Neil Peart’s Studio Secrets
Ultimate-Guitar.com released an article explaining some of the legend’s tips for his classic studio sound.
“Sound-wise, I grew to prefer my drums to have both batter and resonant heads, at first with small open-ended concert toms, then later putting bottoms on those as well… “I like a little damping on the bass drum’s batter head, but none on the other drums. Engineers used to balk at that, but as I gradually learned to tune the drums well, so they didn’t produce any unwelcome overtones, that ‘openness’ became acceptable to the audio professionals, both in the studio and live… “Same with having a front head on the bass drum – more difficult to record, but much nicer to play, with bounce from the batter head, and real dynamics.