 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Dylan Wissing who's going to be teaching us all about the funky drummer breakbeat Dylan. How are you? Good, I'm excited to have you here because this is such a famous drum beat that is as we were talking before It's really difficult first off. It's incredibly creative and It has kind of changed hip-hop music forever and in multiple genres, but it's it's I Would dare say maybe one of the most famous drum beats of all time. Absolutely. I'm sure you you know way more about that. So We'll get into you've been doing some really cool stuff yourselves, but but with researching the entire everything about the beat but Why don't we start with you telling us the history of this? Let's say song because funky drummer. Let's again Let's talk about it like like it's someone who knows nothing about it. So why don't you teach us? About funky drummer by James Brown, which is performed by Clyde Stubblefield. So just take it away my friend. Sure Yeah, it was It's a song called funky drummer by James Brown. It was a came out as a single in 1970 It's a there's an A side and a B side each about three minutes long on the on the singles just only came out of the single I think it went to number 50 on the charts. It was not a Not a big seller by by James Brown's standards at all Apparently they played it kind of as an instrumental in the live show for a little while several months. It kind of came It went I'm told from a few different people that it was just sort of a throw-off they went in the studio they that day they recorded some other things some overdubs and this and that and then they just sort of Recorded this jam session in the studio one take there's an the full versions about nine minutes long and From what I understand it was based on Clyde was just in the studio just sort of you know playing a Clyde beat and they they jumped in or you know, somebody had some riff on the bass and they You know, they just sort of built this thing up and James came in and and started adding Adding his James Brown to it and it became this They they recorded the track down in its long they The track is is based on this beat the pride plays and in the middle of the song about five minutes in There's a section where James Brown says I don't want you to do no solo and just you know keep playing this beat You're doing I I forget the exact phrasing but So the band drops out and there are two measures of Clyde's double field playing this beat and right at that at that section Whether this breakbeat happens They have it sounds like they've added some sort of compression and reverb of some some type to it Where all of a sudden the drums go from being pretty just raw and dry to it's got this this thing This sound just sort of pops out of nowhere And then it's just James and Clyde grooving for eight measures And then that stops the whole the rest of the band comes in they play to the to the end of nine minutes at the final Final last few last few seconds of the song kind of as the song fades out Clyde does another solo. It's a little more He gets a little more involved and starts playing some other stuff with it But I you know a nine-minute song he I don't think he ever touches the floor Tom I think he hits the rack Tom precisely twice or something like that Yeah, he barely dinged the ride cymbal. I think precisely twice and in nine minutes or three times or something And it's an incredible piece of drumming. I mean it is You know, I think it was pretty revolutionary for the time. I don't know of anyone else From that period and who played, you know, it was recorded, you know, several months before I was born So obviously I wasn't there. I don't know I mean, I don't know anything else from that time period that sounds like what Clive Sebelfield did on on funky drummer No, so So, yeah, so the song was So the song was released as a single it came it went and just sort of disappeared it wasn't on any of James Brown's 12 inch LPs or anything and in the 80s it got rediscovered by hip-hop producers I I believe Hank Shockley found it or that's my understanding but it suddenly started showing up everywhere in the 80s and that's when I first became aware of it in in the 80s and and I knew it from my first real exposure to it was was fight the power by by Public enemy, which was just an amazing track and especially at the time. Yeah, that thing just That that track just exploded out of every speaker I heard it from and those drums, you know, and then he kept hearing those drums everywhere I thought there was a huge hit called poison Bell bit of O and the late 80s early 90s with the real furnace Drum beat that it's a totally different rhythm, but it's a sample of the snare drum And there's that that weird snare drum sound again and for decades this song was the the most The most sampled breakbeat in history. I think just recently in the past couple of years. It's been surpassed by a Breakbeat the opening from the song impeached the president by By the honey drippers, which is a really cool break beat as well But as far as I can tell and my source for all of this is the website who sampled calm or in terms of these what where these samples showing up in records and Yeah, so I mean this beat I think everybody on the planet heard it in some form or another somewhere on some song You just may not know it. It's it's just been a revolutionary sample and I've seen it listed as sort of the Sort of the birthplace of hip-hop in some ways or you know, like one of the founding just founding bedrock samples of hip-hop And of course, it's crossed over to pop all sorts of different places, you know, should native Connor had a big kid with it Back in the 90s and and you know a friend of mine was told me the other day you heard it in some commercial on TV Burger King or something. I don't remember exactly. Well, but I mean, it's so very much very much around my thought with that is is And correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason they would have chosen this is because it was so Accessible it was so easy to chop Naked drum part that was happening for eight measures by itself. Yeah, I mean that seems pretty obvious Yeah, that's I mean that that's kind of the whole Genesis of these break beats, you know finding and and I mean back in the 70s They were doing with turntables and two copies of the same record, which I mean, that's that's a skill. I will never master and it's Totally that's that's rocket science to me. I don't understand how will they do that or they do and you know So to be able to just continuously cut back and forth between two records with these these beats long before sampling It's an incredible skill absolutely an incredible skill and watching somebody who really knows