Nashville‑based producer and engineer Jeff Balding has worked with huge artists such as the Eagles, Faith Hill, Morgan Wallen, Blake Shelton, Taylor Swift, Shania Twain and Megadeth, to name but a few. Asked to nominate a favourite sound from his vast back catalogue, he zeroes in on the drum recording for Shania Twain’s 1997 hit ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman’.

The Luxury Of Time

“On most tracking sessions in Nashville, you might spend an hour dialling in drum sounds. ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ got the benefit of three full days of auditioning drums, trying different placements, and fine‑tuning sounds for the album. We went through dozens of snares, plus multiple kicks, toms and cymbals until we found the few with exactly the right character for the record.

Jeff Balding: Mutt mentioned he’d always loved the sound of drums on a riser, so we kept that concept for Shania’s tracks.

“When Mutt [Lange, producer] was looking for a studio to track Shania’s Come On Over, he stopped by the Tracking Room in Nashville to check it out. I happened to be working on a metal album at the time, with the drums set on a riser in the studio’s stone room. Mutt mentioned he’d always loved the sound of drums on a riser, so we kept that concept for Shania’s tracks. The combination of the riser and the stone room was the perfect recipe for the big, lively tone we were after.

“Once we locked in the drums and cymbals, I auditioned several mic choices for each position, including different room mic placements. Even though I have my go‑tos for drum mics, I wanted to make sure every choice worked specifically for the tone we were after on this record — mics that complemented the drums, EQ’ed easily, and blended naturally. The end result was a drum sound as much about the room and mic placement as it was about the performances themselves.”

Lots Of U67s

“For the kick, we used a clear [Ludwig] Vistalite bass drum for its punchy, fat sound, miked just inside the front head with an Audio‑Technica ATM25. I ran it through a 31‑band EQ for subtle tweaks to even out the tone. All the drums went through Neve 1073 preamps and a Neve BCM‑10 sidecar, using the 1073s for EQ and occasionally bringing a signal into the SSL console for extra shaping. The snare was miked with an ATM23 instead of the usual SM57, and ATM25s went on the toms. Overheads were vintage Neumann U67s. Room mics were also U67s — two in the back corners and two in the front corners — with the front pair compressed through a UREI 1178 and the rear pair through a Fairchild 670. We also set up additional mics to capture alternate room effects.

“The final drum sound was worth the work — clear, punchy, and leaving lots of space for the rest of the production.”