Voodoo drum sound

[Joemamma]

Hello Russell,

I'm a big fan of the drum sound on D'Angelo's Voodoo album!

The kick drum on "Chicken Grease" is the coolest kick drum sound EVER!!!

I was wondering how much of the sound on the drums is the real/unprocessed acoustic sound, and how much is processed (filters, gates, transient designer, comp, etc)?

I'm trying to figure out "how much" you have done to the sound to make it sound like that!

Any info is much appreciated!
Anders

[Russell Elevado]

hey anders,

how have you been?
please check the latest thread i started called "drum talk...".
Drum talk...

"chicken grease" in particular was heavy eq'ing and filters. no envelope filtering on that one.
for voodoo the only processing of the drums were eq/compression.
exceptions are the "booty" drums and "the root" in sections. those drums went through a guitar amp, most likely a mesa boogie 1x12 tube. i don't recall the model # though.

cheers

[Joemamma]

I've been fine, thanks! Glad to have you back on GS!

Thanks for answering my question! Great tweaking on "Chicken Grease" I must say!
It's really cool that you're so open and honest about everything! Very inspiring!

To me Voodoo proved/proves that it is possible to make awesome sounding drums for r&b/hiphop with real live drums!
I used to make drum beats with samples and loops spending hours/days/weeks tweaking, trying to imitate a real drummer... Not any more!
Now I resort to the real thing!

Thank you!
Anders