60s/70s drum techniques - mix-down busing

[deleteduser]

I hate to sound so simplistic here.... but one time a good friend of mine just kept requesting I turn the treble all the way down on the drums. Me, being the engineer, wanted to show off the fact I could afford condenser mics, wanted to boost the treble a little bit. Honestly. Turning down the HF filter on the board we were using... 12k? Literally all the way down.. and add back top end with saturation or just making it work... is honestly pretty "small and 70's sounding" and its so simple. I think we were on tape too at the time.

you're not going to like this but the original DBX 160... hard to setup to sound good in my opinion but something about it just screams 70's drum bus to me.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

Using 16 or 24 track tape machines (especially later in the ‘70s with desk automation requiring 3 tracks - one for SMPTE time code and 2 for alternating desk automation data) the often usual process we used was to record drums, bass, guitar and guide Vox, guide brass/horns - then comp the drums down to a stereo drum track. Then do guitar overdubs - lead, lead solos and rhythm and comp those to a stereo guitar track. Then say horn section recorded individually and comped to a stereo track. Then lead vocals and BV’s - comp BV’s to stereo. Each set bounced to stereo allowed further use of tape compression plus the necessary benefit of freeing up tracks for the next stage of recording. This double use of tape knocked a lot of the hard top end edge off recordings and the mix was part done as you went. Drums in some studios were recorded in an iso-booth in the main live room - one studio I worked in had a floating drum booth on a concrete slab with timber walls and glass window panels and an opening door also with an open ceiling to bass trapping overhead. This decoupled the drums from the rest of the room and gave a really tight drum sound. There was a live area with marble floor - the whole room was L shaped - live with overhead trapping on one arm of the L, drum iso booth at the junction and par-dead on the other arm with rough stone wall for diffusion, windows to control room and overhead and wall trapping. This allowed the whole band to record in the one room - guitar and bass amps isolated with mobile panels.
Mixdown was often using DBX 160’s or 1178 for stereo drum bus - this could be done in the bounce of the drums to stereo to free up the compressors for later use, 1176 or LA2A and Pultec EQP1A for vocals, Massenburg GML8200 and 1178 or 2254’s for main mix bus, mixed to 2 track 1/2” tape master. The mix tape was then sent to the vinyl cutting studio for mastering to vinyl.

 

[emrr]

Most sets of old transferred tapes I've seen have drums recorded hot enough the tape is the only compressor needed.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

Yeah - it all depended on the recording levels and the engineer. I liked to run hot to tape especially on the Studer A820’s as they really had a lovely saturation effect, but when assisting visiting engineer producers some had a different approach using compression all over the shop - maybe not realising the capability of the tape machines to their full extent. Combining a Neve console with a Studer I found I rarely needed to do anything with the drums - maybe a little EQ to the individual elements of the kit but no compression needed. A pair of matched 2254’s across the whole mix bus made for a really good sound.

 

[Seeker]

To me, that “vintage” drum sound ( don’t want to box myself into a specific era exactly) starts with a drummer with a fairly light touch.

Then a mono overhead 47 or 251 would be my preference, but even a sm57 can work placed in front of or above the drummers head… working into a preamp that has some color…

Get a good sound and build it from there….

At least that’s where I’d start.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

In the early days before the 8, 16 and 24 track multitrack tape machines drums were recorded and often implanted into a stereo mix as a mono track - I’ve heard tracks from the likes of Cat Steven’s for example with the drums panned to one side. 4 track machines meant mixing as you recorded. You made do with the technology available. John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep - the drums are in mono - maybe a micro-pan on the low toms. Great drum sound

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

Of course before stereo in its raw form everything was in mono but the early forays into stereo mixing led to some outstanding ingenuity in manipulating tracks on 4 track machines - bouncing three mono tracks, each of which could be a mix of several microphones, to one, then two to one, then recording the last two. There was also the use of sound on sound so four could comp down to one track for example or a mic could record onto an already recorded track and sum. Then mixing down to two track tape.
Recording techniques changed a lot with the advent of the large multitrack machines and along with that the number of mics used on drumkits - to the sometimes detriment of the resulting drum mix with phase errors and cancellations, tonal clashes and excessive harshness or brightness of cymbals and hats, spill causing all sorts of these problems leading to the often somewhat disastrous use of noise-gates.
I have recorded drums with mics on every part of a kit, top and bottom mics plus overheads and room mics (barely room for the drummer who may or may not have wanted all these mics) as well as the minimalist 3, 4, 5 and 6 mic setups - these having far fewer issues than the bigger setups. I’ve seen so many hours burned up with getting a decent drum sound by using too many mics - ok if the band is going to spend 4 to 6 weeks in the studio. Often it was in the hands of the producer as to how this would unfold.
Then of course is the choice of what mics to use…..
What mics have you got? How many of each? Have you got enough stands, cables, are there enough tracks on tape?

 

[Gold]

I’ve always liked the sound of a single mic next to a right handed drummers left ear pointed at the snare. Along with a bass drum mic.

 

[kags]

Usually I’m a well played rock or pop rock mix kick, snare l, overheads and maybe a hint of Tom’s or hat are all that’s needed. It’s nice to have some rooms or a ride mic to bring extra dynamics to certain sections, but meat and potatoes are the main 3 or even mics- sometimes only 2 or three mics. Obviously genre dependent, but things definitely got over-complicated somewhere along the way.

Then again, I rarely use the recorded kick or snare sounds these days because most drummers record (poorly) at home. I retrigger or at least supplement almost all drum sounds on lower-budget projects.

I teach my students how to record drums with three mics and they are usually shocked how good it sounds-with a great drummer, of course!

 

[emrr]

Not having mics so close. I had a tracking session that someone else mixed, and they didn't use any of my close mics, just the OH and a mic out front. Immediately sounds more '70's.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

I like the overhead(s) low and behind the drummer - you hear what the drummer hears, add a kick, snare and maybe a room and you’ve got all you need.
A lot of the ‘60s sound was the minimal mics and the multiple runs/comps through tape, same for a lot of the ‘70s sound in stereo - it’s the combination of that mic setup with recording to tape, mixing down to 1/2” that helped make that sound.

 

[kags]

Ringo certainly didn't need a sophisticated setup. Kick and overhead on most of the 60s and early 70s recordings.

 

[RoadrunnerOZ]

Last photo shows a more complex setup with 5 or six mics 🤔