... POORLY RECORDED SONGS THAT ...

@three_easy_payments---It may partly be the recording of Mitch’s drums (1960’s Ludwigs), but also how he tuned and (didn’t) damp them. His drums sounded about the same live (I saw him twice) as on the Hendrix albums, high and ringy, with lots of sustain and resonance. That’s how Jazz drummers tend to like their drums to sound, the heads tensioned tight (which results in the drums being high pitched) so as to get maximum stick rebound off the drumhead with every stroke, and undamped, leaving them free to ring, which plastic drumheads do. Ginger Baker tuned his Ludwigs the same as Mitch.

Ringo liked his drums to sound more dead, common amongst Rockers, myself included. Many apply some form of damping to their drumheads, to kill the high ring. Ringo used pieces of towel, others use less drastic damping like folded up tissue taped to the heads. I use sanitary napkins ;-) .

Compare Levon Helm’s Gretsch drums on The Band albums to Mitch and Ginger’s. Levon’s sound very low pitched and "thumpy", with shorter sustain and far less high ring. By the way, after his Hendrix days, Mitch switched from Ludwig to Gretsch.

It doesn’t matter on what system you play any recording of Ginger Baker’s drums, how you "tune" that system, or at what level you set the volume, his cymbals and drums will still sound terrible.

Here’s an interesting fact: while audiophiles decry compression, it’s use on the overhead mics used to record cymbals results in each tap on a cymbal with the tip of a drumstick (as opposed to striking the cymbal with the shank of the stick) creating a very percussive "click" out of the cymbal. Listen to Jazz recordings from the 50’s and 60’s, you will hear that cymbal sound on many of them. That click is very important in the ability of a drummer to create the very fast swing/shuffle cymbal pattern used in that music, and in Blues and Traditional Country.

Some cymbal makers are renown for their cymbals inherently producing the "click" sound, foremost amongst them the K. Zildjians made in Turkey. That was the cymbal preferred by many of the old school Jazz drummers, Elvin Jones, etc. Being hand made, each and every K. Zildjian sounded different, some great, many bad. The best drummers know the sound they are looking for, and hand-picked theirs from a pile of cymbals. Some drummers either don't know how to listen for cymbal quality (like non-audiophiles and hi-fi gear), or have "bad" taste. That may make me sound like I think my opinion is the last word, but you'd be surprised by how universal that opinion is amongst drummers.

Rock and/or studio drummers whose recorded drum sound features that cymbal sound include Jim Gordon (Derek & The Dominoes. His cymbals and drums so SO good on that album), Levon Helm (The Band), and Hal Blaine (everybody ;-) . Now listen to Ginger’s cymbals and drums. Trash. No offense, Ginger Baker lovers!

Two albums with great music but horrid drum sound are the debuts of The Who and Nick Lowe, both of which have drums that sound like garbage cans crashing down a flight of stairs.

@johnto, recording Cream (and Hendrix) WAS a challenge for the old school engineers in ’67, but it wasn’t because of the drums. Clapton and Hendrix hadn’t learned that their stage amps (Marshall stacks) were not appropriate or best for recording. Jimi was probably still recording with them when he died, but Eric soon enough learned that a small combo amp (low power, a single 12" driver) makes for much better recorded sound that a high powered amp and 8 drivers (what is in a stack). The amps/speakers were so loud at such a low volume setting on the amp, that to get "good tone" (tube distortion), they had to use stomp boxes, which simulate the natural distortion produced by a low-powered tube amp, at which they are only partially successful. Hendrix and Clapton sounded much better live than on record.

Recording Ginger Baker’s drums was no problem; Buddy Rich (and Keith Moon) played MUCH louder than Baker. As for his drum sound, that is of course a matter of taste. Levon Helm’s drums and cymbals on The Band’s Music From Big Pink album (recorded in early ’68) sound the way I like drums and cymbals to sound. Ringo Starr’s taste aligns with mine, but you are entitled to your opinion.

My opinion on the sound of Baker’s drums and cymbals is not based on hearing them through hi-fi speakers alone; I saw and heard him in Cream twice, in ’67 and ’68. Live, his drums and cymbals sounded just as they did and do on my system. That system has, over the years, included McIntosh, ARC, Atma-Sphere, NYAL, Herron, AVA, Levinson, Esoteric, and Music Reference electronics, AR, Thorens, VPI, and Townshend Audio tables, SME, Decca, Well Tempered, Formula 4, Rega, Helius, and Zeta arms, Decca, Grado, Shure, assorted mc, and London cartridges, and Quad (original), Magneplanar (Tympani T-I, T-IVa), Fulton (Model J), ESS (Transtatic I), Infinity (RS-1b), and Eminent Technology (LFT 4, LFT-8b) loudspeakers, and Stax (Lambda Pro) and Beyer Dynamic headphones. I don’t think "the problem is in the system you are (I am) listening on", it’s in your taste in drum and cymbal sound ;-) .