Top Albums For Drum Sounds

My list:

1. Deftones album White Pony:


2. Judas Priest Ram it Down (there are others but the drum sound in this one is amazing)


3. Whitesnake album Whitesnake (that snare is killer):


4. King Diamond album Abigail but all albums from him have great drum sound


5. Metallica album known as the black album


Funny enough Metallica also has the honor for the worst drum sound ever recorded for the St Anger album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtO7GukB0ho

6. For a more recent sound Sleep Token:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loa_OSFotDQ&list=PLepBz_uI2k90NNv4Rj-L15zzyvWJymHXM&index=7

Not only is the drummer amazing, the sound of the drums is just perfect.
 
This is me being weird again (once again, refer to my disclaimer), but I just enjoy good songs and how well the drums fit in the song, not just the drums themselves. For example, I love the drums on "Hotel California." Those dry/dead drums are just perfect. They stay out of the way of all of those guitars and vocals and are just perfect in that song. Another great drum sound that fits in the song is something like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - big, bombastic, and enough reverb to where it sounds like they were recorded in a racquetball court. However, if you exchanged the drum sounds between the songs, it would be a disaster.

Once again, I'm weird about stuff like that.
 
PorkPieGuy said:
This is me being weird again (once again, refer to my disclaimer), but I just enjoy good songs and how well the drums fit in the song, not just the drums themselves. For example, I love the drums on "Hotel California." Those dry/dead drums are just perfect. They stay out of the way of all of those guitars and vocals and are just perfect in that song. Another great drum sound that fits in the song is something like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - big, bombastic, and enough reverb to where it sounds like they were recorded in a racquetball court. However, if you exchanged the drum sounds between the songs, it would be a disaster.

Once again, I'm weird about stuff like that.
Click to expand...
I have tried that (exchange the drum sounds) and yes the results are bad. Try using the snare from the Metallica black album to play Hotel California... not good.

Metallica snare:

 
Falling into infinity : Mike Portnoy
Best drum recording to my ears.


The X-Factor : Nicko Mc Brain.
I can hear the Signia Snare here.

Both are from the same era, with a cutting and bright snare. Rich cymbal sound and resonant toms with a lot of attack.
 
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Oh man, so hard to pick favorites!

One drum sound that comes to mind is Steve Smith's thunderous Sonors on albums like Frontiers and Escape. Fantastic.

I also love the sound of Neil Peart's old Slingerlands on Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres. While I enjoy the sounds of some of his later kits, the old Slingies were formative sounds for me.

To go along with PorkPieGuy's advocacy of certain sounds for certain songs, I think it's hard to beat Nigel Olsson's dry, deep sounds with Elton John.

Simon Phillips' drums sounded amazing live with the Who and Toto.

Then there's Russ Kunkel on Fire and Rain...

Yeah, so hard to pick!
 
A lot of those 70's quite dry, deadish drum sounds sound amazing through a nice system. I heard The eagles 'Desperado' played back in a high end recording studio and the drums are amazing. Likewise, Supertramp 'Breakfast In America' album, the drum sound is amazing.
One of the best all time drum sounds for me is Grace Jones 'Slave To The Rhythm' recorded by Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson. Eschewing the ambient bombast of other 80's recordings of the time, these drums are just faultless and as such timeless.
Another favourite is Billy Cobham's 'Spectrum', recorded by Ken Scott.
I find modern drum recordings so heavily manipulated and fx'ed it's hard to hear what is the drum and what isn't. Maybe Beck's 'Sea Change' recorded by Nigel Godrich?
 
Two albums that stand out for drum sound are Grand Funks Were an American band and Deep Purples Who do we think we are. Oh oh hang on a minute...BTO's Not Fragile and Linda Ronstadts Mad Love which were both responsible for getting me hooked on Sonor phonics.
 
Black Crowes "Southern Harmony".....overall drum sound on the album is killer and the snare sound is killer

Spin Doctors "Pocket Full of Kryptonite" Great 90s drum sounds

Wallflowers "One Headlight"

Fourplay....their first album "Fourplay"....Harvey Mason's drum sounds are outstanding
 
I'm old
( and a guitar player, so I don't know anything),

but the playing is so damn good from ALL the musicians on these 2 albums (as well as the production) my mind went right to Steely Dan's The Royal Scam, and Aja.
Bernard Purdie, Steve Gadd, Rick Marotta, etc.,


 
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I'm with Mr. Whitten on the 1970's scene. Check out out how the drums sound on Harry Nilsson's album "Nilssson Schmilsson".
I think Jim Gordon played on most songs with Jim Keltner playing on the rest.

Moving along I like Roxy Music's Avalon from 1982 and Van Morrison's Avalon Sunset from 1989. Some great studio drum sounds there.
 
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IMHO it is also very genre specific, mood specific and to an extent tempo specific. I don't think anyone wants to hear the Don Henley fat snare sound on a modern metal recording traveling at 200+bpm......it would be a tub of mud.....but in its place it is the perfect sound. Just like most folks probably wouldn't choose for 311's snare sound from the 90s in Hotel California.

Objectively like everyone else I love Bonham's snare sound on most songs but his kick and tom sound wouldn't work for me at all, far too dead. Kick is more palatable to me than his toms, especially on the earlier albums. I don't cringe when I hear those sounds in a Zep tune because......well, Zeppelin but alone without context they kinda suck to my ear, like hitting wet cardboard.
 
Jeremy Bender said:
I'm with Mr. Whitten on the 1970's scene. Check out out how the drums sound on Harry Nilsson's album "Nilssson Schmilsson".

I think Jim Gordon played on most songs with Jim Keltner playing on the rest.
Click to expand...
I'm not a drummer ( guitar player who loves drums!), but there is a 'melodic weight' to Jim Gordon's drumming, IMO, that I just love.
That great, solid, yet rollicking feel- like what we hear with Ringo on "Let it Be" or Something,""etc.,

I need to get Jim Gordon bio book too!

( huge Derek & The Dominos fan)
 
Any RVG Blue Note lp

“I don't see his drum sound talked about much. Which is funny, because, although it too is somewhat inconsistent (Billy Higgins sounds totally different from record to record), the one thing that I've felt Van Gelder really captured when almost nobody else was doing it was the full power of the drumkit.

The way he recorded Tony Williams and Elvin Jones and Max Roach - those recordings sound like real drumkits, and the simulated sound of a lot of drum recordings has always been a pet peeve of mine (and carries on to even the jazz recordings of the 2000s, by the way). Inevitably, when I want to hear a fifties or sixties recording with 'real' drums, I put on something RVG did.”

forums.stevehoffman.tv

Rudy Van Gelder's drum sound?

Rudy had a very consistent piano sound, and it tends to arouse strong opinions in both directions - for balance's sake, let's say it served certain...
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