tom skins and maiden history

Now that you mention Piece Of Mind drum sound, I always wondered what's the secret to that tom sound?
Is it the shells without bottom skins and with mics inserted into them or some other trick?
I really dig that sound, it's so 80s! :headbang:

As far as Nicko's timing goes, I respect the wish to have a somewhat varying tempo throughout the song, to emphasize certain parts, but I don't think there should be ups and downs _during_ a part. In the end - it all CAN be programmed into a click, so I still don't get why not use it. Maybe he just sucks at following the metronome... :D
 
The guy is great - but coming from a orchestral percussionist background to me his set up is absolutely riducolous - but hey - it's old school rock and metal - oversized props and larger than life skulls are a good thing - but seriously he has to stand up to hit the tom on the far left!:headbang:
 
MR NINE said:
From the picture as far I can see, the drumheads look very much like Remos's "emperor" or "ambassador", judging from the logo

http://www.remo.com/portal/products/3/8/50/161/co_emperor.hhttp://www.remo.com/portal/products/3/8/50/161/co_emperor.htmltml
no they don't. the snare, maybe, but the toms could be Evans or some other brand with a more elongated logo.
B__G2.jpg

you need only zoom in to the logo on the toms to see that they are oval shaped, not triangular as the remo logo is... .the snare is likely remo, as upon zooming in the logo has a more triangular shape. toms are definitely not remo.
 
kev said:
im guessing clear skins... but hey, thats only from live pics i have from the TOUR.

Maiden take pride in not using pro tools and i thought said never used a click. As far as i am aware, kevin shirley still does their stuff with tape too.

yeh, got every dvd maiden has ever put out , but no conclusive evidence :(
nicko uses clear live as well.. but in the studio, as you can see, he chooses coated. so going by what someone uses live is not a good indicator of what they may be using in the studio.
 
OzNimbus said:
For what it's worth, the drumsound on "Piece of Mind" is one of my all time favourites. However, I thought "Brave New World" suffered from a serious case of Lead Snare Drum. Great tunes, but I can't stand the sound of the record.

-0z-
I've never been a fan of Kevin Shirley's snare drum mixes, like from Brave New World, a couple of Dream Theater albums, and the Liquid Tension Experiment albums. Kind of St. Anger-ish but not as extreme.
 
Andy Sneap said:
funny cause I've had Doug Hall on the phone asking how to cut and paste their live stuff! Steve actually has his own HD rig they record most shows with.

Its quite apparent Nicko doesn't like a metronome, but I expect better from a pro band to be honest.

Yes! Tis true, but only live so i hear, never studio. I suppose Nicko just likes to swing freely lol, whos to say that using a met is better though, great for edits no doubt; but there is this way of thinking- who gives a damn if you've sold that many records and your as good as Mike Henry and your pretty tight anyway. OF course theres the argument that all records should be almost perfect... hmm. But is there more life in these flawed records lol....

Just out of curiosity, why do you wish to know this James? Planning a remake :p ?
 
Lopes said:
I've never been a fan of Kevin Shirley's snare drum mixes, like from Brave New World, a couple of Dream Theater albums, and the Liquid Tension Experiment albums. Kind of St. Anger-ish but not as extreme.

With the exception of Maiden, that's all Mike Portnoy. I can't really fault Kevin Shirley for those so much; even on Train Of Thought, which he didn't have any involvement in, IIRC, Portnoy's snare still sounds pretty much the same. I suspect he just likes having a ringy snare.
 
Exocaster said:
With the exception of Maiden, that's all Mike Portnoy. I can't really fault Kevin Shirley for those so much; even on Train Of Thought, which he didn't have any involvement in, IIRC, Portnoy's snare still sounds pretty much the same. I suspect he just likes having a ringy snare.
Don't get me wrong, Portnoy doesn't have my favorite sounding snare, but Shirley's mixes really bring it out, unlike the mix on Awake where the snare was fantastic.
 
awake features DT's best drum sound, really.....awake is the best sounding disc in general imho. sdoit sound cool guitar wise, but the drums are very muffled imho. IaW is fine, too....

anyways, imho dance of death kinda sound like shit :D