srobak:

Not at all the only one who is hearing it.  There is a reason I listen mostly to "older" recordings... they just sound better. They are also actually in stereo too :) They have taken so much of the "music" out that mostly now it is just "sound".  

When all the musicians go into separate, small, heavily damped sound recording rooms (including individual percussionists) and their tracks are laid down sequentially, then it is up to the mixing engineer to create the live composite sound.  I think the mixing engineers cannot recreate what happens in real life with real musicians (my opinion).  This was a big change in the mid-70s.  In this new mixing environment, I also think that mixing engineers compressed the percussion tracks to not exceed the dynamics of the rest of the non-percussion tracks.  Voila! Poor percussion recordings ever since.  The late 70s is also when electronic drums and disco came onto the scene. 

I think that the recording engineers basically stopped recording live music that was balanced by the musicians onstage in a live room/auditorium/theater.  A lot of people stopped buying “live” LPs at this time, probably because the sound of  “live” was considered to be less than that of studio-recorded LPs.  Go figure.

Chris

Cask05:

I think that the recording engineers basically stopped recording live music that was balanced by the musicians onstage in a live room/auditorium/theater. 

Chris

Excellent point! The musicians together know how to balance the sound, the recordist just makes things up for balance. You may be onto it here. I doubt that very many horn, piano or guitar players would allow a drummer to take over the lead in every song. 

You want to hear some nice drums? Try "Burning for Buddy", a tribute to Buddy Rich. There are I think three(3) volumes of them and they contain mostly big band type music. There are different drummers on each track and they are produced by Neil Peart of Rush ( of course!!).

They are recorded very well and have some of the best drummers in the world playing some great tunes.

 Never saw a 3 inch deck. The 35mm was probably sprocketed, and used for film work. I remember studios isolating everything, so ALL room sound was synthesized or electronic (reverb and delay). The space was totally created by the producer and engineer. 

Many good comments all around so far. I'm a drummer myself and agree that some of the sounds out there now are atrocious. I've never really cared for electronic drum sounds. These days when the drums are recorded it is usually by individual close miking of each drum. This is then EQ'd, limited, compressed and level adjusted until it doesn't really sound like the original sound from the kit at all and everything takes on that heavily compressed, every hit is exactly the same sound. Even worse is when the drums are triggered. The drum sounds are completely replaced with presampled ones from a processor. This makes every kick drum hit or snare beat EXACTLY the same with no nuance or dynamics at all.

The worst offenders are mainstream POP, ROCK, Rap and R&B. If you depart the well traveled road there are still good drum sounds out there which in my opinion are much better than the old recordings. I never thought that the drums were recorded that well in most of the old recordings. Granted, my opinion on this is probably quite different from everyone else's, because I always judge a drum sets sound from the perspective of actually sitting behind it, not way out in some crowd.

The actual sound of a live kit has changed in the last 30-40yrs. The quality of the drumheads is much more consistent now and the materials used has changed somewhat. The plastics used in some of the modern heads has a lot more high freq's and attack to it. The range of available sounds from cymbals has increased and in addition the style of the average drummer has changed from a jazz/traditional finnese style to a more hard hitting rock/power style. The reason that the drums are mixed louder and more forward in the mix now is because that's what a lot of people want. Seems to me like in the last 50 years music has gravitated to some extent from a harmony, or tonal based structure to being, a beat or rythym oriented structure somewhat.

Put Bonzo in the hallway of the castle and put 3 mics loosely around his kit. Now THERE's a drum sound for ya!

A band I used to run lights for used a sample of a baseball bat breaking along with a mic'd signal for the snare- wicked nasty!

A friend of mine used to personally roadie for Jason Bonham when he was with the Healing Sixes (from Shelbyville Indiana of all places). I've seen his cast bronze snare close up. Now there's a pretty unique sound.

Thanks for the tip on the Buddy Rich piece. I'm a Purple fan and Ian Paice is a huge Buddy fan. Ian swings when he rocks, love that style!

Ricci:

Many good comments all around so far. I'm a drummer myself and agree that some of the sounds out there now are atrocious. I've never really cared for electronic drum sounds. These days when the drums are recorded it is usually by individual close miking of each drum. This is then EQ'd, limited, compressed and level adjusted until it doesn't really sound like the original sound from the kit at all and everything takes on that heavily compressed, every hit is exactly the same sound. Even worse is when the drums are triggered. The drum sounds are completely replaced with presampled ones from a processor. This makes every kick drum hit or snare beat EXACTLY the same with no nuance or dynamics at all.

The worst offenders are mainstream POP, ROCK, Rap and R&B. If you depart the well traveled road there are still good drum sounds out there which in my opinion are much better than the old recordings. I never thought that the drums were recorded that well in most of the old recordings. Granted, my opinion on this is probably quite different from everyone else's, because I always judge a drum sets sound from the perspective of actually sitting behind it, not way out in some crowd.

The actual sound of a live kit has changed in the last 30-40yrs. The quality of the drumheads is much more consistent now and the materials used has changed somewhat. The plastics used in some of the modern heads has a lot more high freq's and attack to it. The range of available sounds from cymbals has increased and in addition the style of the average drummer has changed from a jazz/traditional finnese style to a more hard hitting rock/power style. The reason that the drums are mixed louder and more forward in the mix now is because that's what a lot of people want. Seems to me like in the last 50 years music has gravitated to some extent from a harmony, or tonal based structure to being, a beat or rythym oriented structure somewhat.

 

 

Some really great info and viewpoint in there! Thanks! The last sentence seems to strike me as perfectly accurate based on what I am hearing. I think you nailed it all there.  

so pretty soon we'll be banging bones against rocks?

(blame Kubrick- I watched 2001 in HD last night)

I, too, agree with Ricci.  I think the difference today is that there is a lot more expression of aggression in music.  The music is supposed to be pounded into you, and you are supposed to be able to pund back with your foot stomping on the floor on every 1st and 3rd beat. It is not so much about tonality. 

I listen to Pandora radio all day while I work, usually Jazz qwith no vocals (vocals are distracting when you are trying to read really tedious boring documents). 

There are some live recordings that just have a raw and alive sound that is amazing.  I will have to write down the album next time, but this is what the music should sound like, you feel like you are in a jazz club. 

Those 50's and 60's recordings with telefunken mics are really nice in my book.

 I was at Buddy Guy's in Chicago on Saturday, and got to enjoy some really nice, live blues... real instruments, real music, real drums... :)  Real talent.

Steve Albini's recordings still have a great drum(and everything else) sound. HERE is a link to his studio with a most impressive list of gear. I want his MICS.

I love a nice ambient drum sound. I can listen to Blakey or Elvin all day long - or Colter's example of Bonzo, hard hitter with a great sound  - big tubs tuned up high w/overheads. There are also lots of great contemporary examples of well recorded drum sounds, if you explore a bit.

Having said that, I'm no drum snob. I love my old Slingys, vintage Zildjian A's and Ks, but I also love my drum machine, or the sound of muffled drums, children's kits, houseware percussion sampled and tweaked, etc. all that crap. It all has it's place. Hell, I mentioned the "mashed potato" sound earlier in this thread. I love that sound for certain types of music. It's not the tool, but how you use it.

When I think of terrible drum sounds though, it's bad because it's improperly mixed, or inappropraite for the music,or the band is just plain terrible (can't polish a turd)...