New Record: Real Live Drum Sounds

[brent]

Lets clarify. Beat the System did not use samples, which are static single hit recorded snippets of real drums in real rooms with real players. The sounds on that record were generated on a Fairlight. So, we could say that they were fake, or synthesized drums.

The E brothers used samples on all of their records. Louie over-dubbed cymbals, etc. He was not allowed to play. John Lawry used samples and MIDI sequencing on the first PP album. Louie was really not allowed to play acoustic drums, and have his acoustic drums appear on the record until Wake Up Call. When they got to the Petra/SonicFlood record, he was allowed to have more input into his playing, as opposed to coming in and learning a part already sequenced for him.

I have talked to Louie and JDB about this extensively.

[CatNamedManny]

Lets clarify. Beat the System did not use samples, which are static single hit recorded snippets of real drums in real rooms with real players. The sounds on that record were generated on a Fairlight. So, we could say that they were fake, or synthesized drums.

The E brothers used samples on all of their records. Louie over-dubbed cymbals, etc. He was not allowed to play. John Lawry used samples and MIDI sequencing on the first PP album. Louie was really not allowed to play acoustic drums, and have his acoustic drums appear on the record until Wake Up Call. When they got to the Petra/SonicFlood record, he was allowed to have more input into his playing, as opposed to coming in and learning a part already sequenced for him.

I have talked to Louie and JDB about this extensively.

Yeah, I meant "synthesized" on the Fairlight for BTS. I had no idea about the rest of that though. Louie was basically a tour drummer then. Was there a reason why the Elefante Bros. chose to do this? It's really a testament to Louie's selfless nature that he stayed with Petra for so long despite basically being prohibited from actually doing any live-drum work in studio until the very end. Then again, I'm not a recording artist. Maybe this is more common than I realize.

[brent]

From what I gather, songs were worked up before they hit the studio. Laying basic tracks allowed the band to come in, have the foundations of the songs laid, add the other tracks, and then have Louie come in once the final arrangements and rough mixes were done. It also allowed them to have that modern sound Bob was wanting. They were merely emulating other bands that they both admired, and were trying to stay current. I am sure part of this too was to compensate for not having a great sounding drum room too. Lots of studios with less than stellar rooms use Steven Slate Drums, BFD, Ocean Way Drums, etc to supplement or completely replace drum tracks.

[gman]

They did what they had to do to get the big huge sound, aside from forking over an amount of money equal to their mainstream counterparts.