Mike Mangini interview

Roie Avin: I’m here with Mike Mangini and we’re talking about drum sounds and what he looks for when he’s listening to the playback of what you record. So after you’re down there, you played a track, do you come up here and sit behind the board and listen to how it went?

Mike Mangini: Yes, I listen to the difference between my experience out there and the reality in here. So there are specific things I’m listening for if what I’m listening to here is going to stay or not stay. And it’s everything from does the part work, to did I hit consistently enough that nothing is too high or too low. So I’m listening to the dynamics of an [arrangement] that they’re supposed to be in for the part. Of course, timing and note placement and stuff like that. It’s a collection of all these things.

RA: How many times do you try to get your drum sound set first before you do a run through? Are you just listening to the engineer on headphones once everything’s mic’d and then you play?

MM: Well, what happens is we spend time. This record unfolded differently than any other one that I’ve done because I was a part of that engineering process by default. Over the years, talking to Jimmy T about frequencies I just don’t want in my drums or ones that I would like. He soaked up all that and then did his thing, basically. So what happens is we get that initial sound and we get it set; it has to be right because that is the sound that we’ll try to get back to for the beginning of every song so that the album’s consistent. So we hope that we get it good enough right there that it’s “OK, it’s gonna work the whole way.” That’s the first thing. So after I track, I am listening to – first of all, “Does it sound like it did before?” There’s a musicality, and then there’s [points at the computer] “Did I hit the right things at the right volume?” There’s a lot of hits on the drums. So for me back there, my ears pick up the drums way differently than any microphone ever could. The snare drum out there would destroy the window, and I hit so, so hard, which is interesting – a lot of fans don’t think that I do. It’s very bizarre. Because I know what the engineer is telling me about [how] my input levels are destroying. I literally distort overheads with my snare drum hitting it so hard. That’s just abnormal. So I’m hitting extremely hard – way harder than anyone thinks. It doesn’t look like it either, because I practice like Bruce Lee. You know that punch, you could knock someone over from an inch away. I practiced that for four hours a day for a couple of years straight, just hitting from a low height, pounding the drum. Anyway, I’m in here[wondering, “Did I hit it alright?” And that’s only at this stage. You’ve gotta understand, when I’m listening and I play and it’s recorded, I’m then out of it. I’m out of what’s happening in here after it’s done.

RA: Then it’s his job to EQ it once all the music is done.

MM: It’s always been out of my hands, so that’s up to interpretation. Different people interpret different things. A different team of people. As a team interprets, it changes the shape. The sound is not any one person, including me. I hit it, I get it how I want it, and then I’m done. It’s pretty much how it is. When I’m listening at that stage – “Did I do what needed to be done?” – and that’s what I listen to in the playback. After that, it’s a different team, a different interpretation. But it’s bizarre because no one in the world’s gonna hear it the way that I experienced it there, except another drummer that knows, “This is the reality that’s behind the kit.” What’s interesting is most of the world hears it from a different perspective. I used to wonder why my sound got interpreted so differently than I experienced it. But it’s just because people are in a different physical space. The drums sound differently from, three feet in front than 10 feet in front, than behind the kit, than down low, than up above. Jimmy T put some microphones near my ears; let’s get some behind me and lower so those mics are picking up what I’m experiencing. Again, I come in here and then I listen to it. Because now I have to play correctly. So if I don’t do that and they do all this work, that’s a bummer. [laughs]