Equipment I need to get that 'Old Soul Sound'

[Blue May]

Hey everybody,

this post might be trying to cover a few to many bases in one post but here i go-

I'm in love with that old soul drum sound... You know the one on all the old Al Green records etc...
Now i know that half of the sound is how the drummer plays the drums but could you guys give me any tips on what drum kit / sanre drum / skins / cymbals might get that kinda sound... also what mics?? I'm under the impression that less is more when micing a kit for this kind of sound, if this is correct what positions would you guys recomend... Finally is it worth me investing in a tape machin to track with to get that old saturation before recording it back into my DAW?

Thanks..

[Will Box]

The late great Al Jackson Jr played on a lot of Al Greens stuff. Try a Google search. Otherwise the Pro Sound Web is a goldmine for this kind of info. Some of the original sound guys from Stax and Motown post there.

[brendondp]

Originally Posted by Blue May

Hey everybody,

this post might be trying to cover a few to many bases in one post but here i go-

I'm in love with that old soul drum sound... You know the one on all the old Al Green records etc...
Now i know that half of the sound is how the drummer plays the drums but could you guys give me any tips on what drum kit / sanre drum / skins / cymbals might get that kinda sound... also what mics?? I'm under the impression that less is more when micing a kit for this kind of sound, if this is correct what positions would you guys recomend... Finally is it worth me investing in a tape machin to track with to get that old saturation before recording it back into my DAW?

Thanks..

Never worked in Motown, wasn't even born then in fact. But if it was me...

1. A set of dry hats, a Rogers Dynasonic and a double-headed kick with a little bit of dampening, or alternatively, no front head and a felt strip for the batter.

2. A single Coles 4038, placed in front of the kit.

Cheers to you,

bdp

[Sugarnutz]

I spent a lot of time over at Hi in the later Al Green years. Willie's studio was an old theater (Royal) with big sagging reams of burlap hanging from the ceiling stuffed with fiberglass batting, carpet over the floors, dead as a door-nail. I cant remember what was on the kick or snare as far as mics go, but he had a bunch of U67's and there was usually one as an over-head, maybe centered about 3 ft. over the rack toms. The kick was probably an old EV that had the nick-name "Donkey Dick" as thats's kinda what it looked like. Console/pre's were a custom Bell Lab's job built in the easrly 60's, tape machine was a 1" Ampex 8-track with 351 tube electronics, tape machine ran at 14.5 ips (no shit, we found this out later moving some tapes to another studio) and monitoring was done on Altec A7's. I don't think Wiliie ever used any EQ and what he had was a simple shelving bass/treble, simple mic setups/placement was what he understood. Mixing was through a panel that had level, left/right/center switch and output was so low from from this panel that it had to go into the mic inputs of the Ampex 2-track.

Willie was no engineer in the repect that he did not understand electronics, signal flow, blah, blah, blah..... What he did understand was music, what sounded good and he understood it better than most anybody else, How many people know that he studied at Julliard.

My dad was Willie's mastering engineer for all the Al Green stuff and until "Let's Stay together" there was no EQ on any of the masters. "Let's stay to Together" had +2 db @ 5k from a Spectrasonics 2-band EQ, soft-limiting from a strapped pair of 1176LN's, a couple of db @ 4:1 and a Pultec hi/lo pass filter @ 70hz and 12k for the 45 and a vertical cross-over @ 250 hz. The low/hi pass and the x-over were always in the chain to protect the cutterhead/limit lateral excursion. All masters cut on a Scully/Westrex system, Neumann could'nt handle the heat.

[Blue May]

Thanks guys this is all great knowledge.. I am totaly obsessed with that sound at the moment!!

[jeff deff]

I remember reading that they used a RCA 77DX on the snare for the Al Green stuff. I think the real key for the Al Green drum sound was the snare, which was Al Jackson Jr. on drum kit with Howard Grimes playing a conga drum on the 2 and the 4. This gives the snare a huge deep sound which sounds like a single drum, but is in fact, two players, one on snare one on conga, playing together.

When I go for the soul sound, I play a gretsch 20 inch kick with a Aquarian Super Kick 1 head, and a gretsch wooden snare with a wallet on it. I believe a lot of the soul guys played ludwig metal snares.

[brendondp]

Taken off the interweb... so don't take it as gospel.

