Why the Talkback Limiter is a great solution for drum sounds
Sometimes the best things in audio happen by accident. Case in point: the Solid State Logic Listen Mic Compressor (LMC). This little circuit was never meant to be a creative tool; it was just a simple FET limiter circuit hardwired into the communications system of SSL 4000E consoles. Studios at that time had dedicated microphones in recording spaces that picked up musicians’ chatter. The LMC squashed that signal with a fast attack and a ton of compression so that quiet, mumbling musicians could be easily heard, and loud sounds, such as a snare drum crack, wouldn’t slam through the speakers of the control room, blowing out eardrums and possibly expensive monitors. The LMC wasn’t designed to sound good; it was purely a protective measure.
But like so many things in audio, someone made a mistake, and someone else liked it. In the case of the LMC, it was during drum sessions at The Townhouse Studios for Peter Gabriel’s third solo album, nicknamed “Melt.” The cover featured a picture of Peter Gabriel with a melted face.
There was a lot of studio chatter, made more annoying by the reflections off the stone walls of the live room. Engineer Hugh Padgham put a noise gate after the LMC and set the threshold high to get rid of it. But whenever a drum was struck, the gate would pop open, and the sound of a massively compressed, wet, bomb-drop of a sound was abruptly cut off by the noise gate. It was a totally new drum sound, and Peter Gabriel and producer Steve Lillywhite loved it.
“Gated Reverb” became the signature drum sound of the ‘80s. This is the sound of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” and countless songs by Prince, Michael Jackson, INXS, etc.
It’s easy to gate a reverb, but the real secret of the sound is the 100:1 squash of the LMC.
From Dan:
Our Korneff Audio Talkback Limiter is actually my second attempt at getting the LMC sound. The first one was when I stayed up all night in a studio workshop, building one by hand with spare parts from a circuit diagram I found. It sounded great. The plug-in sounds even better. Same attitude, same aggression, same magic that turns lifeless drums into monsters, but with added features that make it even more flexible and useful. Yes, it’s great for drums, but that’s not all. Drums, though, are a great place to start.
First Steps: How to Use the Talkback Limiter on Drums
The 80s are over and so is the big, gated snare sound, but the Talkback Limiter sound isn’t just for snares or pop records. It is the sound of a lot of iconic metal records. The LMC was widely deployed by metal producers like Michael Wegener during the 80s and 90s. Think that huge drum reverb on Skid Row’s debut album is some Lexicon program? It’s not. It’s a single SM-57 suspended over the kit and fed through a Listen Mic Compressor.
The sound of those metal records influenced Grunge records, influenced Nu Metal influenced Metalcore influenced the Australian pyschedelic movement and bands like Tame Impala. Cool huge drums are always in style.
Let’s get some cool huge drum sounds. Start with putting the Talkback Limiter on your drum room mics. The default setting tends to be a good starting point.
Have a listen. Click the red LISTEN MIC button to bypass the compression. and have a listen. Turn up LISTEN 1 (it’s basically a threshold control) until you hear the plug-in clamp down. If you want more drive, switch the INPUT to MIC. Switch it to PAD if you’re looking for something less chaotic. Fine tune using LISTEN 1. Don’t be surprised if the meter pins all the way over to the right. In practice, we ignore the meter and simply use our ears to get the sound we’re looking for.
If you don’t have room mics, put the TBL across the drum bus and let it squash the entire kit. Sometimes, though, when you do this, it can affect cymbals and hihats too much, and in general mangle the kit. The Talkback Limiter is a natural parallel processor. Use the DRY/WET BLEND to balance things. Turn it counterclockwise towards DRY to allow more unprocessed sound to peek through while keeping all that punch and attitude from the processed signal. And play with MAKEUP Gain a bit:—it subtly alters the output.
With just a few tweaks, you’ve turned a standard drum recording into something bold, aggressive, and unmistakably alive.
You can also use our Talkback Limiter to tighten up a flubby-sounding kick, or bring out the ring and rattle of a snare drum while maintaining the attack. Some of Dan’s hardest-hitting drum sounds are Talkback Limiters on every drum track and another across the bus. This is when using that DRY/WET BLEND becomes critical: tweak it on every channel to maintain the aggression of the entire kit without losing the individual character of the kit.
In closing, here’s a video entitled “Less Lame Drums,” and that’s exactly what it’s about. It demonstrates just about everything in this first lesson.
The next lesson is about the expanded features of Korneff Audio’s Talkback Limiter and what makes it even more useful and fun in the studio: it goes WAY beyond what the hardware can do.