drums were not the driving factor in music prior to the 90's.

Before you broil me, I know there are some that were done well. I just meant that some of the older hits I used to listen to were great songs, but the drums just seemed to be distant and deflated. Hell, I can remember some rock songs where you cannot even hear the kick drum. I also realize that not all music genres are intended to have drums in your face.

I grew up a drummer and I always wanted to focus my attention on the drums. But too many songs were aimed at guitar lovers.
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What about the drums on When The Levee Breaks?

I dunno about modern drums so much. They compress everything too much I think.
 
I think RawDepth makes a good point actually. Although drums often did drive a song, you'd find it hard to fathom from the actual recordings. A song like the Stones' "Get off of my cloud" has pretty propelling drums but Andrew Oldham's production doesn't bring this out. Keith Moon's drumming in the mid 60s was pretty mad, even with being panned to the side. But the Who were pretty meaty all round.
Good songs back in yesteryear outweighed the requirements of individual instruments. From about '68/'69 on that changed, I think, though there were always exceptions. The real arbiter of change was technology. More track multitrackers = more tracks per instrument, therefore more scope for better recordings.
 
RawDepth said:
The drums on many older recordings never impressed me much. (I am talking sound quality.) A lot of them sound weak and useless. I prefer drums that are more in-your-face and full of life. I mean, compare The Who's "Kids Are Alright" with a modern day 3 Doors Down song. Apparently drums were not the driving factor in music prior to the 90's.

Before you broil me, I know there are some that were done well. I just meant that some of the older hits I used to listen to were great songs, but the drums just seemed to be distant and deflated. Hell, I can remember some rock songs where you cannot even hear the kick drum. I also realize that not all music genres are intended to have drums in your face.

I grew up a drummer and I always wanted to focus my attention on the drums. But too many songs were aimed at guitar lovers.
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Eh, I think it really depends, and I think "before the 90's" is incorrect. I will generally agree that the drums in the 60's are mixed a little low, but there are still some powerful instances. Some of Ringo's tracks have a lot of punch and depth, but on the flip side, Ginger Baker never had a good drum sound on any Cream record. By looking at their skill levels and importance within the band, you'd naturally think the opposite.

I think you are incorrect on guitar focus. Music was more vocal focused than anything.

I hate to give these guys credit since they're overrated, but Zeppelin really did set the stage for powerful drum sounds. Even on their debut, Dazed and Confused is like...."....holy crap." Deep Purple and The Who caught on....Deep Purple in Rock had more powerful drums than their self titled (self titled came out in 69, in Rock in 70), Who's Next's drums blows Tommy's away (71 compared to 69). I think that's when drums really came into the forefront, but not necessarily in all cases. I think during the Clive Bunker era with Jethro Tull, the drum mix was low, but it was kinda fixed when Barlow came in. Queen didn't really get an up front drum mix until the early 80's, with the obvious exception of We Will Rock You.
 
This is actually a really difficult question to answer because it's hard to separate a drum performance from the mix, if you know what I mean. Well, sometimes it is. I find personally that few drums I've heard over the last 30 years have been badly mixed because techniques have progressed. Then on top of that there are some fantastic drum sounds, especially in the snare dept, but the song in question or album in question may not be one I'm particulaly fond of. Then to add to that, on alot of albums, you get a variance of drum mixes. Some tracks are grand, others surprizingly tame or muted, given the brilliance of the ones that are really good. And to further confuse issues, over the last 20 years, there have been some great albums with superb drumming that was in fact totally sampled. But they sound great to me.
Recently I listened to albums by Ad Astra (s/t), Fleetwood Mac (Rumours), Brand new heavies (Shelter), US3 (Broadway and 52nd), Bob Marley (Kaya, Uprising, Exodus), Seal (1&2), David Bowie (Oddity, Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Hours, Aladdin), RAMI, Little Purple Circles (s/t, Cloud), which span some 40 years but apart from the odd Bowie track, the drums were all brilliantly done. But for different reasons. I've also always liked the 'in yer face' boof of Lenny White on Return to Forever's "Hymn of the seventh galaxy" and some of Michael Giles' work on Larry Norman's "So long ago, the garden", better than most of what he did in King Crimson. But again, are prominent drums well mixed drums ?
Until very recently, I've always panned the drums slightly to the side because with a portastudio, I always recorded the drums in mono. Actually, sometimes I'd pan hard right or left if I felt the drums were being drowned so although they weren't central at least you could hear them clearly. I like those recordings from the 60s where the drums are hard panned. It seems rarely done these days but I never thought of it as strange.
 
