The Semantics of the Recorded Drum Kit and its Processing

Abstract: This study investigated the terms used by drummers and audio engineers to describe the recorded drum kit and the processing applied to it. The main method consisted of semi-structured interviews with six professionals in the fields of drumming and audio engineering. The participants were asked to describe five musical samples of different drum kit mixes containing kick, snare and hi-hat sounds. Their descriptions along with explanations of their communication tactics were compared, resulting in explanations of fourteen semantic descriptors. The comparison of their use of the terms in the context of the samples revealed some differences depending on their professional backgrounds. The results suggested that, while audio engineers have a larger semantic lexicon in regards to the recorded drum kit, the differences in the definitions of terms had a larger degree of variation between individuals than between the respective professions.