Hi All,
 
I've recorded the basic drums track for a client, and they are after what I call the Led Zeppelin Swimming Pool sound, lots of room, and reverb.
 
The actual track they want to sound like is the intro to Bone Machine by Pixies : 
 
I can sort of get there, but wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

Have you ever heard of the "Glyn Johns" method?
 
You can easily search out and find hundreds of articles about it. It would have been a lot more effective for the client to tell you they wanted this sound before you recorded the drums because that is the easiest way to make it sound like the drums were recorded that way.

the strength of the original zep drum recordings, was the room sound in the capture, and the way it was all compressed to tie it all together...
plus the way that bonham hit both his drums, and his cymbal technique...
 
VERY HARD to approximate,
because so much of it came from the drummer himself.
 
you can simply throw a big room reverb on the whole kit, and sorta get there..
but unless you record a similar drummer, in a similar room, it will always ONLY be an approximation.
 
would love to hear about what you come up with after experimenting.....
 
and what mike said, 
http://therecordingrevolu...drum-recording-method/

I've heard of, but never used that method, but as batsbrew says, it's the room sound, probably more than the mike set-up, that makes that sound.  That's why I called it the swimming pool sound, as I believe that's what Led Zep used at one point.
 
Funnily enough, Rhythm Magazine ran an article on how to get that sound in their Feb 2014 issue, which I will now purchase :-)
 
 

The easiest way to get that particular type of room sound is to have mics that are positioned to get that room sound.
 
The difference between just adding a room mic (or room reverb) to the mix and the Glyn Johns method is that Led Zepp was recorded with mics that were placed far enough from the impact that they captured both the drums and the drums in the room at the same time, and they did it with a phase cancellation characteristics that is the result of the placement of the mics.
 
The one thing I'd add that hasn't been mentioned yet is that drum tuning is kinda a big deal too. I think that is alluded to when people say "it was the way he hit the drums" but it may not be obvious unless someone comes out and says it.

That pixies track sounds more like an average 2 car garage than the castles & stairwells the Zep kits were tracked in.
I hear a relatively quick slap back from a medium size room that sounds Eq'd to only really be mids/mid-highs.

ChuckC
That pixies track sounds more like an average 2 car garage than the castles & stairwells the Zep kits were tracked in.
I hear a relatively quick slap back from a medium size room that sounds Eq'd to only really be mids/mid-highs.

I agree.  Some of the best Bonham work had him banging away (harder than pretty much anyone else back then) in the hallway of a large castle while the Pixies sound like what I hear when I'm walking down the street and someone is practicing in their garage with the door closed.

If you don't have any castles, pools or stairwells handy, you can get reasonably close with digital reverb. They key parameter is a long (20-30 ms or more) predelay to simulate a far-away microphone.

There is a lot of info about "when the levee breaks." I think Gearstluz had a giant thread about which old comp went on a "room" mic that was stuck up the castle stairway.  But recording in the biggest room you can find w/ a big echo is the best way - if you don't have John Bonham handy.  And the more room you capture, the easier it is to fake a big room.  Try the overheads for most of the sound (hopefully it has some room) and then lay on the biggest predelay on the kit mics.  That would be how I'd start for led zep.
 
And yea, that doesn't really sound like the pixies, esp. the early pixies.
 
And the fewer mic you use, the better the drummer ought to be.  Tuning and dynamics are harder to fake w/ fewer mics.  I can get a good drum sound in my small living room w/ 3 mics - or as good as the drummer is.  Mediocre drummers sound rather trashy.
 
@

Here's a quote I stumbled on while reading up over at Wiki:
 
Jimmy Page has also commented:

One of the marvelous things about John Bonham which made things very easy [for a producer] was the fact that he really knew how to tune his drums, and I tell you what, that was pretty rare in drummers in those days. He really knew how to make the instrument sing, and because of that, he could just get so much volume out of it by just playing with his wrists. It was just an astonishing technique that was sort of pretty holistic if you know what I mean.*