what they're doing on a You know a couple vinyl turntables. It's just I mean crazy. It's dropping. So yeah, yeah So, I mean and there was that there was kind of a Fad is not the right word. There was a fashion for on a lot of these songs, you know these these R&B and and soul songs from the 60s and 70s where they would just Cut out, you know the band will cut out and you just hear the drums and so a lot of times What would happen is on the record itself You know, they'd be making these records with and there'd be compression on on different elements So, you know, the band drops out there the the compression is holding all the other levels for the whole band You know at a level so nothing speaking and nothing's distorting And then suddenly the rest of the band drops out and the compressor just grabs these drum Breaks and and really pulls them up to to get the levels up Which all of a sudden these drum breaks have this really cool sound, you know, this really Compression is just an amazing amazing thing on the sounds of recorded drums So, you know, you get these sections where all of a sudden, you know The compressor is grabbing those drum beats and just yanking them to the top and of course effecting the sound to bring out all this other stuff that is Otherwise covered by the rest of the band and you know, you get these insanely cool little Two bar breaks or or you know, some are some are, you know, three beats and and those three beats then become You know the whole foundation for a brand-new song a brand-new break beat So, you know, I I find this so cool I love this stuff and it for me it was it was There was sort of a trio of records that came out in the late 80s early 90s That would I just break beat heaven, which were tripod quest low-end theory yep, dala soul 3vi and rising and then The Beastie Boys Paul's boutique. I mean and each of those just Grab some of the world's most classic samples. So, you know, that that whole era of the sort of classic hip-hop pulling from these classic or or underground R&B jazz soul records And that stuff is just That has sort of ruled my life for decades It's led to what you're doing now which which to talk about that and then I think we can even zoom in more So so you run getting the sound comm so you've basically been on a journey to discover Everything you can about this particular beat So can you take us even further in to like the gear he used sure the studio equipment and and it's fun Just to note that so this was recorded at King Records, which is located here in Cincinnati, Ohio where Where I am so pretty neat connection there. Yeah That is cool. It's a that's a nice surprise I you know, I hope you'll go over and take a look or take pictures of it at the studio because it's it's still standing It is I've I've driven by it. I know and I can try and find out more but I know that it is currently Being restored And I'm I'm pretty sure Bootsy who's kind of a Cincinnati icon is involved in the restoration And I think it's going to try and be restored and turned back into an operating studio because there's a lot of history there So there's so much history there. Yeah so Let's see guys so they I started the site getting the sound common and the funky drummer is the first great beat We've looked at we have some others coming up And it's for me. It's that's the holy grail breakbeat. I mean, it's so distinctive and so yeah, you know There's so many things to go into with this particular breakbeat. So Let's see. Yeah, um Yeah, I'm a session drummer. I have a recording studio in Hoboken, New Jersey And I've been doing these sort of sample recreations for since the mid 2000s Which is just a it's an area of music I'd never knew existed until I started doing them for a producer and Ken Lewis and I mean It's it's insane how in depth you have to go to get these sounds and to make something modern sound like it was According to 1969 So we'll go into that later, but yeah, please. Yeah Yeah, the so King Records and King Studios. It's in Cincinnati the King Records has a Really interesting story that I believe has been in the news and since Cincinnati a lot in the past few years so it was started in the see early 40s by a guy named Sid Nathan and It ran until the early 70s it shut down not long after Sid passed away and King Records, I believe from if I understand correctly was the first integrated record label in the country at a time when that was really not cool you know Jim Crow was still very much very much the law of the land and They they were putting out all sorts of records down country records hillbilly records But also blues records R&B Jazz all sorts of stuff. I'm just an amazingly wide range of artists I from what I understand it was a fully integrated workforce and I mean, it's a really cool story. Actually, I have a family connection my great-grandfather It was a guy named Clarence Stout was a composer in Vincent's Indiana from I think he had his first hit in 1919 and up through the 50s And he was a white composer in Vincent's he he composed for both black and white artists of the day and So I have a little string of correspondence going back and forth between him and King Records where he's pitching What he calls a couple hillbilly songs and then a couple of race novelty records which you know There's a genre you don't hear much from anymore and no which became R&B. Yeah, exactly exactly and So the and they so King licensed a couple or a few of his compositions But then eventually returned them to him because they just couldn't interest any of their artists and recorded them But it's kind of cool that you know, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely ties in so so James Brown James Brown was on he was on King back in the 60s and I think a lot of his his big hits from that era were all on King Records so And for several years his James Brown Kind of production offices were actually in the King Records studio so his his whole management team and and Promotion teams were all there in that same studio I Just yesterday had the great pleasure of speaking with a man named Alan Leeds who was James Brown's tour manager from 1969 until 1972 or 72 or 73 and actually I Totally randomly Alan's book is coming out this this week. I think maybe tomorrow actually It's just been funny timing I mean quest love wrote the forward to the book Alan was he was princess tour manager from Purple Rain for that tour on for the next 10 years Angelo all sorts of stuff. He wrote. He's just an incredible archivist. He wrote of the Or I think he was in charge of the liner notes for there's a huge James Brown compilation called star time And Alan did the liner notes for that And I think basically when he was at King Records At some point James Brown moved to a different