No DAWs Allowed

Here's one from 1990 or so. Peavey AMR Cassette 4 track. I think track lineup would have been mono drumkit, bass, acoustic, vocals and electric.

 
chuckduffy said:
Here's one from 1990 or so. Peavey AMR Cassette 4 track. I think track lineup would have been mono drumkit, bass, acoustic, vocals and electric.

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That's actually really good chuck. I like it...it's a fun song, a great arrangement and a decent enough recording :thumbs up:. You didn't have to do any bounces?

That deck of yours was built like a tank! I could never get good sound out of my 4-track. I think it was defective, 'cause once I switched to an 8-track cassette, everything cleaned up a lot for me.
 
Here are a couple of covers I found...1st from 1992 on a fostex x-15. Lots of distortion and this annoying hum, but certainly a step forward production-wise from 1986:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59924554/playin'%20in%20the%20band.mp3

Fast forward to 2007 on a tascam 688. This one is pretty funny. Less than a year after joining this site, but still hadn't had the guts to post anything for review. Dig those crazy vocals (no added distortion)! Although this is a ridiculous mix, I kind of miss how willing I was to use random effects on everything...

 
Dr.SpringReverb said:
that weird "solo" guitar sound rocks.
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That is weird, isn't it? I know there would've been lots of verb and tremolo from the amp, but I think maybe there's a flanger in there too?...not sure.

This was about the time I realized I wasn't meant to play the blues.
 
Lt. Bob said:
allrite ..... this is the earliest thing of mine I could find with a quick search.
These would be live gigs around 1974 recorded on a Teac 3340.
I was playing bass and singing one of the parts .... and on the Buzzard Song where it sounds like there's two girls singing, I'm one of those babes! :D

The mix would be what I did back then ..... probably using something like A7's to monitor with! :laughings:
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Please tell me the chick who's singing lead on Willin' wasn't a dude as well :p :laughings:

fat_fleet said:
A few more from 1991-

Waltz of the Flowers-->Pinwheel
'Pinwheel' was a tune my friend Tom wrote, and we mangled Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers as an intro.
The Grind
One of mine.. vocals are pretty horrific. Not that they're any better now.
Sunshowers
And another one of Tom's. Always thought this one was really nice.

The first two were from that same RISD recording, from the board into two tracks of the Porta 03, then we did copious overdubs at home.
'Sunshowers' was recorded separately at one of our places that year...I can't remember.
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You guys didn't really go for snappy sub 3 minute pop songs, did you :p
 
heatmiser said:
That's actually really good chuck. I like it...it's a fun song, a great arrangement and a decent enough recording :thumbs up:. You didn't have to do any bounces?

That deck of yours was built like a tank! I could never get good sound out of my 4-track. I think it was defective, 'cause once I switched to an 8-track cassette, everything cleaned up a lot for me.
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THanks heat. I don't think there were any bounces involved. The only thing giving me pause is that there are BG vocals. But my normal habit was to record those at the same time as another instrument. Funny - I had a much harder time getting anything decent out of the 8 track :-) I would get overly ambitious and things would turn to shit really fast @ mix time..
 
heatmiser said:
Here are a couple of covers I found...1st from 1992 on a fostex x-15. Lots of distortion and this annoying hum, but certainly a step forward production-wise from 1986:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59924554/playin'%20in%20the%20band.mp3

Fast forward to 2007 on a tascam 688. This one is pretty funny. Less than a year after joining this site, but still hadn't had the guts to post anything for review. Dig those crazy vocals (no added distortion)! Although this is a ridiculous mix, I kind of miss how willing I was to use random effects on everything...

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I like the killing floor - sounds cool :-) I think the same thing about effects. Used to go nuts with them, and the stuff seems so much more interesting :P
 
Hey. Where's the "really" embarrassing and awful stuff?

Wow listening to these have been fun.. I haven't been here for a while and this was a great re-introduction!
But where are all of the truly "truly bad" and embarrassing entries? I can blow you all away in the embarrassing badness category, in both talent and equipment. I had a Bell (not Bell and Howell, no.. just Bell) reel to reel in the SIXTIES. The record and erase heads connected to the main circuit with RCA jacks, soo.... super sophisticated overdubbing! Just disconnect the erase heads! Wow what great fidelity! (see it's funny 'cause it was really really bad fidelity..) Add that wonderfulness to the lack of talent of a teenager just learning, and BAM. Is this something you actually want to hear? (the call WAS for the worst and most embarrassing!) I think is might be far below what you were actually looking for! Wifey-poo won the battle, and I finally had to get rid of it (but it did survive moves to to 4 homes!) but I did copy the stuff to .wav files first. Now to find them.
 
