Bryan Adam's Drum Sounds (1990's)

[rockrev]

Howdy folks,

I'm trying to figure out how to get drum sounds like Bryan Adam's 1990's albums - a good sample song would be "Can't Stop This Thing We Started." To me they sound like samples, but at the same time the performance grooves well (and the overheads sound good). Does anyone have any ideas on how this was accomplished?

Thanks,

rockrev

[bigbadhenchman]

Howdy folks,
Does anyone have any ideas on how this was accomplished?

Thanks,

rockrev

Great drummer, great drumkit, great studio, great pre-amps, great engineer.

[rockrev]

That I do not doubt; however, I hear digital/synthesized samples. I'm curious to know if it's a blend, or a straight-up digital kit. Also, I'm wondering what processing went on during mixdown. Mutt Lange has been known to save the drums for last - recording them after everything else (at least with some of Def Leppard's work). So that's another thing I'm wondering about Bryan Adam's drum tracks from the 90's era.

rockrev

[Naagzh]

Rockrev-

They sound very much like Def Lep's drums to me. The drum tracks defy the "four limbs" rule during at least two of the tom fills, so maybe toms were over-dubbed later. Also notice there are NO ghost notes on the snare. If the snare is hit, it's a rimshot, period. Good way to have control over the gating on the snare reverb. The drum tracks "make sense" in that I can picture a drummer (a damn good one) playing, and the notes that are played, save for those tom rolls, are feasible, if not difficult.

Sounds like the Eventide Harmonizer trick on the snare. Pitch-shift the snare way down (maybe an octave or two, or more), and sneak it back in under the original. Good way to thicken up the sound.

Maybe a short pre-delay on the snare reverb to keep it punchy.

Sounds like a room reverb on the toms.

One nice thing about the overheads is how wide the crashes and chinas are. A good way to achieve this is to have the drummer place those cymbals further to the sides than he normally would. If the drummer's any good, he can hit 'em wherever.

As far as the groove is concerned, I think this has way more to do with the bassist than the drummer on this song. The drummer, as best I can tell, is playing a very "even" shuffle (triplets are strictly triplets, not a hint of the dotted-eighth "push" common in blues and jazz). The bassist creates the momentum with terrific muting of the quarter notes (sounds like: "baaaah-dup, baaaah-dup", and adding runs and fills for flavor.

Have you tracked down the liner notes to see who (if anyone) played drums?

[BigBadBill]

That whole album ("Waking Up The Neighbors") was mixed by Bob Clearmountain, and I remember reading an interview with him about that record where he explained that he triggered pretty much all the drums with his own samples, sometimes even the cymbals.

Don't know what he used for triggering, probably an H3000. If you want to look for samples to use, check out Clearmountain's sample collection. The exact samples he used for Bryan Adams probably aren't on there, but at least it'll be in the right direction.

Btw - the original drum tracks probably sounded great on their own too.

[rockrev]

A friend of mine has the original album - I have the greatest hits somewhere. Should've thought of that. Anyway, I appreciate your info - and I'll definitely try the pitch shift trick. Thanks again.

rockrev

[dchapp33]

not a lot of info here, but a little bit interesting for a few seconds read

http://gearslutz.com/board/archive/i...p3/t-2651.html

[Steve MacMillan]

Don't know what he used for triggering, probably an H3000. If you want to look for samples to use, check out Clearmountain's sample collection. The exact samples he used for Bryan Adams probably aren't on there, but at least it'll be in the right direction.

I think what he used were Roland SDE3000's with the sampling mod. Very quick trigger, short mono sample storage loaded from a DAT. So he would have used two with the LittleLabs switcher. I was a Forat user in those days and I used to use a box called the MX1+ (I still own one stashed away somewhere). It was better than anything else for cleanup of sloppy triggers and would spit out a nice click. I would spend hours spot erasing a copy of the snare drum in order to get perfect triggering. The funny thing was how precious we were with samples in those days. Everybody had their top secret money snare sample. I would have given anything for Drum Rehab then.

STeve

[Mixchump]

Sorry folks, but I'm 99.9% sure that all the drums on that record ('Wakin' up the Neighbours') are programmed. Various combinations of Mutt's sample library (as heard on every Def Leppard record, etc.)

From what I remember hearing from my Vancouver friends that worked at 'The Warehouse', Mickey Curry spent about 2 or 3 weeks just recording Cymbal overdubs (i.e. a day a song just on the High Hat track, etc...)

Was that a Bob Clearmountain mix, or was that Mike Shipley?

Anyhow, enough speculation for tonight..

Cheers, eh?

[BigBadBill]

Sorry folks, but I'm 99.9% sure that all the drums on that record ('Wakin' up the Neighbours') are programmed. Various combinations of Mutt's sample library (as heard on every Def Leppard record, etc.)

From what I remember hearing from my Vancouver friends that worked at 'The Warehouse', Mickey Curry spent about 2 or 3 weeks just recording Cymbal overdubs (i.e. a day a song just on the High Hat track, etc...)

Was that a Bob Clearmountain mix, or was that Mike Shipley?

Anyhow, enough speculation for tonight..

Cheers, eh?

It is Bob Clearmountain. He did the whole album, including "Everything I Do".