 The song was mixed by Bruce Swedien ninety @-@ one times — unusual for Swedien , who usually mixed a song just once . Jones had told Swedien to create a drum sound that no one had ever heard before . The audio engineer was also told to add a different element : " sonic personality " . " What I ended up doing was building a drum platform and designing some special little things , like a bass drum cover and a flat piece of wood that goes between the snare and the hi @-@ hat " Swedien later wrote . " The bottom line is that there aren 't many pieces of music where you can hear the first three or four notes of the drums , and immediately tell what the piece of music is . " He concluded , " But I think that is the case with ' Billie Jean ' — and that I attribute to sonic personality . " 