label and so they they got rid of the office They didn't need to be in Cincinnati anymore And I guess they were gonna just throw the stuff away and and Alan asked if he could have it and James said yeah, sure Whatever, okay, you know, it's trash Yeah, so I mean his archives are just he was describing when he had I mean For example, we were talking yesterday Alan went down to the archives and he thought he didn't have everybody looked and thought oh Yeah, here's the original tracking sheet from the funky drummer from I mean, so, you know, he had a copy of the original tracking sheet showing was an eight track a track recording I think that that day they was one take and I'm in a master and I get exactly I On the glance of it briefly last night But you know, I think the drums for one track It's you know, orange one another guitars or another and then I attract the two were open for overdubs so, you know, James Brown's production offices were in this building and King records had this really It wasn't completely unique arrangement, but a really Had a huge advantage over a lot of other labels and that you could do absolutely everything in that building from They had a recording studio a mastering studio an art department and then a pressing plant So you could go in record the record Mix and master it to the art press the record Alan is describing you could you know record on Monday and by Friday the LPs were on the loading dock ready to ship So, you know, so if they had a really hot song they could just You know, you got the middleman. Yeah, get it on the streets that week, which I thought was really amazing. So yeah, the My understanding of the studio itself Was just kind of a big open Concrete block room that that had some acoustic treatment Alan described it as sort of It wasn't it wasn't a super cutting-edge studio. It wasn't antiquated by any means But it was sort of, you know, just a good functioning studio I don't believe there was anything, you know, it wasn't one of the top studios of the country by any stretch So and and this recording was Pretty basic from what I understand. I think there were two mics on the drums maybe three Maybe but everything was just been just mixed down to one channel just one one mono drum track and Actually Alan sent me a picture of Clyde Stevelfield in the studio Not on the funky drummer session, but on an earlier session within that same year And he was just using his his basic Road kit, which was a set of Vox drums Yeah, what they're kind of the red Croco finish if that means anything. Yeah, which is Vox are Distributed the American distributor of Trixen drums, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly exactly Yeah, really unique drums and yeah, so the kit is Clyde Stevelfield in the studio with that Red Vox kit and then of course the famous Ludwig Superphonic snare drum Which from what I understand was his that was his main main drum back in those days and Actually talked to you standing more about the same same thing because standard written a great book about About funk drummers and interviewed Clyde and knew him and and Clyde Kind of confirmed that that was the drum he was using in the studio. Yeah, not surprised. Yeah. I mean if there's If you're doing sample recreations or you know trying to get the sounds of the 60s or 70s And you only have one snare drum in your arsenal to work with and you want that sound It'll add to the Superphonic is a pretty good. Yeah, pretty safe bet You know this session I actually at one point I heard some other backing tracks from I heard Individual stems from the rest of the song not the breakbeat, but just the the isolated drum track from kind of the rest of track And you can hear a bleed from you can hear the organ bleed and a little guitar and bass. I think And interesting, you know, so with the band was all in the same room all at the same time just you know kind of circled around James I guess and That one tick is it. I don't know if they fixed any mistakes or I don't get that impression I think it was just kind of what you hear is what that band laid down and I mean if you go back and listen to it I mean The 16th notes that Clyde plays they never stop in nine minutes and it's wild. Yeah. Yeah I mean how it's incredible. I I try to play it It's it's like trying to run a funky ultramarathon, you know You know these ghost notes all over the place and then his left foot doing all these these kind of stomps So he gets these little 16th note sort of hi-hat flurps all over the place and There's just there's never been a time where the anything about the funky drummer part was intuitive to me No, exactly. Do you know if they pull if they like would they have played to a metronome back then or would have Highly highly highly doubt it I mean because the timing you don't ever really notice like at the end. It's 50 bpm slower, right, right? No pretty Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's superhuman or Just Clyde's double feel there's only one Clyde's double feel and holy cow was that an amazing Recording Yeah, it's kind of the thing to where you you end up writing a riff or a beat that is so cool But then you think to yourself like I might have to I'm gonna have to play this every night for the next Yeah, it's like oh boy. I wrote a really, you know wrote himself into a corner there. Yeah That's awesome. Do you know what kind of symbols he was using there? I mean probably just a zilchins. Okay, probably and they're probably pretty thin I mean, so I told that Clyde played really quietly, which I think is is I mean, you know, if you try to play that beat loud and put your arm into it You'll never make it anywhere. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so I know which which kind of it fits the sounds He's getting out of those drums. I mean, he's clearly not slamming it And I think so much so much of just the kind of the bigness of that that break beat comes from Then the compression and the reverb so yep, and as best we can tell and again We were really just we're guessing because the the engineer on the track was a guy named Dave Harrison Who later went on to found Harrison consoles, which is a and they're very much still Active I believe Dave passed away in 95 But I mean his company is very much still still I'm making gargantuan kind of recording consoles all over the world Yeah, and based in Nashville and So the Man, we are we are guessing just based on what we know we think there's probably Probably compressed that break beat and we think that they sent the drums at least one of the mics They sent up to an echo chamber, which they had built in the I guess it was in the upstairs office they they carved out a little bit of space and and built this echo chamber which is basically a