Drum sound on Destroyer

[Jay Messina]

Originally Posted by jampot

Hi Jay,

Kiss are one of the bands that eventually through a long path got me into engineering, and Destroyer still stands in my mind as one of the best sounding records of all time.

I've always loved the drum sound, and tried many times to get the depth and size myself, but never can. If you can recall, could you elaborate the engineering process for the drums on Destroyer? XY Overheads 10FT above the kit? Room Mics? etc..

Thanks very much for doing this, and for engineering one of the greatest rock records!!!

Jampot

The drums were not always set up in the same way for each song. Sometimes they were in the back of the studio, with the door to the hallway left open. There was at least one U-87 in the hallway. I used U-87's for OH's (approx. 5 ft. over the kit). I positioned them so I got the snare image to be centered when listening just to the OH's (when panned full left & right). I sometimes used a Sennheiser shotgun 805, as high as I could get it, and point it straight down at the snare.