"A lot of the drum sound was, I think, accidental. You know, bring the drums in and put a mike on 'em. Move the mike around till it sounds good.

What a lot of people probably don't understand is that the drums Al played, stayed there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with the same microphones on them. It was that way for a long time, when we were cutting all the mono records, "Green Onions," the Rufus Thomas stuff and all of that. Once they were there, it never changed, they never moved around any. Later, when we got into multi-track machines and overdubbing, some things changed.

The other thing is that Al Jackson never changed his heads, unless he broke one. The same thing with the bass and guitar. If we broke a string we changed it, if we didn't, it never got changed.

Al never changed those drums. I think he had a Ludwig and Rogers combination, kind of a mix 'n' match. He had a medium size kick drum, 20-inch I believe, and he had a Rogers floor tom, grey pearl, and then a little 12-inch tom over head. It was a little black drum.

The other thing that Al used to do that was different-he wasn't the only drummer that ever did it- but when he came down to do a session, the first thing he did was reach in his back pocket, and pull out this big fat billfold and plop it on the snare. Other guys used tape or a muffler. Al just plopped a billfold down there. The old records didn't have a lot of decay time, the snares didn't ring too much and there's not a lot of cymbals, because we didn't mike the cymbals.

Where were the mikes placed?

We had an RCA capsule mike, a 44 or a 77, that looked like a big Tylenol. We had one of those on a small stand and we just brought it right straight up under the hi-hat, as high as we could to still be comfortable. It was a ribbon mike and it picked up everything around it and got the snare and the hi-hat. Then we had the old, big, black and chrome RCA microphone. It had big holes in it and they used them back in the old days in the radio shows. Sort of a giant shaver microphone about four inches wide. We used that for a long time on the kick drum. That's all we had, two mikes.

Was there a front head on the kick drum?

Yes, there was. Way later, when Ronnie Capone and some of those guys came over we may have taken it off. They grew up doing jingles and they turned us on to some new techniques.

We had two Ampex mixers. We had eight channels but one of them we used as an echo return, so we only had seven to cut all those songs with. Two mikes on the drums, one on the vocal, one on the horns, one on the bass, one on the guitar and one on the piano. The studio was a theater, as you know, and we used one of the tile bathrooms for the echo.

The ceiling was 12 to 13 feet high near the box office entrance and went up to 20-something feet down near the front of the stage where the instruments were set up. The floor was slanted but it started levelling off about half way down, right about where we had the drum riser."

Cheers,

bdp

[2A Batterie]

On the drums: Tape (gaffer's), cigarette packs (also used by Ringo), and towels. I read an interview with ?uestlove in Modern Drummer where he described an session he did where he was going for that old Motown sound. The engineer (who apparently did some Motown sessions) covered the entire drumset with a blanket and said that is what was used to help keep the volume down in the live room. ?uestlove said it was like a Jedi 's drumming test.

I have a few old ludwig snares (supraphonic and some old student model) that are 5x14 and steel sheel. Both heads haven't been changed in years and they sound so vintage and so great.

[blackwatch]

Originally Posted by brendondp

1. A set of dry hats, a Rogers Dynasonic and a double-headed kick with a little bit of dampening, or alternatively, no front head and a felt strip for the batter.

2. A single Coles 4038, placed in front of the kit.

Well said! thumbsup

[earldrum]

Originally Posted by brendondp

Taken off the interweb... so don't take it as gospel.

"The other thing is that Al Jackson never changed his heads, unless he broke one. The same thing with the bass and guitar. If we broke a string we changed it, if we didn't, it never got changed.

Al never changed those drums. I think he had a Ludwig and Rogers combination, kind of a mix 'n' match. He had a medium size kick drum, 20-inch I believe, and he had a Rogers floor tom, grey pearl, and then a little 12-inch tom over head. It was a little black drum.

The other thing that Al used to do that was different-he wasn't the only drummer that ever did it- but when he came down to do a session, the first thing he did was reach in his back pocket, and pull out this big fat billfold and plop it on the snare. Other guys used tape or a muffler. Al just plopped a billfold down there. The old records didn't have a lot of decay time, the snares didn't ring too much and there's not a lot of cymbals, because we didn't mike the cymbals.

Where were the mikes placed?

