Sandra Vu

Here are some very wise words about recording drums I found on this website.

Cymbals

You want to know one secret to the huge drum sound of Led Zeppelin’s drummer, John Bonham? Finesse. He understood that the drums sound louder and bigger in a mix if the cymbals are quieter in comparison. So he played his cymbals softly and hit the drums pretty hard. This allowed the engineer to raise up the levels of the drums without having the cymbals drown everything else out. Absolutely brilliant.

Because the drums bleeding into the overhead mics is inevitable and the overhead mics are responsible for providing much of the drums’ presence in a mix, playing the cymbals softly allows you to get more of the drums in these mics. This helps the drums sound bigger.

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I wish I had known this before I went to track drums for a record a couple years ago. I figured it out soon thereafter. I used to really pound those cymbals. This created extra problems for the producer in the studio, and the sound engineer in live situations. I bought thinner and darker cymbals and even started using lighter sticks (with nylon tip to make up for the lack of definition in the darker cymbals). Getting a loud sound from the snare was also difficult as I liked to have a thick 6 1/2″ thick snare (reissue Black Beauty), tuned way too low. Oops. Having the vocal mic there too pick up even more of those nasty high frequencies didn’t help either!

These days, I like to use my 5″ Supraphonic (1970s) for recording. In my bedroom, I use SUPER light 7as, and play quietly. Contrast this with me 2 years ago, bashing away on the ride cymbal with fat 3As. You could say I was trying to compensate, battling the stereotype that girls don’t hit hard. Okay, maybe I didn’t really hit that hard even when I tried. I’m not a gorilla!

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Um, while Image Googling a gorilla playing drums, I found this article: Wonderbra recreates Cadbury gorilla advert for YouTube. Too bad the YouTube video was removed!