The QOTSA “No One Knows” drum sound in 5 steps

Dave Grohl’s drum sound in "Songs for the Deaf" is super clear. The cymbals and drums are super crisp and isolated, yet the drums sound massive. So how was that achieved? How can you get the same type of sound?

This is how to get the “No One Knows” drum sound in 5 steps:

There are a couple of tricks used by producer and engineer Eric Valentine when Queens of the Stone Age entered his studio, Barefoot Recording, in late 2001.

1. Get an isolation booth or room covered with sound-absorbing material and a high ceiling

Barefoot Recording, Booth A, where Dave Grohl tracked "Songs for the Deaf"

Most of the drums for this record, including “No One Knows”, “First it Giveth” and “Songs for the Dead” were tracked in a 8’ x 12’ isolation booth with high ceiling (16’), curtains and cork on the walls and carpet on the floor.

The cork and heavy curtains dampens the sound, making it really dead and fast decaying.

Barefoot Recording drum room with heavy dampening on walls and ceiling. Not where drums for this record were tracked. 

Now, if you’re thinking “Why do I need a high ceiling?”, then we’ll get to our next point.

2. Set your mics in the right place

The drums for this record weren’t that many: 8 in total, 5 of them were room mics.

For kick and snare:

Room mics:

 

1. AKG D20 on kick.
2. Northern Electric 633A salt shaker for the snare.
3. Speaker (similar to a Yamaha NS10 speaker) used as a microphone for snare.
4. AKG C12A for left side of the kit.
5. Neumann CMV3 for the center of the kit.
6. AKG C12A for right side of the kit.
7. Sony C-37A as an ambience mic, placed high on the room left.
8. Sony C-37A as an ambience mic, placed high on the room right.

The 2 C37A’s were placed high on the ceiling, to capture the best ambiance possible. That’s one of the reasons why the drums sound huge.

"I used a pair of Sony C37A microphones for room mics. They were positioned up high - maybe about 12' up. I would just move them around in the room until they both sounded balanced between the kick and the snare and were roughly equal distances from the snare drum."

This drum mic set up is very unique in that, instead of using mics for the toms, Valentine uses mics for “drum sections”:

• Left side (4)
• Center (5)
• Right side (6)

So he’s not on the toms, but rather get a holistic vibe from them.

Another very curious approach goes for the snare: he uses a Northern Electric 633A salt shaker microphone and a speaker (similar to a Yamaha NS10 speaker) used as a microphone which gives a dark, thumpy sound that gives a lot of character to the the snare & kick.

This approach, although simpler, can also be heard on the drums for the Persephone's Bees album “Notes from The Underworld'. For this record the drum mic set up was:

1. D20 on kick.
2. Coles 4038 - Left kit.
3. Coles 4038 - Right kit.
4. Northern Electric 633A salt shaker - Snare.
5. Either C37a or U87 for room mics.

3. Record your drums, but muffle your cymbals

Here’s one of the keys to the sound: Dave recorded the drums and cymbals separately!

Electronic cymbal pads were placed instead of cymbals, so Dave could record the drums but listen to cymbals while they made the initial pass through of the record.

Legend goes, they were still composing as they went along, so a lot of jamming and idea testing happened while tracking. Dave had to have cymbals in his sound to have an idea of how it was going.

Once the drums were recorded and the band was happy with the songs, then the process of replacing those cymbals happened. According to Valentine, the electronic cymbals “sounded ridiculous”. I can imagine.

4. Record your cymbals, but muffle your drums

Now it’s time to see how good you are at replicating yourself. According to Valentine, one of the many things that surprised him about Grohl, besides the intensity and volume with which he plays, is his precision. He is not only super consistent throughout the song - every hit is exactly the same -; but also between takes. Valentine says of Grohl:

"The thing that is most striking about Dave Grohl's playing is how consistently he hits the drums. He plays very hard, which in a lot of cases does not necessarily result in the best drum sound. Because Grohl hits so consistently it is much easier to accommodate the really hard playing. I have heard people speculate that there are samples layered in with the drum recording. There are definitely no samples. Grohl just plays with inhuman consistency."

All this makes it a lot easier when you have to dub every song with cymbals. The drums were muffled and Dave pushed through the entire record again to record the cymbals.

5. Mix everything together

Unless the drummer who records using this technique is super consistent between takes, mixing this can be hell on earth. Or, as Valentine says:

"There is a trade-off [with this method]. You can do some cool miking stuff when the cymbals are separated, but you risk having the cymbal sound disconnected from the overall drum performance both sonically and with the feel. I have not chosen to do the totally separate cymbal thing again. I don't think the trade-off is worth it."

 

If you really want to hear every detail about this recording, here's a 1-hour explanation from Eric Valentine (can't embed, YouTube won't let me): https://youtu.be/RmIyIPItlG0?si=HIkd4Yu1twaQvba8