We had an RCA capsule mike, a 44 or a 77, that looked like a big Tylenol. We had one of those on a small stand and we just brought it right straight up under the hi-hat, as high as we could to still be comfortable. It was a ribbon mike and it picked up everything around it and got the snare and the hi-hat. Then we had the old, big, black and chrome RCA microphone. It had big holes in it and they used them back in the old days in the radio shows. Sort of a giant shaver microphone about four inches wide. We used that for a long time on the kick drum. That's all we had, two mikes.

bdp

Hi bdp:

Here is a picture of Al Jackson in the studio with that RCA "type" mic near the snare drum. I scanned the picture from the 1987 Modern Drummer article on Al Jackson (I knew keeping 30+ years of this magazine would pay off one day!).

Here is some other information about Al's recording drums according to Willie Mitchell. First off his snare (for recording) was a Roger's Powertone - it was a Grey pearl wood-shell regular sized (5"x14") snare.

The kit was a Black Rogers - 14" x20" Kick, 8" x 12" tom, 14" x 14" floor tom in the later years. He also used a mis-matched Gretsch, ludwig, and Rogers kit as well.

It seemed that MD could not get a good answer on the cymbals except they were Zildjian. Steve Cropper said, "We didn't use cymbals much; it was almost taboo to use a lot of cymbals. We didn't like the high end; we thought it offended the female buyer."

Willie Mitchell also said this about the mic setup: Telefunken U67 for the snare drum, EV 635 for the kick drum, RCA DX 77 overhead about eight feet high. No close mic'd toms as you said.

Here is the picture of Al in the studio.

Enjoy,

Earl

[OVERNIGHT]

Originally Posted by Sugarnutz

I spent a lot of time over at Hi in the later Al Green years. Willie's studio was an old theater (Royal) with big sagging reams of burlap hanging from the ceiling stuffed with fiberglass batting, carpet over the floors, dead as a door-nail. I cant remember what was on the kick or snare as far as mics go, but he had a bunch of U67's and there was usually one as an over-head, maybe centered about 3 ft. over the rack toms. The kick was probably an old EV that had the nick-name "Donkey Dick" as thats's kinda what it looked like. Console/pre's were a custom Bell Lab's job built in the easrly 60's, tape machine was a 1" Ampex 8-track with 351 tube electronics, tape machine ran at 14.5 ips (no shit, we found this out later moving some tapes to another studio) and monitoring was done on Altec A7's. I don't think Wiliie ever used any EQ and what he had was a simple shelving bass/treble, simple mic setups/placement was what he understood. Mixing was through a panel that had level, left/right/center switch and output was so low from from this panel that it had to go into the mic inputs of the Ampex 2-track.

Willie was no engineer in the repect that he did not understand electronics, signal flow, blah, blah, blah..... What he did understand was music, what sounded good and he understood it better than most anybody else, How many people know that he studied at Julliard.

My dad was Willie's mastering engineer for all the Al Green stuff and until "Let's Stay together" there was no EQ on any of the masters. "Let's stay to Together" had +2 db @ 5k from a Spectrasonics 2-band EQ, soft-limiting from a strapped pair of 1176LN's, a couple of db @ 4:1 and a Pultec hi/lo pass filter @ 70hz and 12k for the 45 and a vertical cross-over @ 250 hz. The low/hi pass and the x-over were always in the chain to protect the cutterhead/limit lateral excursion. All masters cut on a Scully/Westrex system, Neumann could'nt handle the heat.

I LOVE the internet.

[Blue May]

Wow... I leave london for 3 days (no internet connection where i was) and i come back and there is all this brilliant information... I LOVE GEARSLUTZ!!!!!thumbsup thumbsup

Honestly guys i really appreciate all this info!! I had a felling it was like a 2 or 3 mic set up.. I love the wallet on the skin idea.. i've tried a lot of tape / damper configurations but not a wallet!!

I'll be sure to post some clips when i have achieved the sound i want!!

[firby]

I think that it is important to note that the hihat was miked so low. That mic would have really caught the bottom (generally heavier) hihat. That explains alot about the sound that they were getting from the hats back then.

