In this article music producer Rami Yacoub says the following while discussing the mixing console at Cheiron Studios:
“[Max Martin] said ‘this is the magic…’ and he routed the kick on one, snare on two, hi-hat on three, loop on four. And then he pulled up one lever at a time, and I was like ‘holy shit, this is the sound!’ It just had this analogue-digital compression to it which was hard to explain. It all made sense on that board. It was pretty amazing.”
What do you suspect the "loop" on four happened to be? How do you think it functioned in the drum beat, and what is the relationship between these 4 channels and the mixing board? Is the "magic" in the way the console processed the audio?
Note: I don't have experience with outboard gear and don't know much about signal processing etc.
Honestly, I'm mostly interested in the loop on channel 4 as I don't have access to a mixing board anyway. I imagine it would be a sampled drum groove that provided feel and life to the drum machine hits (I wonder if the loop's volume was raised near the level of the other hits or if it is so low as to be barely perceptible but still able to add some feel). Do you suspect that was the case?
P.S. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the title of this post.