Recording rock drums NYC: Patti Smith, Talking heads era

For non-technical stuff Chris Frank’s book “Remain in Love” talks a little about each album.

You mean Chris Frantz - not Frank?  

Any specific info your looking for? Those albums were before my time but I learned the ropes from old NYC guys. There's definitely a different approach to recording then say, what was happening in England or LA. Different rooms. Different gear. Different sounds. 

IIRC I think only the first Talking Heads album was recorded in NYC? After that they sorta moved to Compass Point in the Bahamas. And also Sigma Sound in Philly which... geez. I was there in maybe 2005? After the Tarsia family sold it and the main room looked like it hadn't been altered since 1975. Worn out shag carpet everywhere. Was kinda scary actually. 

Well, I knew those bands and doubt there was anything unique about their drum recording. Bands then mostly played live and the engineer set up the usual mics. Drum sounds then were a little flatter than later eras, but that's about it.

I’d say there’s a 99% chance that the toms were concert toms (or had the bottom heads removed) and likely the front head was removed from the bass drum (or had a hole so big it might have well been taken off)

When I produced one of David Byrne’s solo albums we talked a lot about funk and the weird stuff. New Wave drums were the natural sounds at the time with the low mid cut and natural resonance under control. Percussion was a big influence as it crossed over with old school hip hop and disco.

Yes, Chris Franz still often plays with his toms using no res head. Other than that, pretty straight forward. Chris is pretty much a tight dance/RnB/party style drummer. I think he plays a Pearl kit with much of the Heads and Tom Tom Club tours. Not sure if it was the same in the studio. 

He started off with a Rogers kits, like you see here. www.vulture.com/2020/07/chris-frantz-best-of-talking-heads-worst-of-david-byrne.html



I think some of the enhancements came from a synth through a sequencer.

Those cats could play for the song, if that meant 4 on the floor and one featured tom hit every four bars, if that served the song that’s what they played.

Now everyone is trying to impress their Instagram audience.

This is hilarious to me. Not you; this sentiment that "Now everyone..." is doing anything as though music and musicians aren't (and haven't always been) a vastly differing, wild, wiley bunch.

What YOU see is different. What are you looking at?

At the very same instant you were typing that someone else on some other message board was typing "Those cats could really play. They could play odd time signatures with groove - no editing! - and improvise a nine minute guitar solo. Now no one knows how to play an instrument."

All the while Rick Beato rubs his hands together and starts talking about how the kids today don't know anything about anything and the way to save music from the stupid young people and hand it back to the REAL musicians is to buy his music theory book. And if you don't think he's right he'll parade his perfect pitch kid out like a beaten and reluctant show pony.

Jeez fellas...


Moose is correct - power station booked blocks and when your block was over you were out. Didn’t matter if you were the Stones, Macca, Robert Palmer, Madonna et all. Assistants either got fired or moved up
Through the ranks quickly for being able to set up and break down sessions quickly and precisely. You also had to know the desks in each room inside and out along with their automation and computer systems etc. 8068 with flying fuckers, VR (woof), SSLG+, etc etc.

Make a wrong patch on the wrong session and if you were lucky you got screamed at and if you were luckier Tony just fired your ass and you’d go over to Electric Lady and deal with that shit show.

NYC is the best 😁

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I wasn't attacking you. I apologize for not being careful with my words and for any distress/annoyance I caused. I was just saying that any generalization is incorrect because all sides of it exist in significant quantity simultaneously.

There is a lot of "the kids these days" spewed all over the place in and outside of music and I - very much not a kid - think a lot of it is undeserved. I stomp it as much as I can any time I see it because the truth is the kids these days love music and are working on music just as hard as any other group ever did. They're just as smart and hardworking as any other generation ever was (except now the work looks different and the opportunities are different). There is new music coming out every week that is awesome. There is old music I'm discovering (or rediscovering) that is awesome. I get to help new stuff come out from a wide range of different types and ages of musicians and I couldn't be happier about it.

If your portion of history is like any other portion of history ever; when you were 18 years old as a professional musician there were grumpy old guys complaining about you. No matter how good you were, or how cool you were, or how much harder you worked, or how often you volunteered to lug their gear those grumpy old guys were in the producer's ear, the artist's ear, the A&R's ear, the bookers' ear, the agent's ear, and the managers' ear actively trying to make sure they didn't hire you and make sure they continued to hire them because "these kids today." Do you think that was a fair and justified thing for them to do? Do you think their complaints about "you kids in your day" were valid?

I've just had the best musicians I've ever met and a couple days later the worst/most delusional musicians I've ever met in my entire life in my studio recently. Guess their ages. If you're honest, whatever you're guessing you'll probably second-guess yourself for a moment. For good reason: there are talented people who have worked hard to hone their skills and not talented people who haven't worked hard to hone their skills in every age range. 

Sorry for going in so hard on this topic. I see it a lot. I hear it a lot. I hate it. A lot.

All that said, 41 years as a professional musician is really fuckin' cool! I hope I can find the same sort of longevity and I'm sure you've forgotten more than I've ever known. Sorry if you felt attacked; that definitely wasn't my intention. I look forward to paying attention to more of your posts, learning from them, and being super encouraging and enthusiastic whenever I see 'em in an effort to apologize for being a bit of an accidental shithead toward you in this thread!