George Massenburg On Recording Drums

George Massenburg is not only a legendary engineer, but he's one that likes to experiment.

Here's a video where George breaks from the norm when recording drums and tries some different and interesting techniques.

As always, there's a lot of thought behind everything that he's attempting to do.

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How Stereo Drum Recording Started

We take stereo drum recording for granted these days, but you have to remember that for a great many years, the drums were always recorded in mono. The popular miking method at the time was just an overhead mic and another on the kick drum, and that was it.

But stereo drum recording came about in a most unusual way. Here's how the legendary engineer George Massenburg tells it in the interview section of The Mixing Engineer's Handbook.

"I’ve been working with Glyn Johns, and Glyn is a master of the accidental big airy drums, of course with Led Zeppelin. It’s a great story.  

I was having dinner with Glyn and Doug Sax (mastering engineer extraordinaire) one night, and he was telling us about the first Led Zeppelin record and how they set up the drums in mono. They had one 67 right over the snare, but they always needed a little bit more floor tom, so he stuck a mic at elbow level, kind of off by the floor tom, pointing into the snare.  

After he finished the track, he grabbed the mic and put it on the guitar and panned it. When he put it back on drums, he forgot to pan it back. “Oh, that sounds great. I wonder what happens if I take the overhead and pan it right?” 

And Doug and I looked at each other and said, “You got stereo drum miking by accident?” And in that case he became well known for that big airy Led Zeppelin and The Who sound. It was a different sound than what was being done in New York, which was almost all mono, or California, which was a spaced-pairs kind of thing. The earliest stereo that I knew didn’t even include stereo drums." 

Glyn's Led Zep 3 mic stereo drum method still works today. Give it a try sometime. You might really like what you hear.

For more book excerpts from The Mixing Engineer's Handbook and my other books, go to my website.

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George Massenburg On The History Of GML

George Massenburg doesn't need much of an introduction to any audio professional. His work as both an engineer and an equipment designer speaks for itself. From his early successes with Little Feat, Earth Wind & Fire, Linda Rondstadt and later with Lyle Lovett, James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks among others, to inventing the modern parametric equalizer and later the GML product line, George has always been state-of-the-art in everything he touches.

This is a great video that not only describes the history of GML, but some of the early history of recording as well. Even if you don't use GML gear, it's worth a watch.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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George Massenburg On The History Of The Parametric EQ

We take an everyday mixing tool like the parametric equalizer for granted, but it's actually a relatively new device, making its debut in 1972. The inventor of the first practical parametric was audio and electronic engineer par excellence George Massenburg. In this video, George takes us through the history of the parametric.

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George Massenburg Demonstrates His Parametric Equalizer

Here's a great video of audio and recording great George Massenburg demonstrating his famous GML8200 parametric equalizer. The 8200 is revered for its lack of color and clean transparent sound and that's certainly in evidence here.

It may not be obvious in the video exactly what George is doing so let me outline a couple of EQ methods that he's touching on.

The first that he's showing is subtractive EQ, where he's turning up the gain of a band, then sweeping around the frequencies until he finds one that really sticks out. That's the frequency that needs to be attenuated.

The second is a technique called frequency juggling, where a frequency of one instrument (in this case the piano) is attenuated so that it leaves room so you can hear another better (in this case it's the vocal).

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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George Massenburg Demonstrates His Compessor

Here's a great video of audio great George Massenburg demonstrating his GML 8900 compressor. The best thing about this video is that he shows a good way to dial in just about any compressor, not just his. Once again, George hits it out of the park. A great audio engineer and inventor as well.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating the music business.

The Retractable Electronic Instrument

Here's a very interesting video of a new interactive and collaborative production tool for electronic music by Reactable. The instrument is a spin-off of some work done at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where the original concepts were developed.

While what you see in the video is a table-top model, iPad and iPhone apps are also available.

The instrument reminds me of some conceptual work done in the 80's between audio great George Massenburg and the now-defunct Amek Consoles. I can remember sitting with George at his studio The Complex with Graham Langley and Nick Franks of Amek as he outlined a vision he had for mixing on a light table console that seems eerily similar to what's seen in the video.

I don't know if that will ever be practical or usable (as with Reactable), but it certainly was ahead of its time. For more info on Reactable, click here.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating the music business.