Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
It’s astonishing listening back to this under such a microscope. It’s like a 77-year old looking in the mirror and seeing his own image as a 22-year old staring back at him. So young, so arrogant, so vital! So much energy! No click-tracks or computers, of course, at Advision studio in London’s Soho in 1972. What you hit was what you got. These days, everything would have been stopped at about bar two and ‘corrected’. My memory is of all the Yes guys playing live in the studio with the intention of getting all parts right. Occasional mishaps, misreadings and mistakes could then be touched up later, along with the addition of vocal harmonies.
Close to the Edge (CTTE) was recorded in several sections. The frantic introduction, for example, was recorded as one piece (possibly a second or third take) up to 2.01, for where you can hear an audible click and gap before the join to the new section. At 6.19, the stereo position of the drums seems to change instantly, if marginally, so I suspect that was the occasion we’d had to stop work on the album, pack up, go play a show somewhere, return 48 hours later, set up the equipment and pick up where we left off. Others have noticed that the pitch of the snare drum drops as the track progresses!
By the time we recorded this, we would have tried various ideas and alternatives, before settling on this arrangement. The drummer had to know (or guess) the intended velocity and dynamics of the piece generally, and specifically of the weight of any instrumentation to be over-dubbed later. I’m going to perform differently if I know an orchestra is about to be stuck on top of me, or if a recorder is (and we did both in Yes).
Listening back, and comparing to recent recordings with my current group the Pete Roth Trio, I like the balance between the hi-hat, snare and cymbal overheads. I’m playing loudly, but Eddie Offord, our engineer, makes everything seem under control, not splashy. Eddie and I didn’t spend long on drum sounds. There was no input from a ‘producer’. By this time, and after our hit ‘Roundabout’, Atlantic Records had decided we knew what we were doing, or rather, they didn’t have anyone who knew better!
Nobody complained about the ringing metal snare drum, so I just got on with it.
Having grown up with jazz, I was comfortable enough with 6/8, 3/4 and all the triple-based metres, as opposed to the more common duple-based meters of 4/4 or 2/4. Much of CTTE has the former. I think the cymbal chokes (in several places, but at 10.03) date me, but they’re an under-used and effective device. With Yes, the drums had to be the first thing to be acceptable to all parties at the recording session. Editing drums was complex and time-consuming. There was resonance and cymbal over-hang all over the 2” 24-track recording tape; the process was discouraged. I just had to get it right, in sections, and live with whatever I’d produced.
We had rehearsed some sections of this before coming to the studio, but it was in bits and pieces. Like doing a jigsaw without a picture. There were endless discussions about how we could join possible groove [A] to probable song snippet [B] to the great bit [C] that yesterday didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the construction of the song, but now, today, with fresh ears, absolutely had to be used. Our Leader-in-Chief here was keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who could join anything to anything such that you’d never notice.
I still have the 14″ x 5″ Ludwig alloy (a.k.a. ‘Ludalloy’) chrome-plated Supraphonic LM400 snare drum, also used on Yes' ‘Roundabout’. It’s a bit crusty now, but how much do you think it’s worth? (Don’t ask me, I’ve no idea, and I’m not selling!). Memories are unreliable, but photos of the sessions suggest 13″ x 9″ rack tom, two 16″ x 16″ floor toms and a 22″x 14″ bass drum. I was in-between American Ludwig drums and the British-made Hayman drums at the time, so I was mixing and matching a lot.
So much has changed in recording and performing over the 54 years since CTTE and my latest recording with the Pete Roth Trio ‘Group Chat’ (GC). Yet they both have in common the fearless thrill of performing live in a studio or on stage (in GC’s case). Both share the aroma of invention, of people thinking in the present, with a high level of interaction. You can’t download those things.
Now get outta here. The man in the mirror has work to do.
