U2 Drums Howto?

September 25, 2007 7:13 AM

I was recently listening to Achtung Baby in the car again, and remembered how much I loved it, and a lot of it was because of the sound of the drums. So, how did U2 and Brian Eno get THAT sound on the drums in Achtung Baby? Anyone know any specific pieces of kit or techniques that they used? Mics used? Drum kits used? So on?
posted by geekhorde to media & arts (18 comments total)

I found an article that seems to refer interchangeably between Zooropa and Achtung Baby. I'm not sure if the passage below is referring to Achtung baby. From the article:

DRUMS: Robbie Adams recorded Larry Mullen's kit with only three or four mics, hardly bothering with details like stereo spread and control: "The most basic setup is a mike for the bass drum, one for the snare and one overhead. The kick mic may be a Neumann U47, placed maybe a foot and a half away. I use a Shure SM57 on the snare, and an SM58 for overheads. When Larry plays a double-headed bass drum I might also place a Sennheiser 421 at his side. Sometimes I might stick an AKG 451 pencil mic on the hi-hats. I'll compress the shit out of the overhead mic, just to pick up loads of room. Occasionally I might also use an AKG 414 as an ambient mic, placed high above the kit. A lot of this approach is to do with Flood. He's bored with all this traditional, big stereo nonsense. This way of miking gives you a far more sonically interesting result which can be applied in many different ways. The drums on songs like 'Stay' and 'Babyface' were recorded like this."
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

The Wikipedia entry says Flood did engineering on the album.

Those SM 57's and 58's are the best. I don't care what Albini says.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:15 AM on September 25, 2007

But it's more than just mic selection and placement, right? Because I swear there's more going on in those albums than just mic'ing a drum set.
posted by geekhorde at 8:17 AM on September 25, 2007

the snare on "zoo station" sounds distorted (with a sansamp?)
posted by dubold at 8:21 AM on September 25, 2007

The simple mic setup on the drum kit is deceiving. There is a ton of effects and production garbage going on on Achtung Baby, especially on the percussion and drums. There is also a ton of additional percussion in addition to the actual drum kit, including both samples and tambourines, etc.

The drum kit itself on that album sounds pretty thin and distant, but it is augmented by the rest of the production.

Great question - thanks for asking it. I've been trying to learn how to get a good recorded drum sound with only two or three mics and have had mixed results, so I'm bookmarking this thread for sure.
posted by The World Famous at 8:26 AM on September 25, 2007

We spent two hours miking drums last weekend for a demo recording. Mic of choice? The 57 (see pic). Tried some AKGs and cheapo drum mics and nothing short of a U-47 sounded better than the 57.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:18 AM on September 25, 2007

But it's more than just mic selection and placement, right?

Yes, I would imagine the world-class drum kit and the top-notch drummer had something to do with it.

The chain of importance in getting good sounds goes (from most to least important) like this:

Musician -> Instrument -> Space -> Mic -> Preamp -> Other Gear -> Recording Medium

A great musician will sound great through a can with a string on it.
posted by Aquaman at 9:32 AM on September 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

Former u2 ultra-fangirl here.

Achtung Baby was the precursor to Zooropa. The sounds of the albums are related, but not exactly the same (the songs in the quote KevinSkomsvold references are on Zooropa).

I remember when reading one of the jillion books on u2 that--for AB at least--their recording setup and instrumentation set up was a lot more pared down than with prior (and future) records.

I also recall reading that in many instances you can hear the feedback from Larry's headphones (like, he was listening to what he was drumming on them as he was drumming it, so you can hear both sounds). I think I'm mis-remembering the story slightly, but that was the gist of it.

I don't know if that's helpful, but I have to say some of it is definitely the fact that it's Larry Mullen Jr.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:18 AM on September 25, 2007

Interesting. So, distortions? Some other forms of processing?

And microphone bleed from Larry's headphones? That's really interesting.
posted by geekhorde at 11:43 AM on September 25, 2007

No source for this (yet), but I remember reading at the time that Larry discovered a unique, smaller snare drum in Australia (I think) that he then used for Achtung Baby and maybe Zooropa. I'll try to confirm this...
posted by arco at 11:59 AM on September 25, 2007

In the Joshua Tree episode of Classic Albums, it's Daniel Lanois that specifically calls out his love of Larry's drumming. My guess would be that he was largely or at least partially responsible for taking the drum sound away from the ordinary. IMHO, he is as strong a sonic texture creator as Eno.

Also, IIRC, that's Lanois tapping his coffee cup in the intro to Zoo Station.
posted by turbodog at 1:10 PM on September 25, 2007

Really? That's a coffee cup being tapped? How cool.
posted by geekhorde at 1:58 PM on September 25, 2007

Also possibly of interest would be AB demo recordings that float around the Internets under the name Salome.
posted by turbodog at 2:36 PM on September 25, 2007

I also recall reading that in many instances you can hear the feedback from Larry's headphones.

If that were true, wouldn't he have had to have had the volume turned up so loudly that'd he'd be pretty much deaf?
posted by bshort at 2:46 PM on September 25, 2007

If that were true, wouldn't he have had to have had the volume turned up so loudly that'd he'd be pretty much deaf?

Yes and no. When there's a click track or other tracks that the drummer is playing along with, you sometimes get bleed-through during the parts where the drummer is not playing anything but the click or backing track continues. That doesn't really do anything to affect the sound of the drums, though.

Though Achtung Baby doesn't strike me as an album with a whole lot of empty space drum-wise, so I'm not sure how much bleed-through would be noticable.

And not all drummers are smart enough to wear good ear protection and attenuating headphones when recording until it's sadly too late.
posted by The World Famous at 2:55 PM on September 25, 2007

I think what you're noticing is the processing and FX on the drums. No other U2 album has drum sounds like that one.

I don't have any special knowledge of what they did to achieve those sounds. But they remind me strongly of the distorted and spacey drum sounds on Joy Division's records.

Martin Hannett produced Joy Division's albums; Google his name and you'll find a lot of info on his strange recording techniques. Wikipedia says:

He repeatedly obsessed over drum sounds, never being content until they completely coincided with the sounds in his head. Legend has it that he once forced Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris to take apart his drum kit during a recording session and reassemble it to include additional parts from a toilet. He also reputedly had Morris set up his kit on a first floor flat roof outside the fire escape at Cargo Recording Studios Rochdale (Hannetts favourite studio in his early years of production) Such unorthodox production methods resulted in drum sounds that were both complex and highly distinctive, which one can easily hear on Joy Division songs such as "Atrocity Exhibition," with its shuffling, cyclical rhythms, and the album version of "She's Lost Control," on which Morris' drums have a strongly metallic, rough-hewn sound, and are soaked in particularly vicious reverb.

IIRC, Hannett sometimes had Morris record one part at a time (i.e., just the snare part, then just the hi-hat part, then just the kickdrum part) so that he could treat them separately in the mix. I think he also tried playing the sound from the drum mics into a bathroom, then recording the results.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:15 PM on September 25, 2007

P.S. Wikipedia says that Hannett actually produced the U2 song "11 O'Clock Tick Tock." I always forget how long those guys have been around.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:21 PM on September 25, 2007

When I saw "sound," "U2" and "loved it" together in one sentence, I immediately thought the answer must be Flood.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:40 PM on November 4, 2007