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Some great songs buried in old tech here. You guys got some amazing results with your equipment. I remember being encouraged hearing that "street Fightin Man" was recorded on a portable deck in a hotel room, and there was an added sense of pride in making something sound good the hard way. This was on an X-15, we used to bounce to a VCR because we heard it was a digital conversion, but it actually sounded a little less noisy. I used some kind of Korg drum machine. I have some older stuff from the 70s done on a regular portable cassette, I'll put it up if I find it.








View attachment Off At the Wrist.mp3
 
rpm61 said:
, and there was an added sense of pride in making something sound good the hard way.
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You know, when I first started up, doing it the "easy way" (if that meant dropping money at a commercial studio) just wasn't an option (though I'd end up doing that a few times down the line). I could not believe how good the trashy 4-track recordings me and my friends made sounded then. I remember taking the mixes home, playing them in the car thinking "Man, it is just a matter of time before the big labels come around." :laughings:

To me, at that age, it sounded beyond any expectations I ever had. So important never to lose that enthusiasm... I mean, so what if you have a hundred dollar guitar and a crappy practice amp you pulled out of the garbage... you can sit around lamenting that you don't have better gear, or you can just do it with what you have and be psyched. Anyways, cool song man. Has 4-track goodness written all over it. :)
 
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robgreen said:
Right had the chance to dig these out of cold storage (where they probably belong). Be careful what you wish for Fat Fleet - there are three if you have the stomach for them. They all pre-date the other song in this thread.

I'm pretty sure that the first on the list is the first song I ever wrote and recorded and I think I'd have been 16 or 17 years old. I'm not sure whether all the distortion is down to tracking with all the dials to the max or old recorder grot:

Upon The Moss

Night Falls On Bluebell Wood

Sparrows Are Wasted Thoughts

I hope they fulfil the original skeleton in closet remit...
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Oh yes, Rob. I think they do. :D

Are these in chronological order? I had no idea you had so much old tape stuff!
Listening to Upon The Moss...awesome. Is that a slide guitar? Kind of sounds like a pitch knob being tweaked. Some really cool ideas in there...I like the odd-rhythm guitar that comes in at 2.02...tons of reverb. This is the good shite!
Night Falls- Aw man, the copious distortion's gone!, Seems like you're getting better captures all around here. Great textures with the wah and delay!
Sparrows- Nice. Some double tracked guitar even. You seem to have a really heavily reverbed vocal sound on a lot of this early stuff of yours...it's interesting to hear, as I think most of the recentish stuff of yours I've heard on here goes for this distinctive crisp crackling sound I've actually wanted to emulate at times.

Thanks for posting these- they are cool!
 
heatmiser said:
Here are a couple of covers I found...1st from 1992 on a fostex x-15. Lots of distortion and this annoying hum, but certainly a step forward production-wise from 1986:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59924554/playin'%20in%20the%20band.mp3

Fast forward to 2007 on a tascam 688. This one is pretty funny. Less than a year after joining this site, but still hadn't had the guts to post anything for review. Dig those crazy vocals (no added distortion)! Although this is a ridiculous mix, I kind of miss how willing I was to use random effects on everything...

Click to expand...

Awesome to bear witness to this stuff! Is that all you in Playin'? Very "Phil Zone"-y bass.

Woah, the Killing Floor is pinning me to the wall with Beck daggers, quite a different sound from the 1992 song... actually a lot going on and really fun to listen to, though it's also kind of awe inspiring that you came from that to your present sound in just 4 or 5 years. Cool to hear the roots of the mighty Kingseesar!

Man, I have to say I had no idea how much of members' old stuff I'd get to hear in this thread. It is pretty awesome that so many peeps put stuff up. It is a total blast to listen to.
 
you can sit around lamenting that you don't have better gear, or you can just do it with what you have and be psyched.
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Right on fat_fleet! As much as I appreciate fine instruments and cool gear and tools, too many superior creations have been produced with bare-bones equipment to ignore the fact that it is way more important WHAT you're doing than what you're doing it with.
 
rpm61 said:
Right on fat_fleet! As much as I appreciate fine instruments and cool gear and tools, too many superior creations have been produced with bare-bones equipment
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And let's not forget the steaming piles of dog shit that have been made with thousands worth of gear.

rpm61 said:
it is way more important WHAT you're doing than what you're doing it with.
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Yup!
 
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