long hallway and I found a an interview with an engineer Who was a king in the 50s and 60s? And he was describing when they were building that this echo chamber and so they drove the the plaster guys nuts because they Insisted that the the plaster just had to be polished so it was near or smooth for this this room And he was describing they had a microphone in the room, of course, you know capturing so they would have a speaker They would send whatever they wanted an echo in they would send it through that speaker the room when the sound would echo And then they had a microphone which would pick up the sound and and get this this reverb sound and user Describing a situation back in the 60s where they had that microphone on a motor so they can move it kind of move it around in So and you know dial in the exact reverb they wanted which I thought was interesting I mean, that's I just sort of assumed that was a modern thing. You know people had now have little robot devices where you can put your You know it could use a joystick and put your your mic where you want it on the guitar amp about having to touch it Yeah No, you know It's just so neat too about how they're using like minimal how it's like you said maybe two or three mics Yeah, then which are bus down to one channel Yeah, which cuz like cuz you're using at that point like four track eight track Tape yeah consoles Yeah, yeah, cool and you know the whole the head all planned together in one room And I'm sure to the sound of those drums is also because they were all in the same room It's also the sound of the drums going through all the other mics that are open and live for the rest of the band So, you know, there's that that sound is not just the three mics It's also the sound of you know, it's probably going through James Brown's vocal mic and Yeah, horn mics and you know, whatever else would have been would have been open in that room That's a great point. Yeah, so I mean it just and it's such a unique sound if you go back and really just start dissecting what this thing is I Never heard another snare drum sound exactly that way. I mean I've heard there were other other tracks that You know the client was on that it's you can tell it's probably that same drum, but it just nothing has that same I mean, I mean Ellen we've described it as this whole session was just the perfect storm All these things came together to make these two measures of drums on a nine minute song It sort of changed the world wow and wait and nobody nobody suspected that it would have nobody When they did it I was just a throwing at whatever. It's a it's a vamp at the B side whatever who cares Yeah, because that's that's the kicker of all this is like it was just a fun kind of Like let's just roll kind of thing and then what they got though is is amazing So then jumping forward After people discovered it and did all of that, you know, it turned into the hip-hop thing my question is and Stop me if I'm jumping too far forward here, but about the legality. I think that's one of the most interesting things about this whole thing is how people legally Get away with using this beat Yeah, well, so Clyde Stowell Field when he did the session it was just work for hire He got paid for the session and that was it that was as far as it went Chance Brown took a complete, you know complete songwriting and publishing rights so he owned the song and Yeah, so as best I understand it Clyde never really saw a penny beyond the day he recorded that the track and which You know, I'm I'm not a lawyer. I My understanding of this is pretty sketchy. So don't take my legal opinion on this at all But you know, so it's a good anytime you use the original sample you have to pay the James Brown or his his estate And um, you know, so James did very well from the funky drummer break. I think starting in the in the 80s and probably still to this day As I understand it the legality with with drums specifically you can't really What's the word? You can't copyright a drumbeat. You can't Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. So, you know the beat itself. It's it's Clyde It's it's I mean it that is his genius and you know, anybody can play that beat and put it on the record if you Play the funky drummer Melody line and harmony then, you know, you're in trouble if you're just playing the drumbeat. Yeah, whatever, you know, it's It pisses me off But you know, it's it's left over from I believe from, you know, kind of the piano roll days of the early Early 20th century when, you know, it's just the melody and the harmony and that's all that matters drums don't count Drums aren't music. Yeah on a previous episode. I did about working drummers With matt brannon. There was a big discussion of how drummers just It's exactly what you're saying where they get paid less. It doesn't count. It's unskilled labor It doesn't matter. Um, yeah and he actually starts out the book with a quote from Clyde stubblefield that says all of my life and drumming i'm kind of paraphrasing I've always wondered about my money and The kicker I think for this is that it is such an iconic drumbeat But it's still a drumbeat that can't be copyrighted because uh, it's kind of like, um ginger baker sunshine of your love where it's a very It's the beat to the song but Because of what it is. I guess it's not you can't copyright it. So how did he react to this Drumbeat being used everywhere his beat. Was he happy about it? Was he sad about it? Was he upset? How did that go? Um, let's see, you know, so I talked to jim pain as well who's uh, his website is funky drummer calm and uh, jim jim new Clyde and and they became friends later in Clyde's life jim was telling me that kind of I think he was There was a point where he was not very happy about it But eventually sort of came to terms with it and was kind of at peace with all right, whatever who was uh, you know Yeah, I I think you know again. I'm I'm I'm getting my information secondhand and You know, I wasn't there and I've never met Clyde I it's one of my big regrets in life was not being able to get up to Madison, Wisconsin and go see Clyde play live. Um, yeah, I grew up in Indiana Madison wasn't that far And uh, I just never made it so um You know, my my thought was my my impression is that for him it was Something he's proud of he was proud of and obviously as he should be and You know, it gave him some opportunities and definitely, you know, gave him a give him a name and I started in the business Or I'm not starting the business, but you don't mean um, absolutely James brown infamously has had multiple drummers playing at one time I think most famously is jobbo and Clyde, but on the funky drummer beat itself. That was just Clyde That was just Clyde. Yeah. Um, okay