Best Examples Of Cymbal Decays On A Recording

Addendum:

The final section of the first sentence in the last paragraph of my above post (phew ;-) reads "made to simulate live music." I was of course referring to instances where that was the actual intent of the producer (and perhaps artist/band). Far more common is a very different intent:

During the playback of a track (whether in recording or mixing), the engineer will run his tape, A/B-ing the sound with that of a current best-selling song. He then manipulates the sound of his recording with a number of pieces of outboard gear (and of course his mixing board), all in his attempt to make the recording sound as much like a current hot song or album as possible. No references to the sound of live music at all, purely subjective.

By the way people (especially you drummers): A few years back I was cutting a track in Flora Recording & Playback, a fantastic studio in Portland, Oregon. T Bone has recorded there, as has Bill Frisell, Mavis Staples, REM, The Jayhawks, many others.

Anyway, I brought along my Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum and an assortment of cymbals (drummers often used their own snare drum and cymbals with the "house kit", both in recording situations and in live performances). Engineer/owner Tucker Martine had his house kit---a nice set of DW’s---set up well out into the middle of the medium-size room, a good sign (one small studio I was in in North Hollywood, CA had me set up right against a cinderblock wall. As I anticipated, the resulting recorded sound was God-awful. I moved my set into the middle of the room, and all was well. I hope the engineer learned from that lesson ;-).

Tucker let me know that he had spent a lot of time tuning and positioning the drums, and assured my client (a singer/songwriter/guitarist who engaged my services) and I that we would be happy with the drum sound he got. Looking around at the framed pics of some of his clients told me I should trust him ;-) and use his complete kit, including snare and cymbals.

My favorite ride cymbal sound is that heard in a lot of small-combo Jazz recordings made in the 1950’s: each cymbal tap made with the tip of the stick (rather than the shoulder) produces a very percussive, sharp "click" sound, not the broad "tang" cymbal sound heard in a lot of Rock recordings (listen to Ginger Baker’s cymbals. Terr-i-ble. I heard them live, and they sounded just as bad on stage. Now listen to Jim Gordon’s; beautiful!). That click sound is commonly attributed to the cymbals many Jazz drummers were playing in the 1950’s: the K. Zildjians made in Turkey. The problem with Turkish K Zildjians is that they were hand made, and the consistency was all over the map: a few sound REALLY good, a lot sound TERRIBLE! Finding a good one is really hard, and expensive.

So we do a take, and on playback the recorded sound of the ride cymbal had that percussive click sound I love so much. The cymbal sure didn’t sound that way in the room, and in the recorded sound I thought I could hear the how and why Tucker was able to produce that cymbal sound. I asked him: "Did you use compression and/or a noise gate on the overhead mics?" (which capture the sound of the cymbals). He was impressed, replying "Yes", confirming my suspicion. Explaining how a compressor and noise gate work would take too much space to do here.

You see, audiophiles, in Pop music---or even most studio-made recordings---the sound you hear through your hi-fi system is often not "the absolute sound", but rather an artificially-created one, made to simulate live music. Sometimes the recorded sound is actually better than what the music sounded like in the room in which it was recorded. It’s like that great scene in David Lynches Mulholland Dr., when the master-of-ceremonies waves his hands on stage, pronouncing that what the two women had just seen (and thought they heard) was "an illusion". Harry Pearson should have spent more time in recording studios ;-) .

Ah @rbstehno, but WHAT cymbals? I have A. Zildjians, K. Zildjians, Paiste 602's, and Bosphorus, each of which sounds different than the others. I have recordings made by myself with small capsule condenser mics and a Revox A77 of some of them, as well as recordings made in pro studios (I keep a log of which mics the engineers used). I employ both in my loudspeaker evaluations.

On T Bone Burnett’s Truth Decay album (Takoma Records TAK 7080, released in 1980), the song "Driving Wheel" (written by T Bone and Billy Swan) ends side one of the LP. The song comes to it’s end, drummer David Kemper (a fantastic drummer who came out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma scene) punctuating the last note with a cymbal crash. That crash slowly fades away for a LONG time, the eventual near silence broken by the re-emergence of acoustic guitar and upright bass, the drums then re-entering after a coupla more bars. In other words, the song had a false ending.

That is the case on the original pressing of the LP, when Takoma was being distributed by Chrysalis Records. Later in the 1980’s (I think, perhaps the 90's) the Truth Decay LP was being distributed by Allegiance Records, who had the album remastered for their repress of the album. Whomever did the remastering apparently didn’t listen to the entire master tape, and thought the false ending was a real ending. When the cymbal crash had faded to near silence, the mastering engineer ended the album side, cutting off the rest of the song!

When looking for a copy of Truth Decay, look for the "Distributed By Chrysalis Records" line on the bottom of the back of the cover. It not only has the unabridged version of "Driving Wheel", but also sounds better than the Allegiance Records pressing.