The Amen Break | Recreating Iconic Drum Sounds

The 1969 song "Amen Brother" by the Winstons is one of the most sampled tracks ever. The arrangement of the song contains a 4 bar drums-only break which is perfect for looping and sampling.
In the 1980s this drum loop became the basis for countless hip-hop tracks and in the 1990s drum'n'bass producers turned up the speed of the loop and used it as a foundation for their drum'n'bass and jungle tracks.
We focused on the sound of Gregory Coleman's original drum track and how you can recreate the original and sped up version of the Amen Break on acoustic drums today.

00:00 Introduction
00:17 Amen Brother
01:05 Recreating The Original
03:06 Recreating The Sped Up Version

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Also check out the drummer in this video: Pascal Thielen!

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[jonathanwapner]

All of this mileage from that original recording, and the creator probably died forgotten and penniless. Hell, there was no mention of his name in this video celebrating his contribution to history.

[jagshamesh]

You absolutely nailed the tone and feel, it sounds almost exactly like the original. I actually think it sounds better since the recording is crisper.

[samsam]

Thanx, man. People always forget about the sound of the amen break in their tutorials. But it's so essential to this icon drumloop.

[Merlincat]

So cool that you did the original and the sped up dnb versions! Both are cool in their own ways

[thCenturyPox]

Second set up nailed it. Brought back memories of Luke Vibert's Drum n' Bass for Papa (released under the name Plug), by far the best DnB album I've ever heard and a must-hear imo.

[colinsmith]

YOU CANT SEE CALIFORNIA WITHOUT MARLIN BRANDO EYES

[csanadselmeczy]

heard this in some great breakcore tracks, and honestly its just amazing
You absolutely nailed it. The tuning was on point for both versions

[TheHippyHoppyHippo]

I used this in a lot of my songs, it is such a catchy drum rhythm.

[reto_englert]

Very cool video. I always liked that beat and wondered where it came from. Sounds great!
You guys really inspired me to do my own drum videos. Thank you very much for the great content.

[furiusstiles]

Drumming: the very definition of multitasking.

[iamthefirsttosecond]

Outstanding work. I can't believe I'm just discovering this channel for the first time today. It's a gold mine!

[kaydrum]

This is very informative and sounds amazing!!

[erolbrown]

Best rendition I've heard. Most don't even try to get the correct drum sounds.

[regaltipA]

Obviously a lot of people commenting haven't heard a lot of James Brown tracks featuring Stubblefield and Starks from the mid 60s.

[ruaraidhmcdonald-walker]

Great! Good balance of tech and playing! Thanks for this.

[thehistoryofchingfordwater]

That's actually better than I expected. A lot of drummers are technically perfect, but don't have the feel. You are 99% there bro! ❤️

[AgentOrangeTheDJ]

This video just made my day. amazing! What a great explanation. I will never get tired of this break it will live on forever.

[viktorvigh]

There. Straight from the source. Rodney Mills, who was the engineer:

"...Amen, Brother was recorded to an Ampex 440 1/2 inch 4track tape recorder. Bass & Drums were on 1 track, Horns were overdubbed to a separate trk, instruments(Guitar, Organ) were on aseparate trks. I'm pretty sure I would have used all 4 tracks. Tape machine was set to 15ips(inches per second)speed. Mixing whould have gone to an Ampex Mono machine for radio and an Ampex stereo machine for single sales to the public.

The producer was Don Carroll, who was a record promotion man for major labels before he took up producing. Don definitely wanted feedback from everyone before he made final decisions on things. Emory Gordy was instrumental with arrangements and lending a helping hand to Don.The Publisher for both sides was Johnny Bee-"Holly Music" named after his daughter. Johnny also managed the band I played in throughout the 60's called "The Bushmen"

Recording was done at LeFevre Sound in Atlanta GA, 1969. The studio was a pretty live recording environment so it was a little tricky to get good presence on the drums without other instruments leaking onto the drum tracks or drums bleeding on other instrument tracks. Microphones used on the drums would have been a Neumann U87 on overheads (we had recently switched from the Telefunken 47's to get the latest Neumann mikes), an Altec 633 on Kick drum, an RCA Bk-5 on snare(a ribbon mike that could handle loud volume). At that time we had very few dynamic microphones. Bass would have been direct(no amp)The console was a custom 4 channel(Buss) console that had Langevin equalizers, Gotham audio faders, and no panning control. Stereo was still young at that time. I had been hired as engineer in 1968 and quit the band I had played in for 7 1/2 years to devote myself full time to develop engineering skills(if I had any!)..."

[marktheshark]

Ahhh the essence of break core and D&B

[artysanmobile]

That’s one helluva foot you’ve got there, mr. Drummer.