Noam also added a multiband expander on the kick track to further boost the low end to add more attack without adding any more high-end. With the mix on the kick, it was important to keep it sounding dark and punctual, so filtering out the high-end was key. However, a little saturation was used in the mix, along with some filtering of the low-end to clear space for the kick drum. For such as small kit, only one overhead was used for the original recording-so they used a Neumann U-47 set close up to capture more of the drums and less of the room.įor the most part, Noam kept the dynamics natural on the overhead mix to avoid bringing up the hi-hats over the snare. For the snare, he uses a Shure SM57 for the top to capture the mid-range knock and a AKG 451 on the bottom to capture the low-end. For the kick, he uses an AKG D12 on the inside and a Bock Audio iFet on the outside. Based on their references, Noam ended up double-mic’ing the kick and snare respectively. Pinning down the proper microphone placement and recording involved research through various message boards. As you’ll see in the video, had to experiment with how they played the hi-hats to recreate the short and snappy vibe fully-they ended up swapping out the drumstick for a pencil to recreate the thin, tight attack present on the original take.

For the hats, they went with Zildjan 14' K-Dark Hi-Hats.

The kick drum is soft, so they went with a Ludwig Vistalite kick with the front head removed and muffled with a blanket. Jessica ended up using Yamaha Piccolo Snare for this session since the rimshot matched the pitch most closely. This led Noam and Jessica to experiment with a few different drums. The original drums are mono and have lots of saturation, particularly with the snare. Jimi, Marvin Gaye, all the folks we were gravitating to. D'Angelo saw these artists as his musical ancestors-as he told Time Magazine shortly after the release of the album, 'I believe Jimi was there. With Russ Elevado as the engineer, The Soulquarians used vintage studio gear to make them sound like classic recordings from years prior, including the Fender Rhodes Stevie Wonder used during Talking Book and the same Datamix console used by Hendrix himself. Recording for the album took place between 19 at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios in New York City-it was there during that time that Questlove, James Poyser, and J Dilla worked together and collectively dubbed themselves The Soulquarians. The drums on Voodoo are some of the most sampled and imitated sounds in all of neo-soul.

Soulquarians vibe magazine