Uh, Alan leads were telling me that I I think Jabba was was there at the studio that day when when they tracked it But you know, it was just sort of hanging out not playing on that song um, and the the impression I got from the from the show was Uh, I believe I read Clyde saying at one point that When he first joined the band there were five drummers on stage at one time But but each drummer was only playing at one time for the most part Oh, wow James like, you know, he liked the feel feel of that guy for this song He liked the feel of that guy for this song And you know, and then everyone's there on notice saying hey if you mess up, you know, I'm switching mid song, you know next beat you and So, you know, and if you're spacing out and you miss it, you know You're a find or you're out and uh, I mean an intense An intense yeah in those situations that he'll start a song High energy super fast and to start funky drummer Really fast sounds like a nightmare Yeah, um, Alan was describing it. It was kind of an instrumental um Where it was sort of it sounded kind of like the show back then was sort of a variety show where the first Half was the band playing instrumentals There'd be some of the the background singers would do they would they would sing songs or be comedian um James would do Show tunes or something and then after after intermission would be start of time and that's when all the big hits would come out um, so It's kind of like, you know, funky drum is just sort of a jam. They were just doing during intermission And so I don't get the impression that it was That track was part of start time when Here we go, you know, hang on to your hats Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Okay now What you have been doing, um Can you explain a little bit about what you were talking about and uh, you mentioned earlier but sample What is it that you're doing? So it's sample Sample replays and or sample replays. What is that? Okay? This is a situation where An artist will write a song Based on a sample a break beat, um, you know old drums and for whatever reason They can't clear the original sample for the record. Um, there might be You know, they're publishing reasons maybe they can't find the publisher or for some reason The publisher doesn't want to give the rights Whatever it is and I've I've seen several of these these scenarios um So what the artist will do is hire a team to Recreate the sample so that it sounds absolutely identical to the original whether it's just it's indistinguishable You know, you've you but It's a brand new work and because it's drums and you can't copyright drums and um You know, you can you can flood it in and and so it's not you're not using the actual master recording You're using a cover of it. So it's a completely different You know, you pay a completely different rate for that than you would Um, you know, if you're using the actual master recording Uh licensing and all that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly So and again, I I am not a lawyer I take all this with the grain of salt. This is my understanding from you know I I'm once again, I'm the drummer on these sessions. So I'm I'm kind of the Little man on the totem pole in all of this So I I've been doing these since the early 2000s at um, I work for a producer named Ken Lewis who is Probably the best at the business in this. I think he's kind of done he's done a lot of them and Uh, it doesn't do them that much anymore. He's he's moved on to bigger and better things But it's an insanely difficult process and I had no clue before I started doing these The first one I worked on was um, it's actually uh jz's black album and I Got a call and we were gonna recreate a sample and I started putting drums together and then found out an hour or two later that We were double booked. So they already had somebody else to do it. So, um, that was my uh, that was my first Heartbreak in the industry of oh my god, this could be my this is my career So my my first actual credit was was for um, uh, a Kanye West record, which I got the call in the In the that's still pretty good. You know, I was I was literally in the delivery room My wife just had a baby. I was picked up the phone to call my parents and say it's a boy And I got a text saying, you know, I need you for a Kanye West record immediately I'm sorry. Oh, that's funny time. I see honey. Yeah You know, I didn't leave that day, but there was the next day. Yeah But uh, yeah, so the process is You have to sonically recreate something and you have absolutely no idea What the drums were how they were tuned how they're a muffle where they're a place What the room sounded like what the mics were what the heads were Uh, what kind of sticks the drummer was using what the cymbals were How high the cymbals were from the drums, uh, you know, what the ambience of the room was what other mics were open what Tape gear they used what console what eq what compression how it was mixed how Uh, you know, what kind of tape it was recorded to what kind of tape it was mastered to what the master was like what they you know, and then there was and there was sample from a record and You know, you have no idea what condition that record was in and they're scratching from the record and then you know, they're the sound of whatever the The amplifier that was amplifying the record. So You have absolutely no idea or basically no idea of any of the these details So all you can do is just listen to it and figure out how to get that exact sound um So you have to get this sound exactly right and then you have to get the performance exactly right and uh, the samples that that are being chosen are chosen for They're really unique human feel and and you know, this funky Groovy half the time really weird sounding recordings. So you have to kind of surgically scientifically dissect every element of what the sound is and then play it yourself so You know, you're you're trying to tune these drums or a or match cymbals from a studio that hasn't existed in 50 years and and then trying to play exactly like You know some famously funky drummer or or some totally unknown drummer who just had a really cool thing going on And this is on a kit. This is not programming. This is actually recreating it on a kit. Yeah. Yeah um, okay so but a really interesting thing that will happen in this process is that um which took me a while to to understand is that um Rarely are you really just playing the full, you know setting for full kit putting up some mics playing the whole part as it was And then you know, and then mixing your sample replay from that A lot of times, uh, for example There will be You know the the kick drum is the kick drum part simple. They'll just they'll find the sample whatever it's