Reproducing that 80s sound

I think our confusion is just that we can’t quite put our finger on what it is that you’re using to sort of date video. You seem very convinced of this difference but we can’t quite get our heads around it. I listened to the links and am even more confused. I’m not even really sure about the ‘feeling’ I get a feeling the music we produce matches the era a product is set in but I can’t really do it with the audio quality. I think I can tell roughly the age of a recording from the audio quality but after the mid 50’s quality started to get really good and then audio quality changes became locked to smaller and smaller parameters.
 
I think our confusion is just that we can’t quite put our finger on what it is that you’re using to sort of date video. You seem very convinced of this difference but we can’t quite get our heads around it. I listened to the links and am even more confused. I’m not even really sure about the ‘feeling’ I get a feeling the music we produce matches the era a product is set in but I can’t really do it with the audio quality. I think I can tell roughly the age of a recording from the audio quality but after the mid 50’s quality started to get really good and then audio quality changes became locked to smaller and smaller parameters.

Weird. Maybe I'm overly sensitive. Which would mean it's pointless for me to pursue this in the first place.
 
to be honest - no, it isn't pointless. From an odd perspective though. I've always found that when people hear things in reproduced audio, what they are hearing is real. There is something that you like or hate, or hear, or even annoys - but it's a tangible thing you hear and want sorting! the usual issue is that sound is so difficult to put into words. in audio, some things are doable, some aren't so we can't advise till we work out what it is you hear and we don't. I've found a few different versions of the Knight Rider music, and they do range in quality - but what I hear is slight distortion and reduction in dynamic range, plus the top and bottom being gone in some. What I cannot get is the notion that this kind of mangling dates it. Perhaps it's that you have associated this kind of mangling with the date, working in the assumption that this 'quality' or 'sound' is typical of the period - and that is just not right. Some movie sound from the 70s was phenomenal - Star Wars, for example. The movie theatres/cinemas were piling in sub-bass speakers and higher power speaker systems by the bucket load and wow was it good. for many people, used to the tiny 3x5' speakers in TV sets, this was their first taste of quality audio. I can't put that in text, but I known exactly what it sounded like. on the other hand we have spoken word recordings from that time that hold up well now. See if you can track down Alan parson's tales of mystery and imagination with orson well's voiceover, or Rick Wakeman's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that has a voice over. they're good examples of how good the 70s/80s managed audio. What we n' do is explain audio sound quality in words that everyone understands exactly the same.
 
Johndot,

Earlier I mentioned trying bandwidth limiting and compression. I tried to look at spectrum of a couple of the things you mentioned (Knight Rider, Breakfast Club) and both seemed to have a couple of things in common. One was a rolloff of most everything below about 150Hz and above about 5kHz. There also seemed to be a bump around 300-500Hz. This makes sense for dialog as male and female voice fundamentals and first harmonics are in that range.

I suggest trying an EQ curve something like this. Play around with the low and high pass filter and the bump to try to achieve the sound you want.

80s bandwidth.jpg

Give it a try. It might get you started on the right path.
 
Johndot,

Earlier I mentioned trying bandwidth limiting and compression. I tried to look at spectrum of a couple of the things you mentioned (Knight Rider, Breakfast Club) and both seemed to have a couple of things in common. One was a rolloff of most everything below about 150Hz and above about 5kHz. There also seemed to be a bump around 300-500Hz. This makes sense for dialog as male and female voice fundamentals and first harmonics are in that range.

I suggest trying an EQ curve something like this. Play around with the low and high pass filter and the bump to try to achieve the sound you want.

View attachment 104768

Give it a try. It might get you started on the right path.

Thank you! This is quite helpful. I'm getting pretty good results with the EQ, however there's still a distorted quality to it that will require more than equalizing to achieve. Still trying to figure that out. I suspect once I join the audio to the video that it won't be as critical as I'm making it out to be though.
 
The key is to use it sparingly. With audio, more is not always better.

There's a big difference from recording +5dB on a reel of tape and +5dB on a digital system. On a digital system, it will get raspy and scratchy REALLY fast. On tape it won't really get to a full squared off wave due to limitations in HF recording ability and the ability of the heads to handle the slew rate being thrown at it.

Assuming that the recordings were done via tape in the 80s (not necessarily true as Soundstream digital recordings were starting to come online around 1980, especially with classical recordings), then you need to imitate that tape limitation. The way to make the volume more constant is to compress the signal, and magnetic tape will do some of that automatically.

I threw out those plugins because they are free, so you can play around with them without forking over hundreds of $$ just to find out that they are trying to imitate a Marshall stack at full song, not an overdriven mic preamp in a Trident console driving a 24 track Studer chewing up 2 inch tape at 30ips. (ok, if it was a low budget film, they probably ran it at 15ips :) )

You might also do some research into film based audio. Search out "Academy Curve" and you might understand why the EQ curve I posted is starting to sound like what you want. Remember that in the 80s, most movies still used optical audio tracks which are limited compared to CD/DVD audio capabilities. The advent of THX, Dolby DTS and the like have changed the audio portion of movies. Now that film has been replaced with digital prints, things have changed, although there are still some remaining standards for theater audio reproduction.
 
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I wonder if the knight rider sic is a bad choice because it sounds simply bad. Are we trying to recreate a mistake that is not a blueprint for 80s sound but just a really awful recording? Perhaps good as an effect but not something that is a kind of forensic fingerprint for e decade?
 
All I really know is what I've heard. I haven't studied much, but I do listen, and I can hear a very clear difference between films produced in the 80s and films produced now. I don't know how to describe it without upsetting people but it's very obvious to me.

Most 80s songs are full of synths and loud, metallic, gated drums that cut off while still sounding. Add a ton of reverb and you got the 80s sound. Think of Take My Breath away. Thats loaded with 80s sounds. Danger Zone from Top Gun is in your face digital sounding. Crazy For You by Madonna is as warm as i can think of.

When i think of the 80s, i dont think of warmth. I think of shrill and digital sounding.
 
There are a number of transformers that when loaded up have a nice grindhouse movie announcer sound. If you ran a mix through different transformers, like Sowter, cinemag, RCA, Etc. you would hear some interesting changes.

Look at the equipment they used at the time.
 
There are some decent plugins that can add a vinyl or tape sound to a track, which will in turn give it what it seems like you are talking about wanting. It will cut the frequencies to sound more like the media you are wanting as well.
 
I'm no expert - and no one here should listen to what I have to say. But I just couldn't get that old school vibe with software. Not the way I was hearing it in my head.... comparing to truly more vintage source material. Like albums from the 70's.

So - I built my own "channel strip".

Warm Audio TB12 preamp----> Warm Audio EQP Pultec clone EQ-----> Warm Audio WA2A leveling amplifier.

The setup is new - but so far I couldn't be happier. Now I just have to create something of quality.
 
The band I was in back then used VOCODERS. They are tricky. You tune in white noise with he voice and remix less than 100% wet.

For all that power chorus and 80's hair band screams.

Lemmesee if I got any clips..

A NUMB linkn park clip will work..This will give you an idea. I left the voice in at 50/50 I am only firmly speaking words. The Keyboard is making the scream replacing my voices tonal information.

Get it mixed right and it sounds amazing!
 

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