Drums in the Buff

When recording in the studio, drummers (and especially engineers) have a tendency to muffle and cover the drums with all sorts of things. Gaffer’s tape, towels, wallets, t-shirts. Sometimes this is done to achieve a certain effect (for example, the “Ringo” sound), while other times it’s just an attempt to control the natural overtones of the drums. For a good example of a heavily muffled drum sound, just listen to any album recorded by The Eagles.

Don 'The Muffler' Henley

There’s also the opposite approach to recording drums. No muffling. Little or no gating. Just crank up the overhead mics and capture the real sound of the kit. Sometimes it’s refreshing to hear the wide range of frequencies bouncing around drums as you play a groove. It can bring life to a track and provide a certain essence that heavily produced or programmed drums tend to lack.

Loop #60

For today’s loop, my drums are totally naked. No t-shirts or duct tape, however, I was wearing pants. You can even hear the sympathetic resonance coming off of the cymbals and toms. It’s a straight forward, pop/rock feel with another hat tip to Chris Frantz (floor tom on the “&” of four).

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Download the Logic session here. (167MB)

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105 BPM

Related posts:

1. Double Drums
2. How to make it appear BIGGER.