Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 09:34:13 AM

Login with username, password and session length

That eighties drum sound.

Started by Brundle-Fly, June 12, 2018, 04:25:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Brundle-Fly

Listening to Trampolene by Julian Cope yesterday I suddenly had a nostalgic yen to listen to similar sounding eighties records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawFWa0hfL4

I found this mini doc by chance and I never knew history of that bombastic drum sound production until now. Love the way she pronounces Hugh Padgham's surname.

https://wspd.iheart.com/featured/scott-sands/content/2017-08-18-ever-wonder-how-that-classic-80s-drum-sound-came-to-be/

Anyway, what's your favourite 80s number of this ilk? Or are Linn drums like sonic Kryptonite to your ears as they are to a lot of people?

sevendaughters

i love a bit of gated reverb me. i used to be a sucker for that Albini dry/natural sound but after a while it became a bit rote.

so many greats to choose from, so I'll pick the one i have on now - 'Goodbye Horses' by Q Lazzarus.

Norton Canes

Just sounds like a drum to me

Isn't that how drums are supposed to sound

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Norton Canes on June 12, 2018, 04:52:46 PM
Just sounds like a drum to me

Isn't that how drums are supposed to sound

Have a peep at the mini-doc I linked in the OP and the difference will be explained. It's only eight minutes long.

Golden E. Pump

Fucking love a good Linn drum beat. Pure Minneapolis sound.

buzby

#5
it's all about Martin Hannett's panned delay snares (using prototype AMS DMX 15-30s, the world's first digital digital delay unit*), the Roland CR78 (came to prominence in the late 70s, but by the beginning of the 80s it had trickled down enough to become the go-to drum machine for New Wave and synth pop) and predictably the Oberheim DMX for me.

Never mind the gated reverb, the definitive 80s drum sound for me if the DigiDesign 'Rock' kit ROMs (aka the 'John Bonham' kit, as it was allegedly sampled from bootlegged drum tracks from When The Levee Breaks), that ended up appearing on ROMS for virtually every digital drum machine of the era (and the Fairlight and E-Mu sample libraries). It could be heard everywhere from Tears For Fears to the Cocteau Twins. The E-Mu Drumulator version (as used by the Cocteaus) can be heard here

* AMS' follow-up to the DMX, was the world's first digital reverb unit, the RMX16 Digital Reverberator mentioned in the video in the OP (released in 1981 just after Face Value, not 1982). It's 'Non Linear 2'  preset that recreated Hugh Padgham's compressed gated reverb affect was actually approved by Padgham (they sent prototypes to him for approval) and ended up being used live by Collins (and by everyone else) to reproduce the effect.

alan nagsworth

The best example that immediately springs to mind is in Straight Up by Paula Abdul. That snare fucking slays me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ7J0SwK8fE

PAH! PAH!

thraxx

Quote from: alan nagsworth on June 12, 2018, 07:54:29 PM
The best example that immediately springs to mind is in Straight Up by Paula Abdul. That snare fucking slays me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ7J0SwK8fE

PAH! PAH!

Haven't heard that for years - really fancied Paula Abdul back in the day - but the cut off on that snare is fucking severe.

Funcrusher

Quote from: buzby on June 12, 2018, 07:31:19 PM
i
Never mind the gated reverb, the definitive 80s drum sound for me if the DigiDesign 'Rock' kit ROMs (aka the 'John Bonham' kit, as it was allegedly sampled from bootlegged drum tracks from When The Levee Breaks), that ended up appearing on ROMS for virtually every digital drum machine of the era (and the Fairlight and E-Mu sample libraries). It could be heard everywhere from Tears For Fears to the Cocteau Twins. The E-Mu Drumulator version (as used by the Cocteaus) can be heard here


Is that what's used in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndS1I1ErPis

alan nagsworth

Quote from: thraxx on June 12, 2018, 07:58:20 PM
Haven't heard that for years - really fancied Paula Abdul back in the day - but the cut off on that snare is fucking severe.

