That Eighties Drum Sound

(NB in case anyone asks, "triggering" involves recording an "ideal" hit on each drum component, then setting things up so that when a human drummer strikes the component, the single "ideal" sound plays, thus creating the immense tedium of every hit sounding the same except sounding basically like an ordinary boring drum.)

Nitsuh: I think it makes acoustic drums sound disgusting, literally. Regardless of the processes involved, albeit triggering, excessive gating (which is the same thing as compression, but at a 10:1 ratio or higher), or whatnot...it was overdone, and aesthetically revolting. But you are right that when some artists use it, like Mogwai, I tend to not cringe as much as say when Dangerous Toys did it.

But of course, my opinion is biased from hearing how a real acoustic drumset sounds, when optimally mic'ed. I just dont think that it should be fucked with, unless the process is made to instigate specific psychoacoustic effects.

This of course, makes me a snobby purist ass.

I mean, A.R.Kane used it to great effect--check "Lollita" and '69' for beautiful examples of how that snare sound can be disorienting and mysterious. I used to think it was a shitty sound too until I heard it in the context of interesting songs. When you hear it in a different context, you literally hear the sound differently. The mode of presentation brings out things in the sound you may have never heard--or, I should say, causes you to think about the sound in a new way.

I think all that gating & compression was an attempt to conjure the spirit of the departed John Bonham. Which is why they tapped Thompson for the Zep reunion at Live Aid.

Firstly they were reacting against the very dry un-ambient drum sounds of the mid to late 70s. It was also a case of overkill on new technology ie the new digital reverbs from AMS and Lexicon that started being installed in studios from around 1981 onwards. It started rather tentatively but spiralled into excess from around 1984 onwards with absurd amounts of gated reverb on (very loud) snares. The snare kind of became an instrument in itself rather than part of a kit.

This kind of excess is always with us. You just don't see it that way at the time because it seems cool. Any suggestions for what the modern equivalent of that snare is? Probably no one thing is quite that dominant, but endless shuffly drum loops will seem incredibly annoying in a few years time (if they don't already).

As interesting as all the technical answers have been (and keep em coming) I'm thinking in terms of the big drums as a sonic manifestation of the zeitgeist.

(btw, David is on the money pointing out the "shuffle-loop" of the past few years as the current equivalent of 80's big drums)

What a horrible thing to do to a drum. I never knew about this (not that I do now, in any technical sense). Somehow this feels like an important clue as to what I didn't like about a lot of the music I didn't like in the 80's, although I never thought of it in terms of a "big drum sound." I do remember having man conversations with one of my friends about our mutual preference for the production values (is that the right term?) of 70's pop music overall.

The 80s gated reverb sound is why I can't listen to most 80s music...I have no problem with drum machines, but I'm not into taking real drums and obscuring every bit of humanity and subtlety involved.

Sure you don't mean limiting? Gating = setting a threshold below which sound level is cut to zero; compression = setting a threshold above which dynamics are squashed.

I'm off to listen to some 80s pop records to get a better sense of all this.

Shuffly drum loops, also overdriven organ synth sounds. Ack.

I'm not being negative here, though. As far as I can think, I *like* 80s drum sounds.

2. What is Aris Marden?

3. Have not heard Scritti (Politti); or at least, can't identify their drum sound.

4. if you can rediscover Idol, then you can certainly reassess Go West.

I'm pretty sure it was the bass drum off the Oberheim DMX which was *the* drum machine to use in hip hop at that time.

Never owned it, but both those singles lodge in my early radio love memory. In fact somebody around here was playing her greatest hits album a few weeks back and I broke into a lip-sync routine to "If Anyone Falls" complete with twirly dance.

Seriously, you don't know what a snare sounds like in comparison with other drums? Okay, I'll try my best here, in as general terms as possible: the snare is a drum with, uh, metal "snares" lined on the bottom of it, which gives the drum a "thwack" sound with a fast attack and decay, as opposed to a tom drum which has longer sustain and thusly a more discernable pitch (although either kind can be tuned. Also, snares have a switch whereby the snare can be pulled off the drum, making it sound more like a regular tom). Snare drums are most commonly used in pop/rock music as the main signifier of the beat, although plenty of funk/soul stuff uses the snare for more than just that (think of "The Funky Drummer" beat, where lots of snare flourishes are used). Usually, in pop/rock toms are used for fills (although sometimes to keep the beat too, cf. Maureen Tucker).

