"Every Little Thing" questions

[rickinroma]

Les, thanks for the 12strings free mp3s. At the moment the 330/12 is at my brother's home so I am unable to proceed to any recording

[Les]

Well, this weekend a Ludwig kit is coming in the studio. Wes' drums kinda convinced me that I want to get away from drum machines. First to borrow, possibly to buy. I know I can't just sit down and start playing ringo stuff. But it's a start.
We'll see if I have any aptitude. It's a righty set and I'm a lefty, so that's a good thing! I play right handed guitar.

[servant]

Well, this weekend a Ludwig kit is coming in the studio. ... It's a righty set and I'm a lefty, ...

Perfect. Just like Ringo.

[Les]

Yeah. Dean. Plunked around on the set a bit yesterday. I'm no drummer, that's for sure. I hope I can learn.
Still, I would imagine it will be a long time before I can Lay down a track that sounds good.

I started with drum lesson videos from expert villiage.

[Les]

Well, I bought my own drum kit friday! It's an old Mapex Mars set. The Meinl cymbals it has are nice. It will be a long time before I can play on tracks though.

I'm starting with some drum lessons on youtube. I have to to decide whether I can play a right handed setup. As a lefty
I'm finding my right foot is a little weak on the kick drum. Ringo could do it though, huh?

The first thing I can do is to replace the drum machine cymbals on the tracks I recorded with the real thing. That will help a lot. I have 36 I/O on my interface, but only two inputs have mic pres, So I designed up a very high quality preamp circuit
and will build at least four of them. Still I think i'll resist miking everything in the kit separately. I'll do two overheads and kick. Isn't that what the beatles did early on?

I also needed the kit because someone local heard these tracks and asked me to produce their new cd. Some people seem to like these early sixties wide "ping pong" stereo mixes I'm doing. It's way different from most modern stuff I know.

[beefandbones]

This is from memory, and my memory, of course, may be fallible... In the early days, they used a two mic setup on the drums - one overhead and one at the kick. For the first two albums, both mics were ribbons, and then through Rubber Soul, I think, they were dynamics. The bass and drums were submixed onto the same track, too! I think Geoff Emerick was the first to use an array of mics on Ringo's drums, including condensers.

For the most accurate 'early Beatles' stereo mix, there would be no stereo spread on the drums, and the bass would be locked into the same position as the drums in the stereo spread. There's a heck of a lot of bleed in the mics, though. A lot of early Beatles rhythm tracks were recorded live, with little separation other than built-in microphone patterns, which caused a bit of bleed into the other mics in the room. They didn't use headphones to overdub vocals in the early days, either, so many of the vocal tracks have a bit of bleed from the playback monitor. But you probably don't want to go THAT far... it's a slippery slope! Next thing you know you'll want a 2" 4 track reel-to-reel or something!

Replacing the drum machine cymbals with real cymbals is a great way to mask the rest of the drum machine drums! And I have to say, you've gone a great job replicating the sound of ELT so far.

[Les]

Thanks for that information Ethan.

I ordered Emerick's book from amazon but it never came. Got to get on to them about that.

I certainly hear the mic bleed from no headphone overdubbing on many early tracks.

Also I think I have an idea about the drumming on ELT now that I have a drum kit. I think it was Wes that said the cymbal
was a high hat. I used an open hi hat sample on the machine, but on the real kit I find the closest sound is with the high hat ALMOST closed...the top and bottom are touching, but not tightly...giving a bit of sustain. Opinion?

In any event I'm not going to play the drums on ELT because I am a rank beginner. I can play it, but it sounds mechanical
due to my lack of skill. I'll practice a lot though. I can have someone else play it, or just do the cymbal...I could handle that I think.

I'll try the 2 overhead LDC and kick mic technique for starters and see how that sounds. If need be I have a BASKET full of SM57s and 315 ribbons too. I'm trying to make these cuts musically accurate but with modern sound fidelity. Kind of like....what would it have sounded like if they had the gear we now have...

[wolfgang]

I do believe, Lennon bent back the vibrato arm of his 325/Miami after the recording of Matchbox because of frustration, having misplayed the solo.

This is not true. I have to correct myself.Just saw brammy's pictures from the Australia tour in June64. The vibrato arm of John's guitar is still in its original shape. There are nice stage pictures of the 325/Miami in the book 'The Beatles in Australia' especially pp 142 and 143.

[deaconblues]

I do believe, Lennon bent back the vibrato arm of his 325/Miami after the recording of Matchbox because of frustration, having misplayed the solo.

This is not true. I have to correct myself.Just saw brammy's pictures from the Australia tour in June64. The vibrato arm of John's guitar is still in its original shape. There are nice stage pictures of the 325/Miami in the book 'The Beatles in Australia' especially pp 142 and 143.

Plus the fact that it's impossible to bend one of those arms spur-of-the-moment...

[tallpat1]

I think It's a very special song since Yes picked it for a great cover and released it on Time & a Word album!

[Les]

I think it was a special song too. And it was just a "filler" track!
Now that we have real drums and can do good rolls and fills the next one I
think will be "Day Tripper"! Thinking about how to get the sound of what I think
was John's middle eight on the amped up gibson j-160E. Tambourine
is armed and ready!