Getting that Beck "Sea Change" / 70's "dead" drum sound.

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by Sword in Hand

Looking at the picture of the drum set for Sea Change, posted earlier, it's clear that the toms have minimal dampening (REMO Heads, not sure which kind). Snare is shallow, but I would guess that the drum was tuned in the middle range, not super low. There's a crispness that would not happen at super low tunings, I don't think. The toms are definitely tuned low. Again, listen to the first 4 seconds, the tom fill in the beginning.

For mics, looks like a 57 on snare, and a 414 on the rack tom, or is that a 421? Can't really tell. Not sure what the "overhead" mic is, maybe a C12? Looks like another mic is back in the shadows, too.

The floor tom had a felt in it. That's attached to the head by screwing it in with the rim.

That will both dampen and effect the the way the head resonates with the rim.

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by centurymantra

One of my favorite snare tricks is to place an extra old snare head upside down on top of the snare. This gets a super fat, but sorta thick, dense, dry tone that I love. Drummers always seem to have fun with this too.

An entire head or a DIY o-ring?

[centurymantra]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

An entire head or a DIY o-ring?

An entire head - flipped upside down and nested on top. It really does create a great sound.

[kozsak]

Originally Posted by severe

I've always thought that Beck was influenced, a lot, by Gordon Lightfoot on Sea Change. There are melodies, production qualities, and instrumentation, including vocals, that are very similar on a few tracks. Good record.


Anyone else hear it?

+1 ! I can easily picture "Carefree Highway" on this album.

[Blind]

@ Topic

The first and major step is the Drumkit itself... it should be tuned pretty loosely and have coated 2 play heads on. Then i would experiment with the turned around additional head on the drum (like century said). if that's not enough one could experiment with taking towels and lay em' over the drums. That's pretty drastic, but can work in certain situations. I'd recommend to check out Benny Greb's Language of Drumming DVD for that.

The next step is of course room sound, so placing the kit on a hard, reflecting surface won't work as well as having little or no absorbers near the drumkit...


just my 2 cents

[666]

Mutations is a greater record in every way, songs, sound, spirit. The drums on that album are phenominal!