But it’s hard for me to find out because I like the overtones in the drums. They hate me in recording studios for that. There’s no mufflers on the drums.
Everything is wide open. It’s loud and there’s a lot of overtones. It’s hard to tune to specific notes because of that. Most of the time the studio engineer has me take off the head or put some damper on it, because it really raises havoc with their needles.
“I’m still not completely satisfied with recording,” Motian admitted. “ECM does a really fantastic job but I wonder if it’s possible to hear drums on a record the way I hear them when I’m sitting behind them? In a hall with bad acoustics I can’t play too loud or I’ll l wipe everybody else out.”
Remo Ambassador heads are on all of Motian’s drums except on the snare which was calfskin. It isn’t that he is so particular about a specific head as he is, again, about the sound. “On this last tour of Europe, Sonor Drums provided a set for me. I just took my trap case and cymbals. The drums seemed good but what I didn’t like about them was that they had clear plastic heads on them. That starts to mess with my sound. I changed a couple of heads and got a better sound. – Paul Motian
Da gibt es tatsächlich einige Gemeinsamkeiten mit Mel Lewis, der es auch nicht so mit mufflers hatte. Beide schätzten das Vanguard und Leute wie Shadow Wilson oder Denzil Best und vieles mehr. Und alte Studios kannten die ja noch, man übersieht fast ein bißchen, dass Motian 1931 geboren wurde, Lewis nur etwas früher im Jahr 1929. Alles Zitate von Paul Motian aus einem Artikel von hier
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