[PhatStax Drums]

The very helpful post <TABLE class=tborder id=post989696 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=thead style="BORDER-RIGHT: #666666 0px solid; BORDER-TOP: #666666 2px solid; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; BORDER-LEFT: #666666 2px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #666666 2px solid">26th November 2006, 07:35 PM <!-- / status icon and date --></TD><TD class=thead style="BORDER-RIGHT: #666666 2px solid; BORDER-TOP: #666666 2px solid; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; BORDER-LEFT: #666666 0px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #666666 2px solid" align=right> <!-- vbSupport start --><!-- vbSupport end -->#8 (permalink) </TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: #666666 2px solid; BORDER-TOP: #666666 0px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #666666 2px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #666666 0px solid" width=175>brendondp<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_989696", true); </SCRIPT>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
above which talks of the RCA 77 ("tylenol capsule" or whatever) and describes the RCA 44 on the kick as a "shaver" actually probably is gospel as that's a quote from Steve Cropper. Plus, the photo above seems to confirm the pickup he describes by the 77 (near the snare but picking up the hat and tom as well). (I hadn't seen that photo before, it's precious.)

The sound of Al Jackson Jr. is simply phenomenal. I'm amazed at the mistakes he makes in Monetery Pop (I'll have to watch again, maybe I'm being too hard on him), because his studio work is so close to perfection in all respects (for that style).

I guess I'll have to check the other boards mentioned above for more on the signal chain after the mics, at Stax, but the Hi post above is also a knockout, many thanks all.

Yes, Rogers drums, at least one of the principal kits used. That fat sound from Cleveland or Dayton Rogers drums a lot of the guys were using back then, that's a big part of the sound, too. Rogers are such great drums, so musical. Great rim shots on the toms, Gretsch is great that way too, Ludwig not always so, but they're all great when it's a good kit. Rogers is the most consistently good from that era IMHO.

[Tubthumper]

Dunno if peeps realise this, but Terry Manning was an engineer during the "golden days" of Memphis soul recording. This is a link to a thread in Terry's forum over at PSW, where he talks extensively about Memphis drum recording techniques.

I hope Jules doesn't get pissed off about this........

[Dr Rubberfunk]

Great thread - to be able to get hold of this sort of information has to be the best thing about boards like this
thumbsup

Big thanks to all who have contributed info or links ...

[stubenbaines]

Yeah, a great thread. Al Jackson is great, but does anyone know more about Roger Hawkins set-up (and Rick Hall's methods)? I love his playing on all of the Aretha and Muscle Shoals stuff. Anyone know how his drums were mic'd/recorded? Specifically Etta James' Tell Mama sessions.

[miqer]

Great Thread...

I got a ribbon mic and started using it as a single overhead, into an old tube pre...

It sounds very good... my problem: too much hihat, compared to the snare (even after adding a conga hit)... On the picture of Al jackson you can see he plays old style jazz... so the hihat is far away from the snare... and the ribbon mic is right next to the snare... My drummer (who is quite funcky) can't play that way, he want's the hihat next to the snare... damn these drummers of today...

So perhaps a smaller hihat? (Anyone know a hihat that is not so loud)... or a louder snare (are the vintage rogers snares loud in general?)... or he should just hit it less loud...

I don't know... thought I would just add this little problem.

thanks,
m.

[the scum]

What model is the hihat in question?

The right cymbals can have a lot to do with it. I've got an old Zildjian pair from the late 60s/early 70s. No markings other than the engravings, and they're really thin compared to anything around today (well, except maybe some thin K-customs or something).

But they're kinda quiet, and absolutely have that old soul sound. Their bark is right off the Cissy Strut. Very tasty.

[Dr Rubberfunk]

Originally Posted by miqer

Great Thread...

I got a ribbon mic and started using it as a single overhead, into an old tube pre...

It sounds very good... my problem: too much hihat, compared to the snare (even after adding a conga hit)... On the picture of Al jackson you can see he plays old style jazz... so the hihat is far away from the snare... and the ribbon mic is right next to the snare... My drummer (who is quite funcky) can't play that way, he want's the hihat next to the snare... damn these drummers of today...

So perhaps a smaller hihat? (Anyone know a hihat that is not so loud)... or a louder snare (are the vintage rogers snares loud in general?)... or he should just hit it less loud...

I don't know... thought I would just add this little problem.

thanks,
m.

