early-mid 70s drum heads

[macle]

Hi,

What were the drum heads commonly used from say 1970 to 1975 (batter and resonant, although maybe no resonant at all, right?). I'm thinking people like Ringo, Nigel Olsson, Jim Keltner, those sorts of drummers. I imagine there weren't too many choices then. Remo coated Ambassadors?

Thanks.

[scrubs]

Is there a specific sound you want to recreate, or are you just wondering what heads were available? AFAIK, Remo, Ludwig, & Evans all made heads during that time, and there were probably others. Ringo is reported to have played both Remo and Ludwig heads, according to internet reports.

[chetatkinsdiet]

coated ambassadors on top and bottom were the norm. Silver dots were popular as well. It was probably a few more years before the evans hydro or remo pinstripes were really popular.

Pretty much, the standard Remo heads were what everyone used. Or as mentioned, the Ludwig equivalent.


m

[bigbone]

Originally Posted by chetatkinsdiet

coated ambassadors on top and bottom were the norm. Silver dots were popular as well. It was probably a few more years before the evans hydro or remo pinstripes were really popular.

Pretty much, the standard Remo heads were what everyone used. Or as mentioned, the Ludwig equivalent.


m

As that time, REMO was making the drum head for ludwig and gretsch
and slingerland.so it was the same head, the logo was different .........

[macle]

Thanks very much for the replies.

Would that be Ambassador clear or coated on the resonant side (or maybe it doesn't matter).

As far as any specific sound, I figured I would just try to get in the general 70s ballpark, and see what happens. I realize that the drums themselves, the way they're tuned, treated, played and recorded, will effect the final sound in a big way. But the sound generally seems to be Not Ringy.

One sound would be Nigel Olsson's drums in the Elton John period of Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Also, on the Paul McCartney album Speed Of Sound, it seems there is a bit slicker of a sound, sort of a 70s soul influence.

And on the Harry Nilsson albums produced by Richard Perry, that's a great 70s sound, very slick.

But generally, I'd like the 70s approach of an unringy snare, deep toms, and a solid thud of a kick.

One thing I'm wondering about is I suppose back then they would have to treat the heads with muffling, and now it seems there are heads that are "pre-treated", built in muffling rings or other methods, I think (Aquarian Studio-X for example?).
Maybe this would be an easier way to achieve that 70s sound without having to tape Kotex or put cotton balls in the drum or whatever. Or maybe these new pre-treated heads aren't really the same.

Also, those Evans Hyrdraulics. This seems to be a very 70s thing, any examples of songs that have that particular sound? I see a lot of negative comments about them in surfing around, that maybe they are too dead and cardboard boxey.

Lastly, does anyone know of any sound samples on-line comparing heads or different sounds and techniques? I can't find anything.

Thanks very much.

[bigbone]

Tom sound from the 70's..............2 words..........concert toms.........

[chetatkinsdiet]

Originally Posted by macle

Thanks very much for the replies.

Would that be Ambassador clear or coated on the resonant side (or maybe it doesn't matter).

As far as any specific sound, I figured I would just try to get in the general 70s ballpark, and see what happens. I realize that the drums themselves, the way they're tuned, treated, played and recorded, will effect the final sound in a big way. But the sound generally seems to be Not Ringy.

One sound would be Nigel Olsson's drums in the Elton John period of Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Also, on the Paul McCartney album Speed Of Sound, it seems there is a bit slicker of a sound, sort of a 70s soul influence.

And on the Harry Nilsson albums produced by Richard Perry, that's a great 70s sound, very slick.

But generally, I'd like the 70s approach of an unringy snare, deep toms, and a solid thud of a kick.

One thing I'm wondering about is I suppose back then they would have to treat the heads with muffling, and now it seems there are heads that are "pre-treated", built in muffling rings or other methods, I think (Aquarian Studio-X for example?).
Maybe this would be an easier way to achieve that 70s sound without having to tape Kotex or put cotton balls in the drum or whatever. Or maybe these new pre-treated heads aren't really the same.

Also, those Evans Hyrdraulics. This seems to be a very 70s thing, any examples of songs that have that particular sound? I see a lot of negative comments about them in surfing around, that maybe they are too dead and cardboard boxey.

Lastly, does anyone know of any sound samples on-line comparing heads or different sounds and techniques? I can't find anything.

Thanks very much.

Most kits shipped with coated on both. Most drummers immediately took the bottom heads/rims off. The pro drummers of the day were using a lot of concert toms. Especially the instances you mention above.
As for the negative comments about the Evans Hydraulics....sure....all of those things are true, but those comments are also valid for most of the drum sounds of the day. They fit the times and were a cool sound. But come on, you gotta admit that they were dead and boxy.

m

[bigbone]

Originally Posted by bigbone

Tom sound from the 70's..............2 words..........concert toms.........

