Sinatra in the studio

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LA Weekly is a local LA music based newspaper...Henry Rollins is an on staff writer...always some good stuff to read..

This week an interview of what it was like to work with Sinatra in a studio with the engineer that recorded several of Sinatra's bigger hits of the late 60's early 70's..

Frank was pretty bad ass I guess...a one take wonder..

For those of you interested from an engineers perspective HERE is the article..

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Good article even though focused mostly on the one tune "Strangers in the Night". I've read some other things about Sintra sessions and about his favorite mics. I think that over at Capitol they have a Telefunken U47 that is marked as "Frank's mic" and he used only that mic during his Capitol years. I think it was actually manufactured by Neumman, but commercially branded as Telefunken.

One thing that stuck out a bit in the article was this comment:

"A bit of studio trickery often was involved as well. As Sinatra aged and his voice started showing a bit of strain, Lee started editing together certain takes to make a seamless master take..."

It shows that studio editing is not new to DAWs :) and it's been used even for other singers who many would call some of the best. I've heard the same was done for singers like Whitney Houston (during her best years) and many others.
So no shame for us typical home rec guys when you have to comp a few tracks to get a good, clean finished version. :D
I'm sure all their takes were good...it's about being a perfectionist and picking the ones that were the most consistent.
 
Good article. I've read Sinatra's biography and the article echoes a lot of it. I think there were better singers, but Sinatra was really in control of his career and was partially successful just due to sheer willpower.

It says something about the quality of the musicians in those days too.
 
I saw a video of him in the studio one time, think he was recording "It Was A Very Good Year." Was pretty cool seeing how they had everything laid out. He was about 8-10 ft away from maybe a dozen or so people playing the violins, facing them. Puffing on a cigar in between takes, he told one of the violinists that he was a bit sour on a certain note lol. I'll have to see if I can find that again.
 
Cool vid of Sinatra. This was the one I was thinking of, but I must have seen a few others that all got blended together in my head :D

 
gecko zzed said:
Indeed. It never was new to DAWs. It's been around ever since they invented razor blades and splicing tape.
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Oh yeah...I know tape editing was in use from the early days of tape recording.
I was mainly pointing out, with tongue-in-cheek, that there was/is no shame in editing, even for the big boys, even for Sinatra way back then.
With the DAW explosion and lots of new people now recording everywhere...you often see some who think it's almost sinful to comp tracks, yet they have some of the most powerful audio editing tools that have ever existed, and that allow really pro-level editing without the hassle of tape and razor blades. :D


Manslick said:
Interesting conducting.
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It does look a bit odd and amusing...but I think with the studio orchestra sessions, and the singer right there in the thick of things, the conductor is more focused on the emotional phrasing of the singer, and his gestures are trying to relate that to the orchestra, to suggest a certain feel to their playing that fits the singer.
You notice how he is always watching Sinatra for those cues...and not just looking at the orchestra and conducting.
I think at around 4:47....that was the conductors cue for the strings to be more flowing. :p

They do the same thing with live sound for picture...the conductor has his neck kinked trying to look the screen playback, and also give cues to the orchestra. :D
 
Cheesehead1 said:
I think there were better singers, but Sinatra was really in control of his career and was partially successful just due to sheer willpower.
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Better singers...meaning more range or high tenor opera voices...maybe. But IMHO, there never was, isn't now, and never will be as great a original groundbreaking jazz vocal stylist as he. He had a unique style of phrasing, a different sense of timing, an impeccable sense of what NOT to sing in an age of bombastic over the top singers with radical vibratos, and he had a true gift for interpeting a song and making it his own.

He created a new style of vocal that is mimicked and borrowed from by thousands of singers until amd im sure past this very day.
Everyone from Sammy Davis Jr. to Harry Connick Jr owes a great debt to the original pioneer. ...Sinatra.

He is the benchmark by which all male jazz singers are measured
 
miroslav said:
One thing that stuck out a bit in the article was this comment:

"A bit of studio trickery often was involved as well. As Sinatra aged and his voice started showing a bit of strain, Lee started editing together certain takes to make a seamless master take..."
Click to expand...
IMO that was due mostly to smoking (and not taking care of himself in general), not simply aging. Look how well Tony Bennett's voice held up, whereas Sinatra's slowly but surely all but crumbled. Sad.
 
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