#drummer #drums #kingcrimson #yes #jazz #musicimprovisation #music #yes #drumming #billbrufordsearthworks #tamadrums #paistecymbals
It’s astonishing listening back to this under such a microscope. It’s like a 77-year old looking in the mirror and seeing his own image as a 22-year old staring back at him. So young, so arrogant, so vital! So much energy! No click-tracks or computers, of course, at Advision studio in London’s Soho in 1972. What you hit was what you got. These days, everything would have been stopped at about bar two and ‘corrected’. My memory is of all the Yes guys playing live in the studio with the intention of getting all parts right. Occasional mishaps, misreadings and mistakes could then be touched up later, along with the addition of vocal harmonies.
Close to the Edge (CTTE) was recorded in several sections. The frantic introduction, for example, was recorded as one piece (possibly a second or third take) up to 2.01, for where you can hear an audible click and gap before the join to the new section. At 6.19, the stereo position of the drums seems to change instantly, if marginally, so I suspect that was the occasion we’d had to stop work on the album, pack up, go play a show somewhere, return 48 hours later, set up the equipment and pick up where we left off. Others have noticed that the pitch of the snare drum drops as the track progresses!
By the time we recorded this, we would have tried various ideas and alternatives, before settling on this arrangement. The drummer had to know (or guess) the intended velocity and dynamics of the piece generally, and specifically of the weight of any instrumentation to be over-dubbed later. I’m going to perform differently if I know an orchestra is about to be stuck on top of me, or if a recorder is (and we did both in Yes).
Listening back, and comparing to recent recordings with my current group the Pete Roth Trio, I like the balance between the hi-hat, snare and cymbal overheads. I’m playing loudly, but Eddie Offord, our engineer, makes everything seem under control, not splashy. Eddie and I didn’t spend long on drum sounds. There was no input from a ‘producer’. By this time, and after our hit ‘Roundabout’, Atlantic Records had decided we knew what we were doing, or rather, they didn’t have anyone who knew better!
Nobody complained about the ringing metal snare drum, so I just got on with it.
Having grown up with jazz, I was comfortable enough with 6/8, 3/4 and all the triple-based metres, as opposed to the more common duple-based meters of 4/4 or 2/4. Much of CTTE has the former. I think the cymbal chokes (in several places, but at 10.03) date me, but they’re an under-used and effective device. With Yes, the drums had to be the first thing to be acceptable to all parties at the recording session. Editing drums was complex and time-consuming. There was resonance and cymbal over-hang all over the 2” 24-track recording tape; the process was discouraged. I just had to get it right, in sections, and live with whatever I’d produced.
We had rehearsed some sections of this before coming to the studio, but it was in bits and pieces. Like doing a jigsaw without a picture. There were endless discussions about how we could join possible groove [A] to probable song snippet [B] to the great bit [C] that yesterday didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the construction of the song, but now, today, with fresh ears, absolutely had to be used. Our Leader-in-Chief here was keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who could join anything to anything such that you’d never notice.
I still have the 14″ x 5″ Ludwig alloy (a.k.a. ‘Ludalloy’) chrome-plated Supraphonic LM400 snare drum, also used on Yes' ‘Roundabout’. It’s a bit crusty now, but how much do you think it’s worth? (Don’t ask me, I’ve no idea, and I’m not selling!). Memories are unreliable, but photos of the sessions suggest 13″ x 9″ rack tom, two 16″ x 16″ floor toms and a 22″x 14″ bass drum. I was in-between American Ludwig drums and the British-made Hayman drums at the time, so I was mixing and matching a lot.
So much has changed in recording and performing over the 54 years since CTTE and my latest recording with the Pete Roth Trio ‘Group Chat’ (GC). Yet they both have in common the fearless thrill of performing live in a studio or on stage (in GC’s case). Both share the aroma of invention, of people thinking in the present, with a high level of interaction. You can’t download those things.
Now get outta here. The man in the mirror has work to do.
#drummer #drums #kingcrimson #yes #jazz #musicimprovisation #music #yes #drumming #billbrufordsearthworks #tamadrums #paistecymbals
