60's & 50's rock sound??

B

blackbuck

New member
My stuff is definately more punk but it does lend itself an aweful lot to 50's and sixties stuff, like the zombies, kinks, valens, even orbison and presley. It makes sense as I was raised on it.

Anyway, what do you guys think about getting this sound?

flat guitar, alot of verb on a dry sounding drum setup with little bass, verbed vocals....

any other thoughts of getting this drum sound? that's actually the part I really like.
 
Hey Blackie:

Those are some of the influences in my music, too.

The answer to your question has a lot to do with what kind of gear you have too. Do you use any vintage stuff, like rickenbacher guitars, electric hollow-bodies, or tube amps?
And there is of course the micing techniques.
Are you recording direct or micing everything?

DJ
 
I don't have my hands on too much real vintage stuff, but I do use tubes everywhere. I mic everything except the bass.

I'm kinda wondering about techniques people would use back in the day too
 
Try a little plate reverb - that's all they had back then.
You can also use plates on vocals to get that 50's/60's sound. Also, stick a '57 in front of a bass cabinet and you'll get a fat bass sound. As an aside, I've read articles about James Robinson (Motown's All-time Great Bass Player) and Donald "Duck" Dunn (Muscle Shoals);
and the secret to their sound was......THEY NEVER CHANGED THEIR STRINGS!!!!! If you listen to old Motown stuff you can hear this dull thud on the bottom end - that's ol' James' P-Bass with crappy old strings.
Happy tweaking!

Bob
 
You could also use nothing but overheads on the drums. I listen to tons of 50s and 60s music and it seems like most of them used only overheads. Too bad a vintage U47 costs so much... :D

Isaiah
 
50s sound (sun studio, et al)

i'm reading carl perkins (auto)biography right now, and they way sam at sun got a lot of his sound was facing an amp toward a corner (not a wall) and micing it from the back.
there's a lot of other mentions of sam's technique... i'd recommend picking up the book. there are probably a lot of other books on it too, but sun studio's "sound" pretty much defined the era, and it sounds exactly like what you're shooting for.
i'd be interested to know what you do, and how it works out.
 
carl perkins book

the book is called Go Cat Go, published by Hyperion.
I've seen it twice... I got it at a dollar store for two dollars, hardcover, and they had an autographed copy at the sun studios tour for like two hundred dollars or something.
 
tried it out

Thanks for the tips! So far it's getting better but most of the stuff I'm recording is for working on the songwritting itself, trying different guitar/bass setups, and singing/lyrics etc. I'm mostly still using a drum machine (puke!) but occasionally I can mike up a real drummer and I'll try some of those setups you mentioned next time I have the chance. I've trying Mimmicing that setup with the equipment I have.

I tried facing the amp into the corner last night: it did sound good but I am curious how far away they placed the amp and mic. I experimented for awhile and I just am curious about it.

So far with the guitar the best sounds I get are ironically with my effects (with tube dist.) going into a little solid state practice amp. I was using my marshall but I screwed it up somehow with a feedback loop so I tried the smaller amp and I actually like it better. Hah. My old fender amp is MIA since me and my x girlfriend split up.

Anyway, thanks for the tips guys!

I've also ran the guitar through some filters with mild success for making the leads stand out a little more

I have to check out that book. I'm not very in the know about the equipment they used and I'd like too.


Thanks again!
 
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