beatles lead vocal effects trick

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pbrowne

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Does anyone have an idea (or the idea) how the Beatles got that great stereo miking effect on some of their lead vocals. It always sounded like it was two part harmony but when you listen, its the same voice, same take just a stereo field with an effect on at least one channel. I recently saw Julian Lennon and his sound guy used the same trick.
Any help would be appreciated.

Pat
 
i think it is just a 15ms tape slapback, panned, and with some chamber echo on it. there is an interview with geoff emerick in the new issue of EQ that you should read - emerick was the engineer on revolver, sgt peppers, etc, and discusses john's vocals. surprise, surprise, they used U47s
 
Many times they just sang the track over again and combined the takes into one track.

If you don't already have it, I'd highly recommend buying one or all of the Anthology albums. It's a great reference for recording in general. They have many examples of a song's journey from idea to history.

For example, the beginning of Anthology 2, disc 2, charts the progress of "Strawberry Fields" from John's home demo, to Take 1, and the many overdubs they used on the song. In that particular song they took John's vocal track and sped it up giving the whole song a kind of...well, you've heard the tune, you know how funky it sounds.

It's the closest any of us "mortals" will ever get to being present during a Beatles session.
 
In "All you Need is Ears: the Making of Sgt Pepper", George Martin discusses the use of double tracking the vocals... also describes how they got all that sound on 4 tracks on a song-by-song basis. There is also a book in my local library (I can't remember the title!) in the Beatles section that is a compilation of interviews from a radio show on the Beatles. One of the interviews (with one of the engineers that worked with Geoff Emmerick) describes how they developed a way to get that sound electronically - up until then, they just recorded the vocal twice.
 
also - check out the discussion in "why record vocals on two tracks" posted in this section
 
I'M SURE THE BEATLES DIDN'T DO IT THIS WAY, BUT WHEN I DESIRE AN EFFECT LIKE THAT, I'LL USE MY COPY AND PASTE FUNCTION AND COPY TRACK 1 TO TRACK 2, OFFSET ONE OF THE TRACKS BY ABOUT 1/2 SECOND, AND PAN THE 2 TRACKS RIGHT AND LEFT. I GUESS THIS WILL ONLY WORK IF YOU HAVE A DIGITAL RECORDER. AFTER THAT, YOU CAN USE YOURE AUX. SENDS AND RETURNS TO APPLY DESIRED EFFECTS. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pbrowne:
Does anyone have an idea (or the idea) how the Beatles got that great stereo miking effect on some of their lead vocals. It always sounded like it was two part harmony but when you listen, its the same voice, same take just a stereo field with an effect on at least one channel. I recently saw Julian Lennon and his sound guy used the same trick.
Any help would be appreciated.

Pat

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
 
I'm 200% agree with CMILLER.....there's much we can figure out from "paying attention" with ANTHOLOGY 1,2,3 albums!!
What I read is that Lennon is the best Vocal-Doubling & he got his own feels & styles to do that doubling job.
 
Many of John Lennons signature vocals were simply double tracked for a homemade, natural sounding delay effect.This technique is effective on almost anyones voice and will produce a fuller sound.

Paul Mcartney has a specific value in microseconds he likes his delay set to on his vocal mic when playing live. I don't know the number off the top of my head.
 
When Lennon recorded "Revolution" he laid on his back with the microphone directly above him and just wailed away.
 
Isn't there a story out there somewhere that Lennon tried to talk George Martin into tying Lennon's ankles together and suspending him upside down from the ceiling and then set him in motion in circles around the mike? I though that I read that somewhere...
I guess to get a rotary effect of some kind ???
 
Yeah...something like that...The Beatles were tireless experimenters in the studio, just like Thomas Edison...they just went ahead and tried everything they could think of...technique and theory be damned.

In the early days at Abbey Road Studios it was strictly against EMI policy for the recording engineer to ever let the VU meter enter the red zone while someone was recording. Of course, eventually Paul McCartney finally said, "we're going to do this next song and I don't want the VU meters to ever leave the red zone."
 
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