Favorite drum mixes;

Led Zeppelin- most of it
King Crimson- Court of the crimson king
Yes- Fragile
ELP-Tarkus
Pink Floyd- Meddle
DeeP Purple In Rock
Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath
Jethro Tull-Thick as a brick
Camel: Moon Madness

basicly I think the early 70's drums sounds way better then todays drums:)
 
To be fair, I think the drummers today are technically great and better than drummers from most other eras, BUT its what they play I don't like. I'm like you, prefering early/mid 70's drummers because I liked what they play. I can probably technically outplay Ringo no sweat, but its what he plays that I adore.

@Guy with King Crimson avatar: I don't know if you've heard this, but my CD version of Thick as a Brick came with a live 13 minute version from 1978, and the drum sound on that kills the studio version (well, the whole thing kills the studio version, but that's besides the point).

I think as far as Deep Purple goes, In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, Who Do You Think We Are, and Burn all have approximately the same drum sound. With my CD copies though, In Rock and Fireball are both mid '80s masters and thus sound different from the Machine Head, WDYTWA and Burn masters which were all done in the past 10 years or so. But you can kind of hear the raw drum mix being more or less the same between the 5.
 
The entire ...And Justice For All album. I know a lot of people, ecspecially drummers hate the drums in that album but that sound was a fucking beast.
 
Seafroggys said:
To be fair, I think the drummers today are technically great and better than drummers from most other eras, BUT its what they play I don't like. I'm like you, prefering early/mid 70's drummers because I liked what they play. I can probably technically outplay Ringo no sweat, but its what he plays that I adore.

@Guy with King Crimson avatar: I don't know if you've heard this, but my CD version of Thick as a Brick came with a live 13 minute version from 1978, and the drum sound on that kills the studio version (well, the whole thing kills the studio version, but that's besides the point).

I think as far as Deep Purple goes, In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, Who Do You Think We Are, and Burn all have approximately the same drum sound. With my CD copies though, In Rock and Fireball are both mid '80s masters and thus sound different from the Machine Head, WDYTWA and Burn masters which were all done in the past 10 years or so. But you can kind of hear the raw drum mix being more or less the same between the 5.
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when you mention Ringo as a reference I can agree.

But Bruford, Cobham, Paice, and Steve Gadd and a whole bunch more from that era I find to be better than the drummers I'm hearing today, the music sucking does not help either:D

as for the live version of TAAB sounding better, we are miles apart, I think it sounds horrid and I'd love to get an live recording from right after they recorded the album, I'm sure it would suit me better.
 
Nakatira said:
But Bruford, Cobham, Paice, and Steve Gadd and a whole bunch more from that era I find to be better than the drummers I'm hearing today, the music sucking does not help either:D
.
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That's funny. Those dudes are technically fantastic drummers, but their music sucks so fucking bad that they might as well not exist.

And Ringo is shit.
 
I've watched lots of Bruford and Gadd clips and videos and clinincs. Oh my God, they are so fucking boring.
 
I agree that drums really started to sound much better on recordings in the 90's.
Albums with great sounding drums:
Blood Sugar Sex Magic-RHCP
In Utero-Nirvana
You'd Prefer an Astronot-Hum
Red Yellow & Blue-Born Ruffians
Pinkerton-Weezer
 
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