drum miking and postmodernity

back in the day of four track recorders, the drum mic was placed in the center of the drum set, up a bit off the floor as that one mic needed to capture the whole set. this required the drummer to play balanced because there was no "fix it in the mix" option -- he was essential doing his own mixing. also the band was usually recorded at the same time and in the same room -- so the band had to really balance themselves well or it just wasn't going to work. ||: proficiency and community were really important. feng shui was happenin :||

in the 70's we started multitracking a little more -- we started learning how to mic each drum separately with its own mic, and the benefits of this started really showing: overdubs, more control, the engineer could EQ each drum separately -- but the drums were still a singular organism. ||: community was important, technology was getting helpful. drugs may have played a role. :||

in the 80s producers were treated to the benefits of digital sound sources, and digital FX. the drums ended up being dissected and were unnaturally large. someone may have been compensating for something. separation and sonic size was the objective with snares generally getting their own cavernous reverb in a virtual room about the size of the grand canyon while tom's were gated (think Phil Collins). producers went so far as to make drummers play each part (e.g. the hihat part) separately just so sound didn't bleed into the next closest microphone. arguable the 80s turned out to be one of the most awkward musical decades, and one of the most soul-less. ||: technology and sound had its primacy. the machine was poised to take over the world. :||

in the 90s the pendulum took a hard right turn swing into a new dimension. instead of the biggest snare in the world, we started looking for one with most character – not a sample but something that was interesting to listen to and organic with plenty of wood and "thwack" and still very hi-fi -- which turned out to be a much better application of technology than anything that happened in the 80s. producers saw the benefit of "bringing the drummer back together" -- to reintroduce the human-ness and revive the notion of “groove”. also there was a reaction against all the cleanliness of the DX7 FM synth and 16-bit digital recording… and grunge made its appearance. ||: a fragmented time of transition and experimentation. not quite anything, but better than the alternative :||

the millennium saw a resurgence of all things lost -- a turn backwards, or was it inwards. we didn't give up the technology -- we couldn't, and can't -- and we didn't give up our history, our influences. instead we started sampling our past (moby's play). a drum groove from an old vinyl recording became the hottest commodity for the latest CD release. We also started looking around: we found inspiration and life in unfamiliar genre's and started blending and mixing them. ||: plurality of experience embraced in new communities and dialogue. zen and the art of being you :||