"Classic Rock" Mic Pres

  • Thread starter Thread starter Absolutepower
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Absolutepower

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Hey just a quick question I've been wondering about. I know that both tube and FET mics were used for recording on a lot of the classic rock albums, Stones, Hendrix Zeppelin ect.
My question is did they use tube mic pres or solid state like the Neve 1073. I know that was used for a lot of old rock albums, but I'm wondering if they used tube mic pres much back in the 60s 70s and 80s?
 
Absolutepower said:
Hey just a quick question I've been wondering about. I know that both tube and FET mics were used for recording on a lot of the classic rock albums, Stones, Hendrix Zeppelin ect.
My question is did they use tube mic pres or solid state like the Neve 1073. I know that was used for a lot of old rock albums, but I'm wondering if they used tube mic pres much back in the 60s 70s and 80s?
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All of the old rock albums (man .... it wasn't that long ago!) where backed by the major labels. So the sky was the limit.
My guess is for the most part the majority of them where using Neve at east from the 70's on. As for earlier your probably looking at Altec or Telefunken or the one used the most would be the Helios custom built.
As for tube you'd be looking at the Ampex 350 reel to reel electronics converted to a microphone preamp.







:cool:
 
If you're really interested on the details of how the old stuff was done,
you really need to go over to the Sound-on-Sound magazine archives
(you can read any issue over 6-7months old)
and read the "Classic Tracks" articles, where they interview the artists
and the engineers to lay out exactly what was used and how it was done.

There's a HUGE wealth of learnin' over there......

http://www.soundonsound.com/articles/ClassicTracks.php
 
Yeah, I guess from what I've been reading all the old British stuff was done on Neve and Helios consoles which were not tube preamps. The reason I ask is I just got a EHX tube preamp, and I'm testing it out trying to figure out how useful it will be. So far its worked really well for electric guitar played through a tube amp, I haven't used it very extensively yet though.
The effect of a preamp is pretty subtle, and I'm not convinced that it is one of the more important parts of the chain, assuming you have at least a decent one that doesn't screw up the sound.
 
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