This has turned into an MM thread. Hehehe.
I think that MM was pretty clear in one interview that his drum sound was really a product of him and the team still trying to figure out how to record with his drum kit, which had problems of sound leakage. Here is the relevant portion of the interview by our fellow DTF member:
So do you have any goals for the next album, in terms of sound, in terms of drumming, maybe some stylistic changes that you’d like to try?
In terms of sound, again, I’m trying to learn with every experience I have, I learned a lot from the “Dream Theater” recording, and I learned a different thing from the “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” recording. From “A Dramatic Turn Of Events”, I learned a lot about almost sounding like there were two microphones in the room and that was it. That was not the case, but that’s my impression of my sound. It’s like, ok, there are those drums in the room, and you can hear all the leakage, because I have all that stuff…once you add a zillion tracks of guitar and keyboards, then my performed nuances and power disappears without detailed equalization strategies.
In terms of style, I’m at a new place after two albums and tours both in chops and comfort.
Τalking about the leakage, on the drum track of “On The Backs Of Angels” we can hear you humming, right after the piano solo where you get back on the track...
I’m sure you can, I’m always counting and stuff like that, yeah. My limbs fit into time. What is time and where here is it located? It is felt via my voice so my limbs have something tangible to connect to. On “Dream Theater”, I learned a lot about the feel with the time changes because my snare sound was completely different for me, I didn’t come up with it, and I evolved and changed because of that, here’s what I did: That really different sound made me put ghost notes off of the snare and on to ride cymbals and hi-hats, so essentially because of that change that was suggested to me, and because I was able to adapt to someone else’s ideas, I grew. I want to be clear about that, if I’m too stubborn with things that I want, the way I want them, how do you grow? But if something new comes along and I think “wow, this is really not what I want” but I’ll do it because people have a vision for something, I know that they trust me, that I’m a good guy, then let’s do it together, let’s work together and we’ll follow it.
And look what came out for me, some gem, I honestly would not go back and trade that just because that snare sound wasn’t something I wanted, because we all got something from it, right? So it is what it is, I know I’m going to grow with this next album. All I’m doing right now to prepare, is I have come up with ways to make everyone’s job a lot easier with manipulating my sound, and that will be for us to discuss in private, and for the guys to assess, the band engineer, to agree or disagree with me, because I’ve really worked hard trying to make things easier. I want to say I have a lot of 'junk' on my kit...
But you use all of it, it’s not junk!
Yeah I use it, but people can see it that way. I have a lot of stuff, I would not want to be the engineer having to try to isolate these sounds, it’s freaking impossible, I’m giving them a very tough job, so I’ve come up with ways to actually help that, so we’ll see what happens.
If I was engineering it, I would want at least a solid 4 or 5 days alone with it. I’d then want another two days after all the instruments are weaved in just to adjust to all those other frequencies. However, I basically have to get the drum sound set in a day or two. Once my sound it set, we don’t want to change it and I am not involved in the final production of it after the others still are taking time to craft their sounds. This is a big challenge for me because I am not hearing what the end result is when I record.
Jordan can work out his sounds at home as that’s what one can do with internal keyboard sounds. I cannot do that. When I take my 16 snare drums into different rooms, every single one of them changes. If another person hits them they change dramatically. It is bizarre. Also, the guitar gets worked on at some point every week for months while we’re in the studio. I don’t get that kind of time, luxury or flexibility, or foresight into possibly wanting to change some drum parts or sounds after I hear the decades of tracks put on top of them.
My toms exploded with transience on “Dream Theater.” They were incredible. However, you can’t do anything you want to the toms without affecting all the “ride” sources, which are the rides, hihats, effects and stacks, on my kit. My ride sources are more important to me than a snare drum will ever be. I think I’ve found a way to get more isolation in order to sound more like I play with regard to cutting through all the guitar and keyboard tracks.
Again, we’re all trying to evolve. I’m trying to make all of our jobs easier while shooting for the best compromise between how I hear things and create drum parts based on it, to how it is heard on the other side of the glass in the context of finished songs and a completely full sound spectrum where everyone wants to be heard the way they each perceive things.