it's a kick drum It's two notes. I you know, I find the sample sure, um, which saves You know, it's two hours of sorting through every sound library known demand, but it saves eight hours of trying to get the kick drum exactly right So and then you know, you've got let's just say it's a hi-hat part with some opening and closing parts and then a snare drum that has kind of some some main beats and the ghost notes and There are times I'll use a completely different pair of hi-hats for each element so the closed sound is one pair the open sound is the second pair the You know, I like the the foot pedal sound is a third pair There'll be one snare drum for the for the two and four And then a totally different snare drum for the ghost notes because it just speaks differently and and you know You never find the one snare drum that speaks exactly like the snare drum. That was it. Yeah. Yeah, I and And it's also the you're not just You're not finding a snare drum that that speaks exactly like The raw drum sound in the room from the original recording. It's got to speak How the record was mixed and how it was then recorded from the from vinyl or however, they got the sample so Yeah, um, you know, I I'm sure If you are actually in the room at some of these sessions what you heard acoustically Is just going to be a completely different thing than what's on the final record So for example, when we were trying to do our funky drummer break feet Naturally, the first drum we go to is a Ludwig Superfonic and I have a you know, 60s Ludwig Superfonic It's great. It does, you know, it's got the sound of the Ludwig Superfonic but That it wasn't no matter what we did we tuned it to exactly the pitch and you know Did everything we could to get it exactly right and the ghost notes just spoke in a different way On on my drum than they do on the original. So we ended up with I actually once again our our final funky drummer break beat Recreation is it's a combination of a whole bunch of stuff You know a couple different drums sound effects Echo, you know recording the sound of my studio bathroom I have that that's awesome Did you use a vox kit on it because you know what drums he used at that time until yesterday? I had no idea what drums he used I actually oh, I see I see yeah, so Alan was telling me that I always wondered if there was a house kitted king or Yeah, sure what what they would have used and Alan said that He looked at the schedule. He said the night before I think they were in Asheville, North Carolina and then They had a day off when they went to the studio and then the next show I think was in Acre on Ohio Just up the road from from Cincinnati And so we were saying with with a schedule like that. They probably just would have pulled in and pulled out their their road kit and at that point They're in 68 Alan has pictures of of of client and and and java with both with matching red vox kits And by 69, I think Clyde still had his vox kit java had a lot with kit as well, so We're kind of just guessing he probably would have pulled in Clyde would have pulled his vox kit with the vox snare Um, I mean it certainly makes sense. I mean the the kick drum if you listen to the sample it's got kind of a mid-rangey kind of Quiet knock. I mean it's not a okay That's kind of a smaller drum. I think I believe Clyde was playing a 1316 22 kit Uh, so, you know, definitely not they weren't weren't jazzized drums by any stretch Uh, but you know, he wasn't hitting that hard. I think or really lightly from what I understand So, you know, I sure wasn't laying into the kick drum and you know, it's just a very different sound than you hear from any kind of modern Any big modern specifically. Yeah um Gotcha. So back on track here. So then you for any artist, let's say like uh, because you've worked with like alicia keys Kanye, john legend drake m&m, which obviously by that list they're typically, um hip-hop artists They would say I like this drum beat from Artist X I want you to recreate it so I can so I can get a get away with it basically and then you do that process of Let's Let's call it scientifically recreating that exact same sound and because the funky legal stuff they can get away with Create creating that again and there's no hey, that's the drum beat from this song and we're gonna sue you Right as far as I understand it You just do what you're told I had all out of that legal stuff I have no way qualified to uh to to speak to that world But uh, yeah, so that's you know, I play the drums the I mean, I I want to make sure I'm not, um Glossing over a huge part of that process, which is the mix engineer's job. I mean, it's just okay taking the raw tracks and and Manipulated them so that they sound identical to the original is I mean it's It's uh a gargantuan job. So as an example I worked on the on kines record Jesus on the the first track and there's uh, it's a deaf punk producer There's a whole you know, it was crazy electronica and then there's a little break where a gospel choir comes in It's a little four measure break. Uh, so I played the drums and um, the entire break was recreated by ken Lewis where I think I got the call on a monday We tracked drums a lot five in the morning my my assistant matt tidalman played tambourine Uh, I don't think ken slept for three days straight. So he got my drums on mond monday at five and then Tuesday had to put together an entire gospel choir to then recreate this This really obscure recording and then mix it and then I think the record was in stores on saturday Oh, man, it was an insane turnaround and and that's usually how it worked for me. It was um There have been fewer of them in the past couple years. I think You know, I don't know if as many of these records have been made using this You know this process of recreating an old sample um But I mean the tide tables were always Just hey, we need this yesterday do it now. It's you know And the suddenly Panicked trying to recreate the funky drummer. I mean I do for an M. I do redo it in a night um And thank god i've been practicing it and that was funky drummer. So you so but not all of these are Funky drummer. Yeah, not not at all. So alicia keys was a um, was a billy squire track called the big big beat with body shinard on drums, uh, which is you know big rock and roll drums The uh, yeezus was a little, you know, kind of castle clarid the drake record was a another gospel thing I did some rick rosteffs, which is uh, you know a whole bunch of concert tom's concert tom fills Uh ti record just recently the same thing. Um, you know, that's a Multiple concert tom. So I I'm one of the the few drummers. I know who have multiple flavors of big concert tom setups So, uh, just because yeah, you know, kind of like howl blaine. Yeah. Yeah, but