Beatles/1920's sound

R

robjh22

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Anyone recognize the song called "Honey Pie"? McCartney sings it, on the White Album I think, and it has an intentionally old-timey sound on the vocals, especially that line "Now she's hit the big time . . . in the U.S.A."

I am writing a song parody about Martha Stewart, to the tune of "Honey Pie," and I want to capture that "1920's" sound. How do you think this is done? My instincts say it's a megaphone held to the mouth, but surely the original crooners of that era did not hold up a megaphone to their mouths when recording.

It may be necessary to use an old microphone, but those aren't that easy to come by.
 
Trackrat: assuming you're not joking, I'll try it. How do you "roll off" frequencies? I have a Fostex VF80, but no computer connected.

Thanks,

rob
 
A friend of mine and I had a similar problem performing a song calling for a similar sound during our college days. We used some nose clips (like swimmers use) and then try to sing nasal.
 
Hey Rob,

On the VF80, either go to the EQ and manually turn down the frequencies below 200hz and above 5khz, OR use the telephone effect that the VF80 already has in the effects section. Record the vocals as normal, then run it through the "telephone" effect... I forget, but you either do that as an insert effect or loop. Even so, I believe the effect you want is already pre-made for you in the machine.
 
thanks, guys. as you all know, I am usually back in 3-4 days with questions like "yeah, but where is the power switch?" so bear with me. I promise the product will be good for a laugh. I'll post it here in a couple of weeks. (Great art takes time!)
 
Beatles sound

I remember reading an article about George Martin and the Beatles trying that effect by plugging a high impedence mic into a guitar amp. Then mic the amp into a console. Gotta love those guys! My two cents Pj
 
Rereading the Fostex manual. The "telephone" vocal effect is an EQ preset which is only available on mixdown. There is an insert effect using the "L42" setting, "Voice 3" type, which is described in the manual as a bullhorn sound.
 
a12stringer said:
Rereading the Fostex manual. The "telephone" vocal effect is an EQ preset which is only available on mixdown.
Click to expand...

The telephone effect can be put onto a track prior to mixdown. I know because I used it once... Because I don't have the VF80 anymore I forget if it was called an insert or loop effect. But in essence, you record dry, then re-record with the effect on, similar to the guitar effects...
 
Unless I'm misunderstanding the manual (which is a distinct possibility), the manual indicates the EQ presets are a loop effect available at mixdown.
The lesson to be learned from this exchange is that Billisa's experience carries more weight than this clown (myself) who may or may not be understanding the manual correctly.

To add some more fuel to the fire however (and I say this as simply yet another method to explore), I've been reading Mark Lewisohn's Chronicles which documents much of the Beatles activities in the recording studio. For example, on "Tomorrow Never Knows," Lewisohn mentions that for Lennon's vocals, his voice was run through a Leslie speaker. Unfortunately, I don't see a rotary speaker effect listed in the Fostex manual.

I mention this because I think the effect used on Lennon's voice has a similar sound to the effect used on Paul's voice on "Honey Pie. Unfortunately, Lewisohn's book does not indicate what FX were used on the latter song.
 
a12stringer said:
Unless I'm misunderstanding the manual (which is a distinct possibility), the manual indicates the EQ presets are a loop effect available at mixdown.
Click to expand...

From memory, I believe the "telephone" effect is in the bank of simulations that are re-recorded onto a given track, similar to the guitar simulations. The manual isn't totally clear on this, and it's actually a lot easier in reality than it reads on paper.
 
Truer words were never typed. The manual isn't that clear about when one has access to certain FX (among other things that it isn't too clear about). That's why my next purchases will probably be some outboard FX to have available at the tracking stage without having to jump through the hoops described in the manual.
I know sometime back I had recommended the DigiTech VX400, but it did not work well with the Fostex--it introduced a lot of noise into the signal.
For the time being, I may have to consider looping my Acoustic1 multiFX through my UB802 and see what that does. It does offer a certain amount of compression, along with a rotary speaker and phase shifting effects among other things that the Fostex does not offer.
 
fyi: sorry i didn't get back to say thanks bill and 12 and track et al, but the telephone effect works perfectly, painlessly, and is exactly what i wanted. i don't understand all this "pre-faders" and "loop effect" and "only at mixdown" stuff -- not 1 word of it. Somehow, miraculously, i get the job done. I jsut push effects, dial up telephone, sing the line on track 2, then resume my normal lovely voice on track1. stay tuned. I promise you guys will laugh at this song.

rob
 
a12stringer said:
I'm looking forward to hearing the finished product. Isn't it great to have brains like Billisa's to pick?
Click to expand...

Thanks a12s. I'm sure I've taken away more info from this board than I've shared. Hey Rob. When you use the telephone eq setting, can you tell us exactly how the VF80 eq is set up (what frequencies are removed or added, and by how much)? I'd like to have that ability on hand, and the VF160 doesn't have a telephone preset...

Thanks,

Bill Keane
 
Bill,
I haven't tried this and am just "quoting" the settings indicated in the manual:
LO: Gain ON; Freq. 1.2KHz, Q-HPF
HI: Gain ON; Freq. 5.6KHz, Q-LPF.

Hope that information helps. From what I've seen in the manual, those parameters aren't editable. To use my standard cop-out, "if I understand the manual correctly," the only editable parameters on the VF-80 EQ presets are the levels on each band of EQ. I downloaded a copy of the VF-160 manual and noticed first off that it does not appear to have EQ presets. I also noticed that it does not have a high pass filter on the Q settings.
Since this is getting beyond my knowledge, I will have to propose my workaround as a question since I cannot say with certainty it would work. Those with more experience can tell me if I'm right or if I'm full of you know what.
So the question would be: Since the purpose of the preset in the VF-80 is to accent the midrange, would it not be possible to use the lo and mid for the settings and the use the gain and frequency settings on the hi band as a quasi hi pass filter?
 
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