04.01.2010
Rock Royalty Ken Scott Records EpiK DrumS: Interview from UAudio.com
Here are quotes from the interview with Ken Scott about the recording of EpiK DrumS: A Ken Scott Collection, from the Universal Audio website:
“Scott had his start in the ‘60s working as a tape op at Abbey Road Studios and from there went on to engineer and produce timeless songs, such as “I Am The Walrus,” “Rocket Man,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and many others. Scott keeps busy these days with EpiK DrumS–A Ken Scott Collection, a virtual drum and groove instrument from Sonic Reality in which Scott recorded and mixed samples by his favorite drummers: Bill Cobham (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Terry Bozzio (Missing Persons), Woody Woodmansey (Bowie’s Spiders from Mars), Bob Siebenberg (Supertramp) and Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs). This collection is so large that it comes on a hard drive. I used a Trident A-Range board with every one of these drummers. So that was the logical desk to use. Then it was trying to match up the studio that had the A-Range with the acoustics of the room that we originally recorded in. Then it was finding the mics. That was easy–costly [laughs], but we found them. And then it was on to the drums themselves. Some were easy. Terry Bozzio, one of the drummers, he still had basically the original kit that we used back in the early ’80s when I recorded him with Missing Persons. Some of the others, like for Bill Cobham, were really hard to find, because he used Plexiglas Fibes drums, who are now out of business, and it was very hard, because he used so many toms back then…we managed to patch something together, most of which is Fibes. A couple of others we had to throw in, but they matched up perfectly. I started off having them play along with the records that I’d done with them, to match up the sounds. Once I was happy with that, we just had them play the ` grooves from the records. Then once we’d got those, it was, ‘OK guys, now play whatever you want to.’ And that’s what they did. One of the things that will be happening with EpiK DrumS is called A Ken Scott Collection: EpiK DrumS. The reason it’s “a” Ken Scott collection is that we do eventually want to have “the” Ken Scott collection, which would cover lots of different instrumentation, not just drums. So the next thing that we will be doing will be all basses. And once again, it will be a similar situation, where it will be six bass players that I’ve worked with in the past very successfully, and recreating their sounds as well.” – Marsha Vdovin, Universal Audio Webzine