you know the howl blaine sound was Um, uh, blamier the fiberglass shelf. That's a cool sound. I don't have any of those there There's uh, the chicken spartan company is is making those again one day on my my list um, but uh, yeah, it's awesome. It's a funny business. It's it's um When I first heard it described it didn't sound that hard I mean how especially when some of these ones where you know, it's a really Uh easy and sort of exposed drum beat when you can play hear a plane of day exactly what they're doing It's a beat you played before and you know, like, I totally get every part of what they're playing how hard can this be and Once you dive in you realize the closer you get the further you realize you are Oh, man, the snare drum it's the wrong pitch. It's ringing too much now It's not ringing enough down the stairs are buzzing too much. Now. They're not buzzing enough now You know, and I changed the other pitches wrong but now, you know, and then and then There's a ring out of the kick drum, but uh on the original But I'm not getting it from my kick drum. So, you know, okay You put a floor tom next to the kick drum and tune the floor tom to bring the same pitches the kick drum and um You know, and then the mix engineer is trying to Okay, you know, there's some weirdness on the some phasing issue on the original That's how we're going to recreate that. You know, and oh it's a million little things Like you said where the snare is rattling The bass drum is rattling the snare and the floor tom is vibrating at this pitch and the height of the cymbals and the head choice on but I mean there's It's it's kind of like how you if you're tracking drums You don't break them down if you if you break down the mics and move the kit You're pretty much never going to get exactly the same sound that you had. Yeah Yeah, absolutely. I mean unless you do what you're doing Which no one should I mean it's Yeah, wow I mean, these are these are big budget productions So there is a budget to pay a crew to do this to stay up for a little literally three days straight and and do this um, so cool, so it's fun, you know, but I Absolutely love it. I mean I I think it's so much fun to do They're exhausting in the moment and they can be really stressful as a you know Everybody's under a serious timeline. So they're like These tracks going, you know Yeah, I said the floor tom's ringing Yeah, they don't care you know and you know and the Biggest thing not the biggest thing one of the big things I learned really early on was I was like, oh I have to you know get the exact right drum that he used and and To with the same kind of heads and to anybody and they couldn't care what you know If you have a drum from kmart and it sounds Like the funky drummer snare, then that's the drum to use who cares You know the microphones couldn't care less what you stick in front of it all the carers, you know And I'll be a mix engineers carers What does it sound like and does it sound close enough to what we're recreating that I can take it and then manipulate it so um And I think that that's true about uh, there's something about recording drums where you might hear a snare In the room and you go that sounds like crap. Yeah, it sounds so loose And just papery and then you go into the booth and you listen and you go. Oh Okay, I get it. That sounds great right now where in the room, you're like, oh my god, dude Your snare sounds like garbage, but I had a funny I played on a john legend track called in america And and we recorded at the city in the city of the studio called your mono and uh, steve jordan keeps some kits there So we got to you know, record on steve jordan's kit for this track, which was one of my favorite days of recording drums ever Steve wasn't there, but you know, they His spirit was yeah, oh, yeah, and and you know I've been a fan of steve since I was a little kid in soma on Saturday night live when it with the house band Yeah, which definitely dates me but um, so You know the the kit was a you know, a nice new set of of uh, gretch broadcasters and the snare drum I pulled up the snare and him So out of tune or whatever just kind of we were doing shootouts. We went through, I don't know 15 snares With a bunch of different options. We had about 60 snare sounds to Uh to shoot for and the the producer Dave toes that had a really clear direction of exactly What do you one of the drums would sound like with kind of a team and paula sound and um, so we went through I you know, I brought a bunch of my stuff We used a couple of house drums And we had this, you know, this gretch broadcast. We hit it. Oh god Oh crap. What yeah, this this drum will never make it and I mean we went in the room. It was Incredible how it sounded on tape We're just I mean I was sitting there with my child But I that's that same drum and they they didn't you know That was just flat through the through the board through an SSR console just you know Oh, you know of 57 and the snare drum totally out of tune sound like crap in the room more garbled and messy Oh my god, that was it. I mean we ended up using my drum Because either of these two would be great and say well, you know, you brought yours. It's it's unique. It's you know We'll do we'll do that one just in whatever Man, so at least you got to experience steve's drums and uh, yeah Yeah, that was cool. Hear the magic and that was the secret magic. That was really cool as we close out here Why don't you tell us about getting the sound calm and tell us about the website and all that good stuff So the website is getting the sound calm and we teach how to do this process of making sample replays and Then we touch on you know, basically everything that goes into that There's so many facets of this between the recording the drums and mixing and and sound design as well So, uh, I'm doing with with my production partner cooper anderson who's a just a brilliant mix engineer and producer He's worked on many of these same sample replays for about as long we we first met at a A session with ken louis at electric lady back in the early 2000s Down a bunch of these together. So cooper really really understands this process as well from the mix end and uh, so We're teaching these long-form tutorials. They're really in depth on here's how to go about doing it and a really important point is that We are teaching the process that we're using. It's not really so much about the gear simply because whatever gear I have at my studio whatever Your cooper has and whatever plugins he has is going to be completely different from what anybody else has and Everything we have is totally different from what they were using originally. So It's not really so much about well, you have to have a like a super fun and you have