By concert toms, i mean No head on the bottom.......

[True North]

Originally Posted by macle

Thanks very much for the replies.

Would that be Ambassador clear or coated on the resonant side (or maybe it doesn't matter).

As far as any specific sound, I figured I would just try to get in the general 70s ballpark, and see what happens. I realize that the drums themselves, the way they're tuned, treated, played and recorded, will effect the final sound in a big way. But the sound generally seems to be Not Ringy.

One sound would be Nigel Olsson's drums in the Elton John period of Honky Chateau, Don't Shoot Me, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Also, on the Paul McCartney album Speed Of Sound, it seems there is a bit slicker of a sound, sort of a 70s soul influence.

And on the Harry Nilsson albums produced by Richard Perry, that's a great 70s sound, very slick.

But generally, I'd like the 70s approach of an unringy snare, deep toms, and a solid thud of a kick.

One thing I'm wondering about is I suppose back then they would have to treat the heads with muffling, and now it seems there are heads that are "pre-treated", built in muffling rings or other methods, I think (Aquarian Studio-X for example?).
Maybe this would be an easier way to achieve that 70s sound without having to tape Kotex or put cotton balls in the drum or whatever. Or maybe these new pre-treated heads aren't really the same.

Also, those Evans Hyrdraulics. This seems to be a very 70s thing, any examples of songs that have that particular sound? I see a lot of negative comments about them in surfing around, that maybe they are too dead and cardboard boxey.

Lastly, does anyone know of any sound samples on-line comparing heads or different sounds and techniques? I can't find anything.

Thanks very much.

There was most definitely duct tape involved at some point

AND

Concert Toms seemed to help quite a bit

Evans Hydraulic heads are particularily dead sounding
Evans makes heads with Zero rings built in which sound really nice
You can also try using Moongel for dealing with overtones

[PhatStax Drums]

I usually prefer Remo heads myself, but, that's just me, you can get good sounds out of any good head manufacturer.

Evans Hydraulic heads would indeed provide, well, let the manufacturer describe it:

"Hydraulics feature two plies that sandwich a thin layer of oil and give the fat, wet sound that was pioneered in the 70's. The oil decreases sustain and enhances attack and low-end."

from Evans

There's nothing wrong with using coated Ambassadors or Emperors, or smooth/clear Ambassadors/Emperors, and taping whatever to them (duct tape). As mentioned above, the Moongel product would be perfect for this as well. The advantage to that approach over the hydraulics, is that you can un-muffle the sound easily if you decide you need something with a crisper and/or more open/lively sound.

It doesn't have to look pretty to do the job---Ringo simply threw tea towels over his drums, it's documented in the wonderful book "Recording The Beatles," starting in 1968 when the muffled `70s drum sounds were beginning to be pioneered. One very interesting thing Ringo did such as in Get Back (I believe, I could be wrong here, would have to look at the film/photos again) is muffle one tom, but leave the other one open, that's what the fills in Get Back sound like, but, that's just Ringo's amazing creativity, most 70s drummers were muffled all the way.

Using a muffled head (any of the above approaches), and taking the bottom head off, and sticking a mic underneath the drum head (inside the drum, usually using a dynamic tom mic designed for that, perhaps ideally a Sennheiser MD 421 but lots of other mics would work, such as an SM57 or Sennheiser e604), would give you that fat, direct sound.

I think that might be the easy part....would be interested in hearing how you compress and otherwise process (or, leave alone, too) a drum sound to really get a fat, 70s sound, say like on a good Barry White record (well, sure, I laugh a bit when I hear those, but the drums really punch you in the gut).

Part of that is playing really direct, to-the-point fills, no-nonsense, and, as you've said earlier, yes, it's largely the drummer, for the seventies sound she or he must be extremely tight yet relaxed and funky, and consistent, and only play what is necessary. Of course the toms should be tuned well so that they resonate and have the head in tune with itself all around the drum (always subject to creative exceptions but this will generally give you the fattest tone) and then, muffle the head with whatever, on top of that.

With the snare, same goes, Ringo put a tea towel over the whole snare, or put a wallet on the snare. Moongel would be the ideal solution perhaps, but it's all creative.

I have to emphasize that I wasn't there (miking and mixing drums in the 70s.....well, I was, but when I started in the late 70s I was already trying to move back to an open drum sound). So others might be able to give more qualified feedback. (Well, I'm certain of that, actually!!!)

