Urban Myth? Funky Cold Medina - Does this cowbell really come from Honky Tonk Woman?

[Belinea2010]

So it is widely claimed on websites such as Who Sampled Who that the cowbell (or bells) used in the Chorus are sampled from the intro of Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Woman.

However when listened to side by side (to my ears) although they seem close-ish in key, tone wise they are completely different.

The cowbell from Funky Cold Medina (if it is a cowbell) sounds muted as if it was tightly help in a hand when struck as it is a lot duller and does not have the ring that the Rolling Stones one do.

No matter what I do I am unable to get the Stones cowbells anywhere close to Tone Locs.

What do you guys think?

In the 30 second audio clip below you get two bars of Tone loc, then two bars of the drums removed (cowbell and hats) then two bars of the Tone Loc cowbell extraceted using Spectralayers, and then the rolling stones cowbells. As I say, 30 seconds in length.

Have a listen but either on decent monitors or using head phones.
https://soundcloud.com/roger-henders/co ... 5wTfoFrRdt

[BJG145]

I can't get that link to work. But, yes, the cowbell on the intro to Honky Tonk Women as heard here...

https://youtu.be/hqqkGxZ1_8I

...doesn't have the same tone as the one on Funky Cold Medina here.

https://youtu.be/63ZIf2H9S0E?t=56

For one thing, the Rolling Stones one has a pattern of ringing and muted hits

ring-ring...ring-muted...ring
ring-muted...ring-muted

...whereas the ones on Funky Cold Medina all sound muted.

They could have sampled one of the muted hits, processed it quite heavily, then recreated the pattern, or just borrowed the idea...? Unless it's a different recording. I'd say it sounds more like a nod to the original than a sample from it.

[Belinea2010]

I always have that issue with soundcloud. Upload clip, set as a share and get the link the site generates - tad annoying.

This is a new link: https://soundcloud.com/roger-henders/co ... 5wTfoFrRdt

Your conclusions are exactly inline with mine, they just are not the same. I've spent the last two days trying to get the Honky Tonk cowbell to sound the same using a variety of techniques and plugins, both in Cubase and Pro Tools, none of which came close.

I know perhaps it should not, but it really bugs me when the wrong information is given on sites about songs. The information is user submitted and these users obviously do not bother to check what they post.

[BJG145]

The original and best...

[Belinea2010]

Hahah I'm not that bad but funny none the less.