Hey Jude Drum Sound

Has anybody ever noticed how muffled the drums on Hey Jude sound.
I have often wondered if this was intentional or just a bad recording.
I think many people are just so used to it they don't even notice it anymore, it is just the sound of Hey Jude.
If you have never noticed have a listen and tell me what you think.

I met a Beatle

Any conspiracy theories out there?
I met a Beatle

As a matter of fact, I hadn't noticed that sound. When I read your posting I went and listened to the song, and saw what you mean. But, not having much to say, I decided to consult the "Recording the Beatles" book, and see whether it said something regarding the recording of the drums in this song, as soon as I got home... Which I forgot to do! I haven't finished the book yet, and since I'm now reading about the recording of "Sgt. Pepper", I don't know whether "Hey Jude" will be mentioned or not. If the drum sound is intentional, I'm sure they must say something about it. Or have you already looked it up there and found nothing? To me, it's strange it should be a bad recording (I think that by that time Paul the perfectionist wouldn't have allowed such a thing in one of his songs). Although perhaps they might have found that sound by chance, by making a mistake while recording, and decided to leave it like that.

I don't want to turn off from the topic of the thread, but what I've always liked about the drums in this song is Ringo's long entrance. By the time he has "fallen" in place it seems he was never going to do it! I read somewhere that when they started recording this take he had gone to the loo, and arrived just in time to start playing.

I have never come accross any mention of the "Hey Jude" drum sound in anything I've read.
I have always thought it strange that in comparison to other recordings, this sound is very different.
It has never sounded right to me and would appear to be more of a mistake, or something that was done in a hurry. At the same time I can't imagine Paul or George Martin allowing something like this to slip by.
Perhaps there are other people who have some more information on this.

I met a Beatle

Well, I remembered to check that book last night, and it does mention the recording of "Hey Jude". One of the things it says in the 1967 chapter is that at that time Ringo was very intent on getting a good drum sound, and that both he and Mal would spend a long time before each session tuning the drums and so on. So I suppose this adds to what I said before about Paul's perfectionism.

The song was rehearsed one day at Abbey Road and then recorded on the following day. After that, they moved to Trident Studios with the intention of adding overdubs; however, they decided to record it all again from scratch.

The first of these sessions was filmed, which allows to know exactly how the drums were recorded; I don't know whether it can be supposed that the subsequent sessions were made the same way, or whether there are written records that confirm it. The engineer was Ken Scott, who had just replaced Geoff Emerick, and who started by keeping the same mic arrangement. However, for the "Hey Jude" sessions he made one change: he replaced the usual overhead D19c mic with a KM56 mic. I don't know what diference that would do, or whether he kept on doing so for other sessions, but that's one change he made.

But the released song was recorded at Trident. I haven't been able to figure out whether the same mics were used there, too; in any case, and considering that seven microphones were used to record the drums, I don't think this can explain the different sound.

What might explain the different sound is precisely that the song was recorded at Trident. It seems that the playback speakers used at Abbey Road weren't outstanding, and so, recordings and mixes that were made to sound good there sounded good everywhere else. At Trident Studios other speakers were used, and it seems that, to make them sound better, they had all the treble end boosted. So the song was recorded there, and it sounded great when listened through Trident's speakers. However, when they returned to Abbey Road to mix the song, Ken Scott found that the song sounded awfully, with no high end at all. After George Martin and the Beatles listened to it, they decided that they didn't want to record it again, and that they would try to add to the song the brightness it lacked by means of equalization. It seems that after a lot of work they managed to salvage it, but it sounds as if this could have something to do with the drum sound Hofner mentioned.

What I didn't look is what happened to the other songs the Beatles recorded at Trident (I arrived home late and didn't have much time). But I took a look at the chapter that deals with speakers, and when they mention the Tanoy speakers used at Trident, they only mention the "Hey Jude" incident.

In case you're curious about it, the whole mic arrangement for the filmed session is:

Overhead: KM56
Under snare: KM56
Bass drum: D20
Hi-hat: D19c
Rack tom: D19c
Floor tom: D19c
Ride: D19c
The snare was covered with a Fender guitar polishing cloth, and the toms with tea towels.

Excellent research!
What book were you looking at?
The speaker theory was interesting, the fact that they decided not to recorded it again is also interesting. If it sounded that bad I'm very surprised they would not have gone to the trouble of recording it again.
There was something else at the bottom of your reply about the snare covered with the guitar polishing cloth, and the toms with tea towels.
Is this something they did all the time?
I met a Beatle

Hofner, the book's called "Recording the Beatles", and it's written by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew. I think it's a must for anyone interested in the technical side of the recordings by the Beatles. It explains everything about mixing consoles, multitrack machines, loudspeakers, microphones, studios, and it also includes very detailed descriptions of how several songs were recorded. The only drawback (if you haven't got room problems at home, because it's huge) is its price, $100 plus postage and packing (which for me, in Europe, were another $50). But I think it's really worth it. You can find all the information and order it here.

I also think it's a bit strange that they decided not to record it again. It wasn't a song that involved days and days of work, so I suppose it wouldn't have been that bad. As for their accepting the final sound, I suppose it must have been because in comparison with the original sound, it must have been really better... Anyway' I'll try to read it all more calmly this weekend and see whether I've missed the reason why they did it so.

I think I recall that Ringo started using cloths to cover the drums, as well as inside the bass drum, around 1966 or 1967, and kept on doing so till the end of the Beatles' career (as can be seen clearly during all the "Get Back" / "Let It Be" project). I have the impression that he did it all the time, or almost, but I'll check that, too.

Oh, and, by the way, it seems that the "cloth" Ringo kept inside the bass drum was one sweater with four necks given to the Beatles by a fan, which I think I've seen in some photo somewhere.

That was his "late sound", old drumheads, clothes, towels, even a piece of a box of cigarettes taped to the snare. Brilliant!!

According to the book I mentioned, although it's something that it's always associated to the Beatles' later period, Ringo first used a tea towel on his snare in 1963, and from that time on he kept on using it; when he didn't do so, he kept a cigarette box -as juancabeatles has mentioned- on the snare to stop it from ringing. The four-necked sweater was first put into the bass drum in 1966, and there it remained till the end (although it wasn't until 1968 that they removed the front skin of the bass drum). 1968 was also the year when the use of tea towels on the toms became standard practice.