fuck you that's what makes it good

i give up. flouncing, bye

darby o chill

Quote from: buzby on June 12, 2018, 07:31:19 PM
..the Roland CR78

I adore the CR78. Gets overlooked cos of the love for the later Rolands.
I guess 'Heart of glass' is the best known example but it creeps in to some early Hip Hop like the fantastic Cisco Kid Roxy audition in 'Beat Street' and Mantronik produced 'Turbo charged' by Just-Ice.
Many moons ago I had it's older brother the CR8000 which has the TR808 sounds on board but it rarely gets a mention.



Partial to a DMX or Linn depending on how they're mixed.

*bonus boring beatbox fact - for the 606, 727, 808, 909 etc - the TR stands for transistor rhythm

buzby

Quote from: Funcrusher on June 12, 2018, 07:59:10 PM
Is that what's used in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndS1I1ErPis
No, the drum sounds on the early AON stuff were manipulated samples of Alan White from the Horn-produced 90125 and Owner Of A Lonely Heart sessions for Yes.

Gary Langan and JJ Jeczalik were there to engineer and drive Horn's new Fairlight respectively, and Langan persuaded JJ to stay behind one night to work on some stuff he had been playing with. He had recorded White playing drums using the Padgham talk-back mic technique (though AIR Studios used a Neve desk rather than an SSL) to produce a similar gated reverb effect, and played it back to JJ,, saying they had to use this for something.  JJ sampled and looped the riff in the Fairlight's Page R rhythm sequencer (producing the first digitally-sampled drum loop in the process) and by 8am the next morning they had come up with Beatbox.

They do sound very similar though, so much so that Paul Morley was once approached by an irate Peter Grant at a party and accused of nicking some of Bonham's drums.

Funcrusher

The sampled bits in 'Owner Of a Lonely Heart' sound like they're from a Buddy Rich type big band record, particularly the horn stabs. Is that not the case?

Funcrusher

While we're on great 80's drum machine sounds, since I'm listening to this on You Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOld5JNPGts

darby o chill

Quote from: Funcrusher on June 12, 2018, 09:57:52 PM
The sampled bits in 'Owner Of a Lonely Heart' sound like they're from a Buddy Rich type big band record, particularly the horn stabs. Is that not the case?

From a well known funk record 'Kool is back' bits of the drums in there too.

Any recommendations for early to mid 80's post punky stuff with drum machines?
Stuff like Pink Industry. Fuckin love that

Funcrusher

I've heard that track before I think but never made the connection.

For heavy 80's drums a good option is to get Keith LeBlanc to play it and Adrian Sherwood to produce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T-PlRkJtio

darby o chill

+1 Tackhead are superb. And the earlier incarnation Fats Comet.

Funcrusher

Quote from: darby o chill on June 12, 2018, 10:25:15 PM
+1 Tackhead are superb. And the earlier incarnation Fats Comet.

Indeed, although all those projects kind of coexisted. Fats Comet's 'Dee Jays Dream' is a straighter version of Mark Stewart's 'Hypnotised' etc.

Funcrusher


non capisco

#19
Quote from: Golden E. Pump on June 12, 2018, 06:05:48 PM
Fucking love a good Linn drum beat. Pure Minneapolis sound.

'Let's Pretend We're Married' by Prince is probably the Linn drum machine's ne plus ultra moment. Unfortunately the album version with the long pure drum intro isn't on YouTube.

For the gated early 80s 'In The Air Tonight' type sound that the OP mentioned I'm going to surprise precisely no cunt by nominating 'Travels In Nihilon' by XTC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6y3RQEPkpQ

darby o chill

Quote from: Funcrusher on June 12, 2018, 10:44:20 PM
For truly insane heaviosity, this is hard to beat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izZ6mPW35kE

Yeah nuts. That and the DJ Cheese collabs. Have a soft spot for Don't forget that beat too.
I'll stop cos we're drifting into Sherwood appreciation thread territory here.