I don't have a special attachment to any particular drum sound in and of itself. It's all just a matter of how it's used.

Digital Reverbs + California + Cocaine = 80's gated snare sound.

The whole reason the thin 80's drum sound came into vogue is because all the producers and engineers on LA were coked out of their minds.

Surely the Fairlight had as much to do with this type sound as cocaine? (I'm thinking Cupid & Psyche here - I think the snare sounds used reflect the much maligned type of sound mentioned upthread, but are done very well)

Surely late period tech-step dnb also suffers from snare abuse courtesy of No U Turn's lead?

But some people did it right. The drum sound on REM's Murmur is a bit on the boxy side, but incorporated very well into the rest of the sound. Fits like a glove, actually -- the whole sound is thin, so why not the drums? Come to think of it, maybe that was REM's trick -- tailoring their entire sound to fit those awful 80's drums. Genius.

ummmm, don't know that....have never seen/heard any explanations other than formalistic/self-definitional (as per Tom's comment way above)....but what they actually achieved at this end of the deal was:

On 'Low' (& 'Climate Of Hunter') - alienation through the synthetic, the artificial, the inhuman - a microburst of sensory-deprivation, off-white noise injected into yr ears: unfamiliar and cold/harsh sounding inorganic-ness - not atavistic collective monkey-warmth of ppl hitting animal skins with sticks *
(ha technology just ain't what it used to be...)

On 'In The Air Tonight' - the sound is actually quite woody and boomy and organic and warm, so => 'feel my emotions as deep as the oceans great big tree-trunk drums i'm hitting with all this primal intensity'

On ZTT & Scritti - the sound of a life that was larger than life

On lots of other 80's records - the sound of a stick rattling a designer swill bucket

*check SMinds R2R Cacophony of 79/80 also for drumsound treatments attempting to 'de-humanise' the soundscape

sidethought: possible problem with using drum machines of late 70's era to obtain metaphor 1 other than lack of programmability was the bossanova hachacha cultural connections, the wooden-ness of the timbres due to generation via filtered noise bursts (though it worked (sort-of) OK for the Cabs when they cranked them up/treated them).
Roland CR-78 a la 'Metamatic' seems to be 1st drum machine not only to allow degree of programmability but also provide sounds of a sufficiently inhuman/metallic sharpness of character to represent JF's particular smoothie/romantic take on urban-futurist disengagement - but the shape of those sounds was key: clean and geometric rather than murky or flat or grimy as per CV

(interesting to consider relative absence of this approach on Numan's late 70's work, especially given his futurist/alienation schtick : how many tracks apart from 'i nearly married a human' use other than 'normal' drum sounds ?)

great organic drums on nearly every volcano 7" which ruled dancehall reggae up until '85, brilliant use of DX, Linn Drum in early digital dancehall too by steely & clevie

At fisr it was the Conny Plank/Bowie thing--just tucking the reverns' tail.

Then you had digital reverns that could gate themselves, whcih sounds kind of pervy in a Gary Numan way.

Then the AMS reverbs came out and an entire decade was well fucked: presets for out of phase gated snares, gated snares that sounded like Peugeuts angrily screwing, reverse gated snares, reverse gated snares where the tail was sampled and played itself before the beat was played. Millions of possibilties.

Through most of the 80s I supported myself engineering demos and the first thing people would ask for--be they goth manques, metal heads, popsters or whomever--was, "Can you get the snare bigger?' which once acheived, was always followed by "Can you mix it louder?"

The for real suck aspect sonically speaking was that many of these AMS-y devices didn't exactly have God's own sampling rates and such and so when you stuck them on everything, as people did because they were new and that's reason enough, you ended up with that overall tinny sound we all avoid so deftly.

So that's what Lars Ulrich is doing these days...

An echo of that other thread, but check out the drum sound on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S12lkhgM4uA

Haven't listened to "Flamethrower" in eons, why did it never dawn on me what a Prince rip it is?

If it's any consolation, I hear Phil Collins now has to live in a gated community.

Sounds like some very Prince-style non-linear reverb

xp!

Had Prince gotten into that by 1981? That was still the pretty dry "Controversy" era, right? (Though post Peter Gabriel III.)