[Dixielandjazz]Recording drums was Oliver and Armstrong - relative "loudness"

[john petters]

Dick said

> Of course bass drums and several
> other instruments were pretty much precluded because the needle couldn't
> physically stay in the groove.  I always wondered why they just didn't
mute
> the drum in some way to bring it into balance

It has always sounded like there was a bass drum on the English ODJB sides,
but after that the firstI have heard were the Johnny Dodds Blackbottom
Stompers (Come On & Stomp Stomp Stomp etc).
Do you know anything of the early electric recording set up? Is there an
early mixer for example that brings Johnny St Cyr's guitar solo up in Willie
The Weeper (Hot 7)?

I was having a conversation with Nick Dawson, a young schooled pianist and
recording enthusiast. We were discussing the problem of recording bands with
drums and keeping the cymbals from spilling on to the other tracks. A good
example of a good recording sound being the Sinatra - Nelson Riddle
Capitols. He had been talking to an engineer who put forward the point that
the high frequency response in today's microphones causes the problem and
this did happen with older micrpohones in the 30s 40s and 50s. I don't think
that drummers player louder these days, yet unless you put them in a booth,
which upsets the natuarl balance of the band, you suffer from overspill.
John Petters
Amateur Radio Station G3YPZ
www.traditional-jazz.com