Prominent Kick Drum (or Not)

[abstamaria]

The pandemic placed our practice sessions on a 3-year hold, but we’ve just resumed! Unfortunately, Covid claimed our drummer Lito Toribio. He was considered the best driver of the early 1960s and played on the “old style.” He was such a loss.

Our new drummer is good and knows the old Shadows pieces. However, his kick drum is loud and prominent. I listened carefully on good headphones to Shads’ recordings, including Apache, Atlantis, and Wonderful Land, and could hardly or not hear the bass drum. Is that just my ears?

I feel a prominent kick drum changes the feel of a piece, but let me know if I a wrong in this.

Regards,

Andres

[Uncle Fiesta]

... I listened carefully on good headphones to Shads’ recordings, including Apache, Atlantis, and Wonderful Land, and could hardly or not hear the bass drum. Is that just my ears?

No, it was the recording technology of the day. The technique of close-miking each part of the kit separately and into its own mixing channel (and, eventually, onto its own track) was still a few years away, so some of it would be lost.

[abstamaria]

Thank you, Steve.

If the goal were to replicate the original recording, should the drummer be advised to subdue his kick drum? How do Shadows retro-bands deal with this?

[Uncle Fiesta]

A good question Andy - which I must admit I'd never thought about!

[RayL]

Andres

Recordings at that time had to be made for vinyl records. Too much bass or kick drum would make the 'wiggles' in the groove of the plastic too close to each other and the might cause the record player stylus to 'jump' from one groove to the one next to it. Disc cutting was a very skilled art in those days. Joe Meek (an independent UK record producer in the late '50s/early '60s) would pay money to cutting engineers for a 'hot cut' and mixed his recordings to get them to be 'loud on the juke box'. Green jeans by The Fabulous Fleerekkers (Triumph RGM1008) (mixed by Meek) astonished me at the time because a deep bass guitar could be heard on the intro to the record. Jet's bass guitar solo on Nivram uses the upper frequencies of the tones of the strings.The listener's ear 'recreates' the lower freuencies - there is very little deep bass there. With the advent of recording mediums like cassette and CD, mixing engineers could put back the bass and kick drum in their mixes. DJs liked these mixes. Car stereo systems were brought in to bring out the bass and hi-fi systems were sold with sub-bass woofers.

Ray

[abstamaria]

Thank you, Ray. We’ll experiment and try to get our drummer to recreate or copy the recorded sound.

Best,

Andres

[Iain Purdon]

Listen to the At their very best and the Final Tour versions of these tracks. What is the kick drum sound on those? Do they sound like The Shadows?

[abstamaria]

The Final Tour is probably not a good gauge for That Sound. I don’t have the CD or a vinyl of At a Their Very Best, but did listen online on headphones. I could hardly hear the kick drum.

Of course they sound like the Shadows. They are the Shadows!

But the Grail I’m chasing is the very early Shadows spund, so at least the standard is clear, although achieving it is difficult!

[drakula63]

When 'The Shadows at their Very best' came out, I'm sure Brian said something like "At least you can finally hear the bass drum!" or something like that. I suspect that, if it had been possible at the time, the bass drum would have been more prominent in those 60s recordings.

Brian's bass drum has always been quite prominent from the 1970s onward. These days - on the most recent tours - he's had a solid, up to date bass drum sound live. Personally, I'd go for that.

edit: Whilst no expert, I'll guess that in the good old days, the beater on the bass drum pedal was usually covered in felt and the batter head, for want of a better term, on the bass drum was probably not as tight as they tend to be now. If I were going for the old-style sound, I'd make sure of all these things, don't dampen the bass drum and don't mike it. I always find that dampening the bass drum contributes to that 'solid' sound. The 'big and airy' sound is more subtle and easier to lose in the mix.

Nowadays, the beater is often solid rubber and cut at an angle so the whole of the flat surface connects with the bass drum head. Nowadays it's common for the bass drum to sound like a block of wood! I remember my brother used to stick beer mats to his bass drum (covering them with a bit of thick plastic sheeting first) at the correct place; some people would cut the top off a spoon, flatten it with a hammer and tape that to the bass drum! Things have changed so much in 60 years! Generally, I think audiences want to feel that 'punch' in the gut from the bass drum.

[RayL]

I shall upset a lot of drummers by saying that a lot of them can't keep time with their feet! One reason that Clem Cattini was valued as a session player was because he could keep time when using the whole kit.

Ray