Today, we're stoked to premiere our first episode of a brand-new drum series from Noam and Jessica: Drums Through the Decades. In this series, our dynamic drum duo will zero in on a decade and examine a few different drum sounds that were popular in recorded music at the time.
For our premiere episode, Noam and Jessica are tackling drum sounds from the 1950s. As Noam and Jessica explain in their drum history overview in the beginning of the video, the 1950s was still quite early in the history of electronically recorded music but also saw introductions to lots of studio innovations that would come to define the next several decades and that we still use today.
To reflect the popular tones of this time period, Noam and Jessica are zeroing in on three famous tracks in particular: "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock," and "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles.
To get started, Jessica is playing on a modern recreation of the small-drum, jazz-style kits that were popular at the time—a Gretsch Catalina Club Kit with a 20-inch kick drum, 12-inch rack tom, and 14-inch floor tom. The kit is finished with a vintage Ludwig, 14-inch Zildjian K-Dark Hi-Hats, and a 20-inch K-Dark Crash/Ride.
As Noam goes on to explain in the video, the microphones chosen are also retro-inspired and placed in a really unique way that we wouldn't necessarily place mics conventionally today. Since most recordings were made with the whole band performing together in one room, including the drums, much of the drum kit's sound came from the various room mics that were placed to capture other performances, like that of the vocalist, bassist, etc.
Check out the full video above to see the complete rundown of how Noam approached recording and processing these recreated 1950s drums. And stay tuned for the next episode in our Drums Through the Decades series, coming soon.