Funcrusher

As I understand it the classic Phil Collins sound starts with Peter Gabriel's 'Intruder'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzUh_H7yV0

Funcrusher

Quote from: darby o chill on June 12, 2018, 10:55:52 PM

I'll stop cos we're drifting into Sherwood appreciation thread territory here.

Yeah, maybe we should have one of those some time.

purlieu

I'm a sucker for '80s production in general - early digital synths, chorussy guitars, gated reverb drums - so there are way too many tracks I could suggest. My favourite is probably Wire's A Bell is a Cup Until it is Struck, which is basically a bunch of single hits by Robert Gotobed sequenced on a computer, but the sound is just wonderful. You can tell it's later in the decade as the reverb tails are much longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0tM-9izbqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ViHI_OlWM

In general, I like loose, roomy drums anyway - I think one thing that puts me off a lot of '70s music is just how fucking dry and flat the drums are. It all started with In the Court of the Crimson King, with its amplified cardboard box drums. It's one thing that's drawn me to a lot of jazz lately, drummers like Jack DeJohnette who use a lot of cymbals and have a really loose, roomy feel and production, really brings the music to life for me.

I find it interesting how a lot of rock music took a long time to catch up in the '90s. While pop had caught on with dance music's cleaner sound by the start of the decade, and a lot of indie stuff - with its close ties to dance in the UK, and its lo-fi approach in the US - was similarly quite dry, some more stadium-friendly bands had reverby drums a few years into the decade

Simple Minds spent much of the first half of the '90s stuck in a permanent 1987
This Def Leppard single came out in 1993, amazingly, and not 1986
Guns'n'Roses hadn't given it up in 1992

purlieu

Quote from: Funcrusher on June 12, 2018, 10:57:59 PM
As I understand it the classic Phil Collins sound starts with Peter Gabriel's 'Intruder'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzUh_H7yV0
Lilywhite and Padgham were working on Gabriel 3 and XTC's Drums and Wires at the same time, and the sound developed over both albums - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWJVwuJ34lo

Funcrusher

How about PILs 'Album'? Production by Bill Laswell. Google tells me that the drumming on this is Tony Williams, which was not a name that meant anything to me at the time, but obviously does now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrFtPjltNAw

buzby

Quote from: darby o chill on June 12, 2018, 10:08:02 PM
From a well known funk record 'Kool is back' bits of the drums in there too.

Any recommendations for early to mid 80's post punky stuff with drum machines?
Stuff like Pink Industry. Fuckin love that
The go-to track i always post is Section 25's Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix), produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson from A Certain Ratio in 1984. It features heavy use of New Order's DMX and Simmons SDS V (and was a big tune in the mid- 80's Detroit and Dallas club scenes)

darby o chill

Quote from: buzby on June 12, 2018, 11:18:06 PM
The go-to track i always post is Section 25's Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix), produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson from A Certain Ratio in 1984. It features heavy use of New Order's DMX and Simmons SDS V (and was a big tune in the mid- 80's Detroit and Dallas club scenes)
Yeah I got that :) Also big in Electro circles. Mixes great with classic John Robie/Arthur Baker N.Y. things. But thanks for the recommendation. I'm lookin for more downtempo moody shit like the Pink Industry one.

manticore

Quote from: Funcrusher on June 12, 2018, 10:22:21 PM
I've heard that track before I think but never made the connection.

For heavy 80's drums a good option is to get Keith LeBlanc to play it and Adrian Sherwood to produce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T-PlRkJtio

That's brilliant and to me it sounds a million miles away from the bombastic, grandiose sound of all these other trackson this thread. So much more interesting.

Brundle-Fly

What are those boo-boo drums of the late 1970s? Rose Royce, Kelly Marie?