In The Car’s song “Since you’re Gone”, the music opens with a unique percussion sound, almost like clapping hands. “Clap…clap…clap…clap-clap…” Pretty cool. I looked through the live videos and don’t see Dave Robinson playing anything obvious. Is this a pair of rhythm sticks off to the side or just a synthesizer track or what?
I guess given the band’s artful use of synthesizers, that is probably the answer.
DennisWell, the video itself shows a tap dancer, and it sounds like a tap dancer to me, so I’m guessing a loop of a tap dancer.
The best I could find is that ”it’s a real cheap rhythm box. It’s supposed to sound like hand claps, but if you turn it up, it does sound like tap dancing.” This is according to drummer David Robinson.
That’s some in depth analysis of their music, thanks! Quirky little sounds like that just grab my attention. There are numerous songs I listen to to hear a single note or chord.
Like Bad Company - “Six gun sound (Bwawp), that’s our claim to fame.” Love that one note.
Dennis
If their drummer hadn’t said it was a really cheap rhythm box, I was going to guess they were messing around with gated reverb.
You’re not wrong. It should be trivial to “turn up” (speed up) all the hand clap sounds from rhythm boxes available in 1981, “cheap” or otherwise. I tried the ones I know of unsuccessfully and suspect there could be some other studio effect in play here.
Also: musicians and producers understandably aren’t always so transparent when it comes to explaining tricks of the trade.
Sure, but why would somebody lie about a shitty little tap-dancing like sound? It doesn’t seem like the type of sound anybody would want to copy or would be a “trade secret.” I see no reason to disbelieve the explanation.
You wouldn’t believe what artists go through to protect “their sound”. There’s all sorts of obfuscation going on, DJs putting white labels over records they play, sampling musicians paying extra for non-disclosure clauses when acquiring rights…
Like I said before, if this is the truthful explanation, it should be really easy to replicate. So far, I’m having no luck, and have called in an expert.
There are so many analog drum machines and rhythm boxes from the 70s onwards. If you look at the file of the waveform, it’s a pretty consistent waveform of what could be described as a three-clap flam. I suppose it can be created in other ways, but I’m taking the drummer at face value. I see no reason for him to lie here. And the beat lines up exactly, so far as I can see, also suggesting either a drum machine or a loop.
How many do you figure up to 1981?
I’d guess somewhere around 40-50, though some are going to have duplicate sounds, variants of the same model.
For example, something like this Simmons/Musicaid Clap Trap seems like it would be able to produce a very similar sound. Definitely would have been around at that time.
Nitpick: there is more than one car. /nitpick.
Simmons Claptraps account for the lions’ share of potential candidates, but I didn’t find this sound in any archive. Most aren’t even close.
I personally don’t necessarily think it’s that one (I wouldn’t call it a “real cheap rhythm box,” but it may have been at the time), but there are tons of parameters on it, and, to me, it seems like it could come close, listening to that video. You have both pitch and timing controls, and the sounds around 0:45 are in the ballpark of the video. Once again, why the heck would he lie about that? There’s absolutely no reason to believe it’s not true.
Presumably all rhythm boxes were cheap to a drummer and producer coming off 3 consecutive platinum albums, but that’s what tripped my bullshit detector. Why call it a “real cheap rhythm box” rather than give a specific answer to a very specific question? Seems to me cheap ones came much later than 1981, rhythm boxes were rare, exotic and expensive IIRC, and many of them sell now for more than they did then. The good thing about them being rare is that someone knowledgeable should be able to easily identify it and recreate the sound simply from an archive of sampled rhythm boxes predating the recording.
I can think of quite a few reasons for making this up. One possible reason for not telling the truth: If this sound was not from a studio instrument but sampled without permission from another source it could be expensive to answer the question honestly and directly. In the early days of sampling, musicians couldn’t have imagined that lawyers would end up owning all the rights to their music, but that’s kinda how it panned out, and we’re not talking about a hiphop track that saw some club success, but one released as a single from an album that also went multi-platinum.
Would sampling something back in 1981 even be an issue? Did the Beastie Boys end up owing royalties from the easily identifiable and heavily sampled Paul’s Boutique? Serious question that I don’t know the answer to.
Obviously, I’m convinced it’s a drum machine. There’s too many variables involved that could definitely say it’s not, but looking at the waveforms, I’m guessing rhythm box.
I hope it’s a rhythm box or an electronic drum kit rather than something that’ll lead to an Estate of Shirley Temple (or possible Eleanor Powell) vs. Roy Thomas Baker-type lawsuit. Later in the article you linked, it’s again mentioned “Robinson also uses two drum machines, the Roland TR-808 and “one which is the cheapest you can buy.”” He’s clearly being evasive, but dollars to doughnuts that’s the instrument that either answers the OP or (shudder) floods this thread with tap-dancing experts.
As for samples, I have no specific knowledge, but would guess that by the second half of the 80s Beastie Boys and Rick Rubin would have been well aware of getting permissions for samples. I’m talking more about the earlier days of sampling where an artist could reasonably suppose that using a short, even recognizable sample would be considered tribute rather than theft. If the music business was controlled by artists it probably would have remained that way, but we know differently now.
But that was recorded in the very early days of sampling. If it were a sample, and somebody admitted it now, would that be a problem? It doesn’t seem like it retroactively would be, so why lie about it? I could find one live performance of “Since You’re Mine” on You Tube, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to lead us any closer to identifying if, in fact, there’s a mystery rhythm box involved and what it is. I was looking at Greg Hawkes’s (keyboards) set-up, but I don’t see anything there, except perhaps something on top of a second keyboard to his right.) But it can be anywhere.
IANAL, but I think so, especially if the track is sold today. (Hint: It is.)