to have a u-47 over the drums and whatever because you know, you don't and um, even if we all had Clive's actual gear and the actual studio there's just no telling it's going to sound the same anyhow with us playing it So the important thing is just learning this process of how do you actually go about making whatever you have sound like Something completely different recorded at a completely different time and a completely different place. So, you know Shootouts of of gear shootouts of components of gear Mike shootouts, uh, just the whole mix process and and all the The layers, I mean watching cooper mix this I mean, it's just all these, you know We track the drums the raw drums as close as we possibly could and then cooper takes that To a whole other level with just these, you know, minute adjustments this that, you know Little steps constantly abing back and forth between the original So for our tutorials, we actually recreated the We recreated the original and then we recreated our recreation if that makes sense Because again, we don't know the you know, we don't have the the rights to the master buggy derma rake Only the jams rounded, you know, so But again, the the process is the same. It kind of doesn't matter It's just kind of learning how to do this stuff and it's I mean it's intense. It's really intense So we sounds like a ton of little things that add up to the the bank. It's kind of yeah mixing in a nutshell. Yeah Yeah, exactly, uh, you know and part of it is is kind of sound design in in some ways and we had to I ended up at home depot just tapping on empty pink cans to try to match this You know match this weird pitch that's coming out of the snare drum Or like coming out of the snare drum as it's been translated through compression and reverb and everything else You know, it's got this weird kind of sound to it and um You know and then blend it that in figure how to you know, we're using sine waves to add All sorts of sorts So yeah, and we teach every bit of it and kind of them I would see all these Videos online saying hey, you know, we we got the sound of this record or that sound or whatever And uh, there was one in particular where where they were recreating some motown stuff It was cool. It sounded great that a whole band, you know at the studio And they recreated some motown tracks. It sounded really cool. It sounded a lot like the original um, but I mean it was a multi-million dollar studio using just You know a knave console a massive knave console. I think and you know microphones that cost 10 grand each and Yeah, um, you know a huge band a huge budget and the video is 20 minutes long and said, you know They're talking describe about how we spend hours doing you know doing all this tuning and prepping and everything And then to show you the the final result, which is cool but You know What were those hours? What were you doing in those hours? I mean, that's what I want to know like that's that's where the information is It's entertaining to see. Oh cool. Wow. Yeah, look at all that amazing gear and that multi-million dollar studio and how that's fun to watch But if you're actually trying to do that yourself, if you know you're a recording engineer or an artist and you're you have a home studio You know and you want to sound like it's 1965 on your track I mean, how do you actually go about doing it? And So that's that's really what we're trying to teach how how you would go about doing that I mean those and these vintage sounds are such a part of modern music Um, not so much the kind of modern programmed edm stuff and all that but I you know These old sounds are Very much still with us. They're famous and great for a reason. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, for example after Today I have a session for an artist in in Europe and we're doing kind of old school break beats I'm going to be doing You know playing drums and some congers and he kind of wants the sound of 1973 So, you know, I've got my it's awesome. I've got my fake, uh, shag carpeting drum booth up with uh, Gobos and heavy blankets and uh, you know, lots of muffling and uh And uh, bunch of really mics That's awesome. You're the new funky drummer. You're the guy Well, I I I wouldn't go that far but Jim Payne is a funny drummer. He's funky drummer.com. Um, yeah, I just you're keeping it alive. You're absolutely Everything I can to keep it alive. It's I you know, what what Clyde Siblefield did with james brown at king studios in 1969 You know 50 years ago I I think the actually what am I right? I think we're just about to the actual 50 year anniversary of when that single released Uh, I think in the next month or so if I'm not mistaken. So Uh, there should be a boy that that that changed the world. Yeah, that's there's no denying. Yeah, we should there should it should be a national holiday I don't understand why it should be Funky drummer national funky drummer day and especially here in Cincinnati. Yeah. Yeah, exactly so you guys can find dylan online at getting the sound com um, and that's getting the sound on instagram and um, you can find him on instagram at dylan whistling drums correct w i s s i n g and um This has been amazing. I think we've covered a uh, just an incredibly interesting and unique aspect that um, I personally did not know all these details. I knew very little about it. So um I just want to thank you for for teaching us all about your knowledge and that really cool element of uh recreating samples That I had no clue about so I Thanks so much for taking the time to to talk with us about man. It was absolutely my pleasure and I love what you're doing with the podcast I'm a huge history buff history You know on a big level and on a highly specific drum level. So um, yeah, I love what you're doing with it with the podcast So please keep going. Thank you so much and I should say thank you to ben o'brien smith from sounds like a drum Who is the one who actually connected us? Yeah originally so yeah shout out to ben for uh for doing that I mean sounds like a drum are doing what I always wanted to do. They're just doing on a much more um regular basis and uh, I you know kudos to them. I love what those guys are doing too. It's it's really cool stuff Yeah, very clean and professional and tight and yeah, love it. Yeah, and they're and they're covering all the stuff you know they're taking the tapping the shells that was It's like, oh that'd be really cool to do You know when am I gonna do that and they did it so they did it. There's no shortage of ideas that they're they're they're clever guys Yeah, yeah, it's cool stuff. Cool. Cool stuff. Awesome. Well, thank you del and I appreciate it. Thank you. It was my pleasure If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast