How Phil Collins invented the eighties drum sound
from the wiki on "In the air tonight" (don't ask me why i was reading it)
In this case, the Solid State Logic mixing board had a "reverse talk-back" circuit (labeled on the board as "Listen Mic"). Normal "talkback" is a button that the mixing engineer has to press in order to talk to the recording musicians (the recording and the mixing parts of a studio are completely sonically isolated otherwise). Reverse talkback is a circuit (also button-activated) for the engineer to listen to musicians in the studio. In order to compensate for sound level differences - people can be close to the reverse talkback microphone or far off - this circuit has a compressor on it, which minimizes the differences between loud and soft sounds. While recording "Intruder" for his ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel's solo album, at some point Collins started playing the drums while the reverse talkback was activated. The engineers and his friend Jefrey were amazed at the sound achieved. Overnight, they rewired the board so that the reverse talkback could be recorded in a more formal manner.[4]
When Collins' engineer Hugh Padgham was brought in to help develop Collins' demos that would become Face Value they recreated the "Intruder" sound using the reverse talkback microphone as well as heavily compressed and gated ambient mics. Hugh Padgham continued working with Genesis for Abacab later in 1981 and the same technique (generally referred to as Gated reverb) was used, and the powerful drum sound has become synonymous with later Genesis projects and Collins' solo career ever since.
In this case, the Solid State Logic mixing board had a "reverse talk-back" circuit (labeled on the board as "Listen Mic"). Normal "talkback" is a button that the mixing engineer has to press in order to talk to the recording musicians (the recording and the mixing parts of a studio are completely sonically isolated otherwise). Reverse talkback is a circuit (also button-activated) for the engineer to listen to musicians in the studio. In order to compensate for sound level differences - people can be close to the reverse talkback microphone or far off - this circuit has a compressor on it, which minimizes the differences between loud and soft sounds. While recording "Intruder" for his ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel's solo album, at some point Collins started playing the drums while the reverse talkback was activated. The engineers and his friend Jefrey were amazed at the sound achieved. Overnight, they rewired the board so that the reverse talkback could be recorded in a more formal manner.[4]
When Collins' engineer Hugh Padgham was brought in to help develop Collins' demos that would become Face Value they recreated the "Intruder" sound using the reverse talkback microphone as well as heavily compressed and gated ambient mics. Hugh Padgham continued working with Genesis for Abacab later in 1981 and the same technique (generally referred to as Gated reverb) was used, and the powerful drum sound has become synonymous with later Genesis projects and Collins' solo career ever since.