Think of photos of Chris Frantz (Talking Heads drummer) using large, Rogers Big-R (late seventies, early eighties) drums, single-headed, with a mic stuck right up under the head...that and muffling should give you the punchy, wet, funky, direct, in-your-face sound you're looking for.

I would combine that with excellent microphone preamps that can deliver a punchy sound that will cut through in a mix.

The kick drum is probably the most important. (Now there's a profound revelation for you....sure....) Single-headed, muffled probably with a pillow or blanket in the drum head, and a mic pretty close up to the beater...but, again, I wasn't really there...but...the kick of course is key to this sound. I usually mic with the entire kick drum intact as it's played live (not even a hole in the resonant head) with an inexpensive ribbon mic (e.g. Nady RSM-1) in front of the kick with a pop filter (on a SEPARATE stand so it doesn't vibrate the mic). As long as the resonant head doesn't vibrate disagreeably. That gets a pretty natural bass drum sound. But so will just a good room and miking it that way, I just don't have that opportunity a lot. But I digress and there are tons of good ways of miking bass drums as you all know.


Standard tom miking off the edge of each drum would work well too, but up inside the drum would probably be punchier. Note also that Ringo's toms were often miked from underneath (again Recording The Beatles documents this), when any tom mics were in fact used (as they usually were later in The Beatles career).

There's a photo probably easily locatable on the web of Hal Blaine's Monster Drum Kit which was the basis for the Ludwig Octa-Plus kit of the seventies. Googling that may give some photos.


Not having the luxury or time these days to really check this out, I'd be curious to see whether a good overhead and/or front-of-kit miking scheme could achieve this in-your-face seventies sound. Probably not under most circumstances but I'd bet it could come surprisingly close. But really you'd probably just want to mic everything up close to use something (or exactly?) like Kramer's words, "like they taught us in engineering school." Again I have to stress that I did not attend engineering school, or make funky, seventies-sound records in the seventies, really...but this is what I know of it


One last thing....if and when you take the bottom heads off the toms, I can't tell you how many drum kits were destroyed or necessitated re-cutting of the bottom bearing edges because of nothign being there to protect them. I guess most guys would be conscious of that these days. but a good alternative is simply to get some old heads (it matters not what they are) and cut most of the head out, and re-install them and the hoop onto the drum....that way you pretty much have the same sound (okay, maybe the shell woudn't resonate in quite the same way but in my opinion it wouldn't matter enough to make a difference for this application, you've not really talking about too much resonance, anyway), but the drums are protected for when you go back to having two heads, which is what you usually want in the large majority of circumstances.

You could also just muffle a two-headed tom and get a funky wet seventies sound as well, without removing the bottom head, necessarily, but the most extreme might be the single head, muffled, with the tom right inside the drum.

In the words of Wham-O on the bottom of their Frisbees in the early sixties: "Flat flip flies straight. Tilted flip curves. Experiment!" And boy, did we ever.....we said, "okay, sure, we'll experiment!"

Having the luxury to experiment a lot with miking drums is something I miss these days but I never say never.

And I guess I strayed off your original question quite a bit. Remo Emperors will be more durable than Ambassadors, they won't dent under pretty much any tasteful playing situation, whereas Ambassadors will not last nearly as long, and Emperors are almost as open and resonant (surprisingly so for a two-ply head). For a seventies sound you'd generally want smooth/clear heads as opposed to coated, but either would work.

Emperors were available as far back as the sixties, I believe. Ambassadors certainly were. Evans Hydraulics were certainly available in 1978 (I remember), probably earlier.

[chrisso]

I think your comments are fairly accurate.
I was around towards the end of the dead/single headed period.
Also, I've worked with a lot of 70's guys.
We explored most of these techniques while recording the sample set 'Custom & Vintage':
******//www.toontrack.com/custom_vintage.asp
******//www.toontrack.com/ezx.asp#vintagerock

There are a few sound demos.

[PhatStax Drums]

Wow Chris...fascinating site to say the least, I was not aware of it. Um, yeah...you've worked with some seventies guys, I'd say....including Paul McCartney on his 1989 tour...wow!!!

Very impressive...thanks very much.

[macle]

Originally Posted by chrisso

I think your comments are fairly accurate.
I was around towards the end of the dead/single headed period.
Also, I've worked with a lot of 70's guys.
We explored most of these techniques while recording the sample set 'Custom & Vintage':
Toontrack
Toontrack

There are a few sound demos.

Woah, that is wild. "here's a song which features young master Christopher!". (big McCartney fan here).

Not only have I been using the EZDrummer vintage kit as a scratch drum groove (which I will replace with my own drums and drumming of course, even if it's shittier and crappier...it's what I must do )...