You could *try* and ask him to hit the hats a little less hard , or perhaps play with a mismatched pair of sticks (a heavier stick on the snare) - although that might give him problems on fills etc. A lighter pair of hi-hat cymbals will also help, as the scum suggests.
Where are you placing the ribbon mic? Next to the snare as per the Al Jackson picture, or as an overhead? You mentioned your drummer has his snare close to the hi-hat - too close to get a mic in there at all? Any chance to get it in the middle of the 'triangle' formed by the hi-hat, snare and rack tom? If you can get it in there, aimed at the snare (under and away from the hats) you might have more luck ...

I don't have a Rogers snare, but the ones I've played are pretty damn loud - same goes for my 60's Premier 2000 snare - so it might be worth trying to hire some old snares for the session, but it's equally possible to get volume with modern snares too.

Good luck anyway!

["DB"]

Here's how I'm getting that sound with three mics at Muscle Shoals Sound (where Roger Hawkins played from 1969-1978); the way Noel Webster has the kit (with 16" deep marching band snare drum) set up and miked it takes me 5 seconds to get my drum sounds (I raise faders 2, 3, & 4 all the way up on the old customized MCI 416 console) and we roll 2" multitrack (Ampex 456 at 500 n/w per meter, aka "+9"), on an MCI JH-16 (Randy Blevins tech. Steve reconditioned the machine), and I SLAM the tape up to the MOL for 456 (around 720 n/w per meter), I press autolocate, press play, and we all smile while we listen to playback. For the "secret" on the overheads, you'll have to ask Noel, it probably wouldn't "phase" him in the least to answer ya. (It's a common trick, accidentally discovered by several Brit engineers using Neumann, Telefunken, or AKG overheads with Shure or EV kick, tom, snare and Hi-hat mikes); something about Bi-polarity, but I could never "pin" down "two" or "three" of those "hot","Cannon" loving subjects of the Queen about it.

[miqer]

Thanks guys!

I'm using a Rude 14'' hihat... pretty loud

But it's all in the drumming I think...

What I did in the end was put a towel over the hihat... haha... and that works...

I've placed the ribbin real close to the snare...

BTW. Hammond is a vst faker... and we used a click which you can hear in the end.

ciaow,
miqer

[themaidsroom]

Originally Posted by joshelevator

get a tape machine.

i agree

[toolskid]

Keep on topic please.. this a cool thread! Please focus as much on the drums as possible as Jules would prefer it if this forum was very much drum-centric...

Thanks for all contributing!

[gem]

what basedrum sizes were used?

which hihats that are still built are dark sounding and not loud-
i havent heared a new hihat that is not shiny-

thank you

[spjessop]

Originally Posted by gem

which hihats that are still built are dark sounding and not loud-
i havent heared a new hihat that is not shiny-

Istanbul Agop / Mehmet
Bosphorus

Or you could get a set of vintage K or Avedis Zildjians. I have some thin Avedis hats (60s I think) that are very subtle and not bright at all. They were cheaper than a set of new hats.

["DB"]

Toolskid, I agree, I apologize for any part I had (people don't always know how to take my sense of humor - just ask Kooster); thanks for deleting the posts.
Back to drums: two short samples from last weekend's session, both Roger Clark (Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, Flying Burrito Bros., Hank Williams Jr., Amy Grant, Steve Miller Band, etc.), three mics as described above. First one is just drums behind a ballad, second is guitars and bass basic track. Both are flat (no eq, just some tape compression), no FX except the git. amp reverb on the solo, and obviously just ruffs (does a three fader mix count as a "ruff"?)

[gem]

Originally Posted by "DB"

Toolskid, I agree, I apologize for any part I had (people don't always know how to take my sense of humor - just ask Kooster); thanks for deleting the posts.
Back to drums: two short samples from last weekend's session, both Roger Clark (Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, Flying Burrito Bros., Hank Williams Jr., Amy Grant, Steve Miller Band, etc.), three mics as described above. First one is just drums behind a ballad, second is guitars and bass basic track. Both are flat (no eq, just some tape compression), no FX except the git. amp reverb on the solo, and obviously just ruffs (does a three fader mix count as a "ruff"?)

wow sounds really good.
is it just 2 overheads plus bd-mic?
sounds like bd had a closed front.which mic gives you such a bass without eq?
i'm curious-

["DB"]

Shure 81's on overheads, an Audix (don't know which model) on kick, and yes, it had a front head with a hole. The key to good drums sounds is always: good kit, great player, good song, as few mics as possible and a clean signal chain.