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Originally Posted by chrisso  No, the 70's was the era of the mega album session. Bands would spend a year or more on a single album, a week getting the drum sound, even before committing anything to tape.
An engineer friend of mine spent a whole studio day trying different hi-hats to find the perfect sound.
In many ways it was the era of the super engineered album: E,W&F, Steely Dan, Led Zeppelin, Foreigner, Queen, Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac.
A lot of care and attention was paid at every stage.
I still say the hi-hat has taken a back seat to the hyped room sound of rock drums, but I agree that tape, a nice mic and a nice recording console all have a role. |
Oh, I'm not disagreeing that the albums were meticulously engineered on good gear; I just don't hear that the hats are run through special high-hat preamps and special high-hat mics to special high-hat tape. I think the albums were just well mic'ed, well engineered, and the players would play their well-chosen cymbals well. I'm not so young that I don't remember drummers bringing in five, six, seven different sets of hats (along with 20 or 30 other cymbals) for week-long drum sessions. I don't see that anymore, unfortunately. Drums were my favourite part of tracking.
I just think the great sounding hats were a result of good playing and recording, not that there was any particular focus on hats (with the occasional exception as with your friend), unlike definite trends in snare or kick or tom sounds. It's just a happy byproduct. Maybe I'm way off, but I that's what I hear.
I still think Marotta was more or less right (in his stunned sort of way) when he said until Aja, no-one really paid much attention to what the drummer was doing on hats. There wasn't an appreciation for nuance or finesse. Listen to all the stuff Bonham was doing that's buried so deep you can barely discern it. I didn't even realize it was there until I heard some drum stems in isolation. Copeland really brought hat work back to the forefront in the 80s, though in a way that made every other rock drummer who featured hat work sound just like trying to imitate Copeland. It's was like trying to play fretless at the time without sounding like Jaco. (Didn't Peter Gabriel/Lanois bring in Copeland to just play hats on "Big Time"?)
YouTube - Steely Dan - The Making Of Peg