...but I also happen to have Flowers In The Dirt sitting right here, one of McCartney's best solo albums (even though it's not from the 70s ).

Hamish Stuart was in that band , too, who I recently saw on Soul Train. They've been showing episodes from the 70s, and he was on with the Average White Band. And Billy Preston was on, lots of great ol funky stuff on that show, which I've really been getting into...

Anyway, before you even posted, I was trying to look at the toontrack site, but it kept conking out. I was trying to find how you recorded that kit, the heads and micing techniques and all that. Not sure if goes into that sort of detail though.

Thanks Chris

and thanks everyone, lots of great tips, I appreciate it very much.

[Bob Olhsson]

I'll raise my hand because I was there!

We virtually always used coated ambassadors. Every engineer or drummer had their own method of drum damping. The goal was to damp sympathetic ringing while retaining as much tone as possible from the drum that was actually being hit. The best I ever came up with was little hinged pieces of felt that would fly up off the head for a moment when it was hit. I did this on both top and bottom heads. A wallet on the snare was also SOP.

While the heavy gaffer tape method was common in concert sound, most recording engineers considered that way too dead. Tissue and masking tape was pretty common in the US while England was into covering the head partially (or fully) with tea towels.

[PhatStax Drums]

Bob, undoubtedly right-on about the gaffer tape (especially since, well, you were there in a big way!). Pinstripe heads would probably be a good thing to try as well, they would leave a fair amount of resonance but kill some overtones (but personally I prefer Emperors myself, although I'm pretty much nobody compared to these guys!).

I should have said gaffer tape as well, of course duct tape can leave gum residue on whatever it touches.

The muffling "gates" as in the modern EQ kick drum pad concept is a good one, it can be made with gaffer tape, I've seen cut-up credit cards used for the actual gate material but I guess felt would work better

And good to emphasize you really don't want to muffle anything too much, you still want it to resonate musically

Hal Blaine's monster kit couldn't have had mics on each tom, unless they had, what, at least 12 channels for the drums back then? Unlikely but I'm not sure. Perhaps something like semi-overheads did the trick and still was punchy and direct enough for that sound.

Evans Hydraulics would give you a funky wet sound but, you couldn't open up the sound to something more resonant, without changing the heads...so lots of time and expense just to get one sound, whereas you can get pretty close to that, with more cool overtones, using the judicious muffling discussed here (and as has been mentioned, probably they were coated Ambassadors for the most part anyway if you really want to use exactly what was used, but each drummer and studio was different, because, well, I know, right? Well, time to stop typing and get some sleep here, I'd say!).

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by macle

I was trying to find how you recorded that kit, the heads and micing techniques and all that.

There are about 5 kits in total. Some were recorded contemporary style (the sample set didn't set out to mimic 70's sounds), others we experimented with retro techniques.
We found a studio with a rare and original EMI TGI console. The sound of the mic/pre's is very fat, but also a little grainy. 'Attitude' is the best way to describe the desk.
Peter Henderson used the best mics he had available too, Neumann U67s, KM84's, KM56's on toms, just as a different falvour to the usual 421's. We did record a single-headed kit with 421's up inside the shells.
We recorded drums wide open, as well as with a variety of muffling techniques. Some of the toms are stupidly dead.
Peter mentioned he often tuned the drums himself on projects back in the day. So we did that too. Andy Johns can be seen tuning drums on the Platinum Samples website. I think it's an interesting approach - to take the drummer out of the drum sound equation.
I had Peter set up a Supraphonic snare with a typical fat 70's tone. The result was a very loose batter head and lot's of muffling.
I had modern sounding 2 ply heads on a couple of kits, but also used the typical single-ply coated (Ambassador style) heads on many of the snares and several toms and bass drums.
In general, we were shooting for a drier sound (less room ambience) than other sample sets on the market. Therefore there was an emphasis on close micing and making the use of Peter's experienced ear in mic placement and eq.

[macle]

Hey, thanks very very much for the replies!!

Here's another somewhat stupid question:

I got the new drum heads, and I got 2 different bass drum heads (a regular coated Ambassador and a Powerstroke 3). I was thinking I might switch between them depending, but...

is there any problem with switching new heads out? If you put a new head on, and then take it off, will it not be the same when you put it back on?

I usually put new heads on when doing some recording, and then just leave 'em on until recording again, so I'm not too familiar with their shelf life and that sort of thing.

Thanks.

[chrisso]

Once you 'seat' a new head on a drum, it wont sound 100% on a different drum or in a different position on the same drum.
You can remove heads and reinstall them later (and several times) on the same drum, but you should mark the head in relation to a specific point on the shell. That way you will always mount the head in exactly the same position.

[macle]

Thanks Chris!